Karl-G

The featured work of fiction in the New Yorker this week is by Douglas Stuart and is a gay chronicle of an encounter in London. I don't think I have read anything like it in the New Yorker before.

The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled all performances until at least January 1. To respond to music lovers' demands, the Met will be presenting twelve live concerts with its brightest stars in a streaming format, once every two weeks, on a Saturday afternoon at 1:00, and charging $20.00 each. The recital will remain up for ten days, so you are not limited to that one time, and you can listen and watch as often as you like. Each recital will take place in some dramatic venue without live audience. The first performance, by Jonas Kaufmann, was last Saturday and is still available. The next will be August 1 with Renee Fleming from the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. This is the full planned schedule: August 1: Renée Fleming, from the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, D.C. August 16: Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak, from the Château de la Chèvre d’Or in Èze, France August 29: Lise Davidsen, from the Oscarshall Palace in Oslo, Norway September 12: Joyce DiDonato, from the Fundació Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona, Spain September 26: Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała, from Barcelona October 10: Anna Netrebko, from Liechtenstein Palace in Vienna, Austria October 24: Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja, from Malta (castle location TBD) Nov 7: Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena, from Zurich, Switzerland (location TBD) Nov 21: Sonya Yoncheva, from Berlin, Germany (location TBD) December 12: Bryn Terfel, from Wales (church location TBD) December 19: Angel Blue, from New York City (location TBD)

Excellent review of concert: https://operawire.com/metropolitan-opera-stars-live-in-concert-review-jonas-kaufmann-in-polling-bavaria/

LIVE: Saturday, July 18 at 1PM EDT Superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann opens the new Met Stars Live in Concert series, performing 12 of the most popular, show-stopping arias in the operatic repertoire. The concert will be broadcast live via satellite from the ornate Polling Abbey, located in the rolling Bavarian countryside outside Munich, Germany. The grand Baroque interior of the historic venue serves as a perfect setting for a performance showing off Kaufmann’s prowess in a collection of strenuous and spectacular showcases for the tenor voice, including “Nessun dorma” from Turandot and “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca, among many others. Tickets for this live concert are $20, and the performance will remain available for on-demand viewing for 12 days. If you are unable to tune in live, you may purchase a ticket at any point during the 12-day window to access the concert on demand. Saturday July 18

Wigmore Hall in London is presenting a free luncheon hour concert in streaming every day in June. I just listened to a lovely recital by Paul Lewis of Beethoven and Schubert. It is broadcast in Britain on BBC3 and around the world on streaming video. There is no audience except for us, but these musicians had prepared recitals, and BBC wishes to broadcast them. The audio and visual are HD and excellent. They leave them on-line for 24 hrs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHzwE2EiFXo

Here is a breakdown of all the companies that are streaming online for your operatic delight. European Companies – Vienna State Opera Daily Streams – Royal Opera House - Opernhaus Zürich – Rossini Festival Opera Streams – Salzburg Easter Festival – Teatro Regio di Torino Streams - Semperoper Dresden – Teatro Massimo di Palermo Daily Streams – Bayerische Staatsoper Streams – Staatsoper Berlin (Concert program) - Opéra National de Paris – OperaVision – Teatro dell’Opera di Roma (Week 3 and 4) – Gran Teatre del Liceu – Teatro Real de Madrid – Teatro Regio di Parma – La Monnaie – Deutsche Oper Berlin – Teatro alla Scala – Opéra Comique – Teatro Carlo Felice –Staatsoper Stuttgart –Dutch National Opera – Teatro de la Zaruela – Opéra Royale de Wallone-Liège – Bolshoi Theatre – Finnish National Opera – Sofia National Opera – Polish National Opera – Palau de les Arts – Opera Arias Festival – Opera de Dijon – Greek National Opera – Israeli Opera – Opera Bilbao - Teatro Fenice - Wigmore Hall – Teatro de la Zarzuela – Festival Aix-en-Provence North & South American Companies – Metropolitan Opera Nightly Streams (Week 10, Week 11 & 12) – Teatro Colón de Buenos Aires – San Francisco Opera – New York Opera Fest – The Dallas Opera - Opera Philadelphia – Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo – LA Opera – Against the Grain Theatre – Beth Morrison Projects – On Site Opera – Opera San José – New York Philharmonic – San Francisco Opera – Angel Blue’s ‘Faithful Fridays’ Series – Pacific Opera Project – Austin Opera – Queen City Opera – HERE –Juventus Lyrica –Pacific Opera Victoria – National Sawdust – Regina Opera – Michigan Opera Theatre – Curtis Institute of Music – Opera Omaha –“Pepito” Online Premiere – American Opera Projects – Fort Worth Opera - Canadian Opera Company – Long Beach Opera – Des Moines Metro Opera - Boston Baroque - Minnesota Opera Spoleto Festival USA Tulsa Opera Utah Opera Savannah VOICE Festival Opera on Tap Opera Steamboat Opera Carolina Livermore Valley Opera OmniArts Foundation Resonance Works Skylight Music Theatre Virginia Opera Marble City Opera Hawaii Opera Theater Opera Memphis Opera Lafayette Painted Sky Opera Florida Grand Opera In Series Indianapolis Nashville Opera Opéra de Québec Opéra Louisiane Opera Maine Opera North Sarasota Opera Teatro Grattacielo Time In Kids UC Santa Barbara Boston Lyric Voices of Silicon Valley International – New National Theatre Tokyo Opera Australia Sydney Eisteddfod

