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David M. Wagner Profile picture
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28 Dec, 4 tweets, 1 min read
1/ It's Pavarotti Week! Yes, they showed LA BOHEME on Christmas Eve, but here it is again but with Pav instead of Carreras as Rodolfo, and Renata Scotto as Mimi instead of cameo-ing as Musetta. Pre-Zeffirelli, but that just means a smaller-scale setting for what is, after all, a
2/ small-scale opera. I love the Zeff production, no mistake, but BOHEME didn't *need* that to become the "B" in "the ABC of opera. Lots of fans think they don't need BOHEME - then they hear those opening bars & right away they're in the garret ("atelier" b4 that word got
3/ gussied up), and suddenly all they care about is whether Marcello will find a buyer for his Red Sea painting, whether Rodolfo will finish that article for The Beaver, how cold you'd have to be to use a completed play as kindling - and how long or brief will be the happiness of
4/ Rodolfo and Mimi.

"When I no longer cry and BOHEME, I quit." - Julius Rudel

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More from @david_m_wagner

David M. Wagner Profile picture
29 Dec
1/ Pav Week continues. This TOSCA was shown only a coupla weeks ago and I commented it up then: mezzo Shirley Verrett surprisingly successful in this venture into soprano rep; Cornell MacNeil full of old-fashioned acting as Scarpia. Since opera-for-video has blossomed as a
2/ genre, the kind of acting that worked well at opera-house distances (or was thought to) has rightly been replaced by better character-on-character interaction. MacNeil’s Scarpia became a better-acted characterization once he moved into the Zeffirelli production (which this
3/ isn’t) - Zeff of course having a movie-director’s eye. Operatic acting is one field where I *don’t* think kicking-it-old-style is better. We don’t need park-n-bark, we don’t need moustache-twirling. But if you’re minded to put up with a little of those for the sake of
Read 4 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
29 Dec
1/ A good essay. Two reservations. First: there is not anti-Becket argument that was not put into the mouths of the Knights by T.S. Eliot himself, following the murder in "Murder in the Cathedral." In a glorious parody of academic-political speechifying, they go over them all.
2/ That they had gained such a purchase on the English mind by 2006 only shows, as if it needed further showing, the de-Christianization of modern England. Second: the movie "Becket" is not "ludicrous" at all. Apart from one major detail, it's highly historical. The Lord Gilbert
3/sub-plot may be invented, but it stands in for many similar cases. Also, the script gets the theology of excommunication wrong, which means (sorry) that the much-loved excomm scene is fictional and misleading. (For the right view, see Purgatorio, Canto III.)
Read 9 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
29 Dec
1/ Here is the DVD of Pizzetti's ASSASSINIO NELLA CATTEDRALE, filmed at a church in Spain that's said to bear a close resemblance to how Canterbury Cathedral looked in 12thc.

The star is Ruggiero Raimondi, somewhat lacking is bass sonority, but a decent
2/ voice and a good actor (traits said to be not unknown to the saint he's portraying!). Here

is the audio of the world premiere. Opera's first #Becket was Nicola Rossi-Lemeni: a more bass-y bass than Raimondi; not a gorgeous sound like Siepi or Tozzi, but
3/ somehow he always inhabited his roles well and put them across vividly.
Karajan attended one of these performances and vowed to conduct ASSASSINIO at Salzburg. And so he did, 2-3 years later, in German, with the great Hans Hotter as his #Becket.
Read 4 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
29 Dec
1/ This⬇️ is awesome! 15thc text (Chaucerian English, basically), composed 2029 by a guy who can really do medieval.
2/ All honor to Stephen Barker for getting his #Becket Carol performed, and so well too! I have my own Becket Carol - that is, I did the lyrics, and used “Good King Wenceslas” as my tune. See next tweet.... #Becket850 #Becket2020
3/
 Good King Henry 2 got whipt
On the Feast of #Becket.
Grete his heart and eke his tongue,
Whan that he could check it.

But one day, “This priest” sed he,
“Who shall rid me of him?”
Now he’s got five Saxon monks
Swinging whips abo-O-ve him.

#Becket850 #Becket2020
Read 5 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
27 Dec
1/ The updating - from time of Henry IV to early years of Elizabeth II - works surprisingly well. Setting the 2nd scene in a restaurant, with different conversations at different tables, is genius, and @Lisette_Oropesa's Nanetta (foot up for kissy-face w. Fenton!) is adorable.
@Lisette_Oropesa 2/ Big fans of Verdi's grand style - not only in AIDA and DON CARLO but also his other Shakespearean collaboration with Boito, OTELLO - find the "chamber" style of this, his last work, to take some getting used to. This can be done, and it's worthwhile. FALSTAFF ends with
3/ a fugue ("Tutto il mondo e burla). I saw it in the house with Dad - he knew it well already, of course - and at the end he was like: "The old man ended with a fugue! He closed it out with a fugue😃"
Read 5 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
26 Dec
1/ I’ve seen two Met prodns of MW during these webcasts. Unfortunately this is the later and current one. In previous, w Domingo & vonStade, this show’s charm stood out. In this one, the translation (Viennese operetta needs 2b done in language of audience) & the stage action
2/ take a tawdry turn. Yes there’s an undercurrent of raunch to Viennese operetta -

Baron Zeta: Did you find Count Danilo?
Njegus: No-
Zeta: Did you try all his mistresses?
Njegus: I didn’t have time to try them *all*! -

but it shd be an *under*-current.
3/ Nonetheless sons gems are still here: the Vilja song, obv; also:

Danilo: Baron, are you eavesdropping? That’s not done in the best diplomatic circles!
Zeta: Ours aren’t the best.
Read 4 tweets

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