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David M. Wagner Profile picture
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4 Mar, 4 tweets, 2 min read
1/ This time the Womens History link is clear: Julie Taymor was 1st woman to direct a prodn @MetOpera. She is famous for Titus (1979), an imaginative yet faithful film realization of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus - which I wd rather watch than any production of THE MAGIC FLUTE.
2/ No rly: the best tunes are great - the overture and the final chorus, "Heil sei euch geweihten" - but in betw are 2 hrs of dreary Masonic moralizing and frankly menacing Masonic integralism ("...verdienet nicht ein Mensch zu sein," rly?). QotN ftw!! What's more, tho Rene Pape
3/ is a great bass, maybe the all-around greatest today, he's not a Sarastro: for that, you want Kurt Moll or @MorrisDRobinson. With them, the quasi-oktavist depths of "Heiligen Hallen" are almost worthwhile. W/o them - pfft.
4/ (Reminder about my house style: all operas, and w rare and obvious exceptions *only* operas, get all-caps.)

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More from @david_m_wagner

David M. Wagner Profile picture
4 Mar
1/ For fans of my @MetOpera commentaries: I may take this Fri & Sat off, bc of something I haven't tweeted about but why not: ...
2/ My daughter is getting married this Saturday! And to the world's best boy!
3/ Now as to the operas: Fri night is PETER GRIMES, which I'd otherwise welcome another chance to see - I'm finally getting to know it a bit - tho not sure what the Womens History link is. I mean, Ellen Orford is a strong and benevolent character, but nothing can save Peter.
Read 7 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
3 Mar
1/ There’s no such thing as a bad reason to air this romantic-mythological masterpiece-monsterpiece, so it’s fine that the Met has done so repeatedly recently, sometimes (as here) in the glowing realistic Schenck prodn, sometimes in the high-tech crypto-trad Lepage prodn.
2/ I’m trying to figure out, tho, what makes it esp suitable for Women’s History Week. The Met’s promo copy suggests it has s’thing to do with Jessye Norman as Sieglinde. She was a woman all right, but so was Hildegard Behrens, who sings the primary heroine, Brünnhilde. And both
3/ roles have *always* been sung by women, bc DIE WALKÜRE’s world 1ère in 1870 was decades after the last barrier to women on the stage anywhere in Europe had fallen. Is it Mme. Norman’s *other* diversity card? But that was specifically celebrated, w this very performance among
Read 9 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
21 Feb
1/ The C in the “ABC” of opera. Starring Waltraud Meier, and it’s surprising how idiomatic a German mezzo can be in the French role of a Spanish Gypsy. Zeff’s production was eye-filling and colorful. Bonus: Kim Josephson as the smuggler Dancaïre. Kim wd have been
2/ the new Robert Merrill if the Met had let him. Instead our Escamillo is Sergei Leiferkus, who is very Russian in articulation, and also in style, i.e. a high but harsh baritone. Angela Gheorgiu is Micaëla.
3/ Also noteworthy: pretty and sweet-sounding Mary Dunleavy as Frasquita, one of Carmen’s sidekicks. She often sang the Queen of the Night. While we’re at it, the Met Chorus in this production seems generously fleshed our with dark sultry beauties.
Read 4 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
19 Feb
1/ I don't think I ever saw this production of DG. I'll bet it's less claustro than Grandage's, but whether it's better in other respects, we'll see. Sam Ramey as "the Don." (Why do we always call Giovanni "the Don"? There's also Don Ottavio. Is it a tribute to Giovanni's greater
2/ effectiveness, never mind at what? Is it something like "the Dude"? El Donerino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing?) Ferruccio Furlanetto as Leporello. I think at one time they alternated these, but Ramey=DG and Furl=Leporello is the better way 'round.
3/ I once saw Ramey as Leporello at NYCO, opposite Justino Diaz - they were alternating - and he was very good, but Furlanetto is better suited to Leporello bc for all his vocal glory he lacks a certain aristo finish that you'd find in Siepi or G. London, also in Diaz or Ramey.
Read 7 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
18 Feb
1/ Last time TOSCA was webcast I commented on how that production and this one had both been recently shown and this one (by Zeffirelli) was better. Well it is, and here it is again. TOSCA, an opera about an opera diva, is the ultimate in Verismo, with its immediate background
2/ being the Battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800; the opera received its world premiere a century later.

The cast holdover from the earlier performance (1978/1985) is Cornell MacNeil as Baron Scarpia, ruthless police chief of freshly counter-revolutionary Rome in the employ of
3/ the royal house of Naples. MacNeil sounded a little fresher in ‘78 (he had made his Met debut in ‘59), but by ‘85, with experience and Zeffirelli’s direction, his acting was much better, and his voice little diminished for purposes of this role.
Read 5 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
18 Feb
1/ Opera’s most inseparable double bill tho’ not written that way. The two-star system around which Verismo rotates, even tho neither is by Puccini, erstwhile king of Verismo. Always called “CAV & PAG” by fans, this now has a newer prodn @MetOpera: the PAG is ok, the CAV is
2/ a bit claustrophobic. Zeffirelli gave both - w their outdoor, public-square settings - lots of Italian light & air, and in CAV, some “campanilismo.” @PlacidoDomingo sings both tenor leads: Turíddu, whose “rustic chivalry” leaves a lot 2b desired; and Canio, “padrone” and
3/ chief clown of a traveling Commedia dell’Arte troupe, w a young wife who acts the fickle Colombina too well. W mezzo Tatiana Troyanos in the zwischenfach role of Santuzza in CAV, soprano Teresa Stratas as Nedda in PAG, and baritone Sherrill Milnes as Tonio, clown-villain who
Read 9 tweets

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