It is now clear that every major opera house in the world has been offering free streaming videos of past productions for months during the pandemic, but there is no international or national publicity. You have to be on their mailing lists, or look. I just looked up Vienna State Opera and they have been offering free operas and concerts every day since March 15. But they seem to have lots more to offer. Great productions listed for the next two weeks, sometimes several per day. https://www.staatsoperlive.com/live

A Latin Twist. In the operetta version of "Merry Widow," Valencienne (wife of Ambassador Zeta) flirts with the handsome young Camille de Rosillon. Untimately, after multiple vicissitudes, Valencienne returns to her husband and Rosillon slinks away perhaps broken hearted. She keeps insisting she is a faithful wife. In the Argentinian ballet, it is somewhat different. In the very last scene, Danilo and the widow Hanna are in love and about to be married. The flirtation Valencienne is still dancing with Camille, but returning to husband Zeta, back and forth. The last step shows her leaving with her husband, but glancing back at Camille. An understanding Latin Zeta goes over to Camille and invites him to join him (Zeta) and his wife, Valencienne, in what only can be described as a Latin ménage à trois. The three leave arm in arm. It is a charming touch.

The Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires has announced it will stream a number of productions in the coming weeks, appearing first on Sunday evenings at 7:00 EDT. (I can't figure out all the details, so I don't know if these will be live performances or taped.) The Teatro Colon was once one of the greatest theaters in the world. It is splendid. All of the greatest artists from all over the world came to perform there - Caruso, Callas, Diaghalev, Pavarotti. It is still a great theater. This "Merry Widow" is a ballet, and one of their most famous and popular productions. The music is from Franz Lehar, but the arrangement is quite different from the operetta we are used to hearing, but very enjoyable. Marianeli Nunez, star of the Royal Ballet, came to headline. If you have the Met's operetta production in mind, you will be very pleasantly surprised to see what else can be done with the story and music. The set for Maxim's is more splendid than the Met's, and the costumes are more gorgeous. It is a delightful production. The other major dancers are Alejandro Parente (Ms Nunez' real life BF), and Camilla Bocca and Maximiliano Iglesias, two very exciting young dancers. All four are native Argentinians from Buenos Aires. Argentinian ballet dancers have long been very famous. This is the first Latin American production I can recall seeing on streaming; I hope it is a harbinger of many more. I don't know how long the streaming video will be available, but I have watched it three times so far.

Sarah Cooper is one of the best lip sync artists around. Her take on presidential news conferences is superb. If you have not yet watched her, it is well worth it.

Canadian Cree artist, Kent Monkman, has just created a large painting, which is creating an even larger uproar in Canada. It depicts the Canadian prime minister on all fours about to be penetrated, while a large group of First Nation woman laugh loudly and six former Canadian prime ministers look on. Monkman has been attacked and praised as an artist for the painting. This article praises him. Two of his large works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art; another famous one shows nuns and priests ripping children from the hands of their mothers and taking them away, assisted by Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as happened earlier in Canada. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jonathan-kay-it-takes-a-true-artist-to-find-new-ways-to-shock-the-conscience-kent-monkman-has-done-that

. Two concerts by Maria Callas from Paris in 1958 and 1965 are being streamed by medici.tv tonight. She was at her height and glory at the time. The sound is quite good, and her jewels are amazing. "Una voce poca fa" is delicious. She was my first love in opera, and I played her "Carmen" over and over.

Tuesday seems an especially rich day for ballet on streaming video. If you want to see a classical ballet at is finest, and great fun, New York City Ballet just posted "Donizetti Variations" with choreography by Balanchine. Principal dancers are Ashley Bouder and Andrew Veyette, two of the best in the world. It's beautiful and delightful. 30 min. Then if you want to see modern dance at its best, try "Bound to . . ." by Christopher Wheeldon at the San Francisco Ballet. Chris uses much of the classical vocabulary, but adds other elements (including iphones). He particularly gives men an equal share of the attention and dancing, along with the women. The section for the four men is marvelous. Note especially the pas de deux with Ms Yuan Yuan Tan and her partner. The final solo for Mr. Lonnie Weeks is one of the best contemporary solos ever done for a man. 35 min.

. The story of a Dutch woman executed by a French firing squad for allegedly spying for the Germans doesn't sound like the best plot for a ballet. But the Dutch National Ballet and its director Ted Brandsen have brought off a masterpiece. "Mata Hari" will stand with "Manon," "La Dame aux Camélias," and "Onegin" for its rich drama and superb dancing. (Mata/Margaret probably was used as a scapegoat for the French government and army; she was not an active or important spy.) The dancing is rich and colorful and delightful from the beginning to the end of the ballet. Included in the story and dancing are the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, Serge Diaghalev, and Isadora Duncan, as well as nightclubs in Paris and Jane Avril. The drama is powerful from the moment Margaret is abandoned by her parents, through her marriage, children, many lovers, career changes, and finally execution. This is all dramatized by motion and dance, not pantomime which is the Russian tradition. It is a wonderful ballet, and it is available free streaming until June 6 on the homepage of the Dutch National Ballet.

It's delightful. I watch it regularly. Amazon has the cd for just a couple of bucks.

Stuttgart Opera and Ballet is currently streaming free Benjamin Britten's "Death in Venice," from the novel by Thomas Mann. Beautiful Tadzio and his nearly nude young friends cavort on stage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslUPaLvg9s

There is a tremendous amount of free streaming of operas, ballets, and concerts these days, and continuing for some time. Almost every professional group around the world has gotten involved. I watch one or two operas per day, a ballet or two, and then a concert or two, and I still miss a lot. A nice site I just found is the Steinway Lunch Concert featuring many professional pianists playing from home. The Lincoln Center Chamber Music site is also very good. https://eu.steinway.com/en/a-legend/steinway-lunch-concerts/ The ballet for today must be the contemporary works by Hans Van Manen for the Dutch National Ballet, surely one of the best in the world these days. The first ballet today, just 13 minutes long, is entitled "Sarcasm" to music by Pokofiev. It is fantastic and delightful. The male dancer is Constantine Allen, originally from Indianapolis, but now a star around the world. If you want a really good introduction to contemporary dance, something you will enjoy, this is it. (Several of the best male dancers in the world, who had been with Stuttgart Ballet, which is one of the greatest companies, have now moved to Dutch National. Daniel Camargo, from Brazil, who is incredibly handsome and sexy, as well as a superb dancer, also moved. I don't know why.) The Dutch next week will be doing the new "Mata Hari." https://www.operaballet.nl/en/online/ballet/streaming Balanchine's "Diamonds" from "Jewels" will be on tomorrow night.

The new production of "Romeo and Juliet" by Matthew Bourne will be shown this Sunday April 26 at 8:00 on the New Adventures youtube channel. Bourne apparently will be showing several of his productions in the next couple of weeks. "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake" was shown last night (and I think is still up). If you have never seen it, you should. It is not a drag production nor a joke, but a complete revision of the old "Swan Lake" story with music by Tchaikowsky. It is a complex psychological look at the main characters. The swans are all handsome, hunky, shirtless males. The swan scene is extraordinary in its choreography. The famous pas de quatre is still here, but in an imaginative, powerful, masculine view you could never have imagined. It is an amazing production. Several interviews with Bourne are on youtube, as are interviews with various of the dancers who have played the prince and the swan.

There is no place for classical music or dance on these forums. So I will post this here. New York City Ballet just announced that they will be presenting six weeks of digital performances/free streaming from their archives, leaving each up for 72 hrs. Tuesday nights will be Balanchine ballets and Friday evenings will be Robbins, Ratmansky. and other moderns. Tonight will be Balanchine's "Allegro Brillante." Free Streaming. This is a fantastic opportunity. "Less than a month after canceling its spring season because of the coronavirus pandemic, New York City Ballet is back with a six-week slate of online programing. The company announced on Monday that it would broadcast full ballets and excerpts twice a week, from Tuesday through May 29, for free on its YouTube channel, Facebook page and website. " So much culture; so little time. But then, we have lots of time.

If you are getting bored and stir crazy with quarantine, and yearn for a good concert, you might consider medici.tv. They record and transmit via streaming more than 300 live concerts each year - from venues like Carnegie Hall and Wigmore Hall and the Bastille Opera, from music festivals like Verbier, from orchestras like the Vienna Phalharmonic and London Philharmonic, solo recitals by Juan Diego Flores, etc, plus operas from Glyndebourne and elsewhere, plus ballets. Many of these are then kept permanently in their archives and are available for viewing at any time. There is an annual subscription fee, but right now there is a special sale, and you can get an entire year of live concerts and archived performances for less than you would pay for a single moderately priced ticket to one concert. They are the best site of their kind, and I recommend them very highly This morning I attended a concert at the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society and this afternoon, so far, I watched Daniel Barenboim, live, from the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, empty of patrons because of the virus, with an all Chopin concert. One of the most delightful concerts I have found in the archives is a performance from 1970 of Schubert's "Trout Quintet" with Daniel Barenboim, Jacquelin Du Pre, Zubin Mehta on bass, Itzhak Perlman, and Pinchas Zuckernman on viola. The performers were all in their 20s! Absolutely delightful.

Many performing arts institutions around the world are providing free streaming of their productions during this time of the plague. You know the metopera.org is presenting an opera every night. The Bolshoi is doing free ballets and free operas. The Royal Ballet is doing various programs. The Royal Danish Ballet is doing ballets. The Bavarian Opera in Munich is doing a number of operas. The National Theater is presenting plays. And many more.

Andrew Lloyd Weber is streaming six of his musicals on successive Fridays; he has already shown "Joseph" and "Jesus Christ Superstar." This weekend "Phantom," etc.

The Met Opera has announced a Virtual Gala for Saturday, April 25, beginning at 1:00 EDT. Since audience and singers are all house bound, 40 of the Met's greatest stars, including Jonas Kaufmann, Renee Fleming, Juan Diego Florez, Anna Netrebko, etc., will greet the web audience from their homes and sing an aria from a room in their house. The program is estimated to last 3+ hours. But it sounds like great fun.

I saw the Encore presentation this afternoon and agree that it was fantastic, probably the best production of this year. It lasted four hours, with one 25 minute intermission half-way through. Transposing operas to the present time usually bothers me, but this one worked superbly. The plot is just silly, and Handel's arias each have two lines of text, I think, and the singers repeat them over and over. But the repetitions are the delight, the whipped cream on the sundae. I really went just to hear some of that baroque singing. Joyce Di Donato is very good, although for some reason they had her do the role as Karen Walker/Megan Mullaly of "Will and Grace" - same wig, same make-up, same walk, same hand gestures, same hip movements, same bottle of booze. But the great star, I think was Brenda Kae. Her arias left me breathless, and she had nine of them. The bar scene opening the Second Part was amazing; I don't know what actually happens in the opera. Brenda sang aria after aria, each of which was the best you have ever heard. At times each syllable of a word must have had 20 notes running up and down. The man who played the harpsichord was the orchestra conductor. And I differ in viewing Kate Lindsay. I generally don't care for pants parts (e.g. Rosencavalier). But Kate Lindsay, playing a teenaged Nero, was incredibly good and convincing I thought. She was dressed like one of the punks in "West Side Story" - skinny pants, tight jacket, thin tie, and to be contemporary, covered with tattoos and snorting cocaine. Her movements, her walk, her gestures, her crotch grabbing may all have been taken from the movie. She looked and acted like a 19 yr old punk with attitude and hormones. And her voice was beautiful. Whoever did the choreography did a great job. The usual dances on Met broadcasts to me look like high school productions. This time the choreographer created movements, not typical "dances," which were integrated into the opera, not just filling space. The routines with the soldiers were delightful, fun, and well done. And the two boy-toys next to Brenda on the couch were pure and delightful stereotypes - especially the one with the tight lace shirt. I would also note that this Encore presentation had nearly perfect sound, in contrast to the usual Met broadcasts which have spotty and often muffled sound. The sound engineer must have been working hard since last Saturday to bring all arias to full volume and perfect clarity. It was a particular pleasure to hear every syllable and each note.

The three major buildings at Lincoln Center are (1) the Metropolitan Opera House, (2) Philharmonic Hall, which is now called David Geffen Hall, and across the plaza (3) what was originally called the New York State Theater and was home to New York City Opera (in the great days of Beverly Sills) and to the New York City Ballet, under Balanchine. The State Theater was later renamed the David Koch Theater and is still the home of the NYC Ballet. The New York City Opera, as noted above, has had financial difficulties and moved out of the hall. They now have a very limited season in various locations. They are no longer a major player in the cultural life of NYC. "Jun 21, 2019 - The financially challenged New York City Opera will have another reduced schedule for its 2019-20 season, which will be limited to just two staged productions plus several concerts that total nine or 10 performances. General director Michael Capasso’s original plan when the ..." They are being underwritten by a couple of hedge-fund directors, I believe.