Agrippina

[foxy]

https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/agrippina/

 

Recently at a midtown bar I started talking to a handsome young guy and asked what he did for a living.? He told me he was a dancer and I asked where he performed. He told me at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center and he'd be in this new production of Agrippina. Intrigued I went online and bought myself a ticket for the Sunday matinee February 9. It's scary what they charge for opera tickets but I managed to find a good seat in the Balcony for $167. I'm looking forward to this production and it will be fun that someone I know (sort of) is in it. I'll bring opera glasses.

[+ WilliamM]

https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-20-season/agrippina/

 

Recently at a midtown bar I started talking to a handsome young guy and asked what he did for a living.? He told me he was a dancer and I asked where he performed. He told me at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center and he'd be in this new production of Agrippina. Intrigued I went online and bought myself a ticket for the Sunday matinee February 9. It's scary what they charge for opera tickets but I managed to find a good seat in the Balcony for $167. I'm looking forward to this production and it will be fun that someone I know (sort of) is in it. I'll bring opera glasses.

 

Expensive, but probably worth it.

[cany10011]

I'm looking forward to Agrippina. Love Joyce DiDonato.

[bostonman]

I'll be listening tonight on Sirius. It's a beautiful and fun score. I wish, though, that I had more affinity for the opera seria format in general. The long strings of da capo arias get tedious for me after a while. Agrippina has a few very short "teases" of ensembles, but I wish there were more.

[Marlfox]

I saw Agrippina last night and loved it. The singing, acting and choreography were all great. I’m glad I got to see Joyce diDonato whose voice is wonderful. Only one word of caution, be ready for a late night. It started at 8 and finished after 11.30.

[cany10011]

I saw Agrippina last night and loved it. The singing, acting and choreography were all great. I’m glad I got to see Joyce diDonato whose voice is wonderful. Only one word of caution, be ready for a late night. It started at 8 and finished after 11.30.

Yes, it was very long. Saw it on a chilly Monday night at the Met. Sadly, a lot of seats were empty, even in the Grand Tier. Yes, the choreography was great. Loved how they are incorporating more ballet/dance in opera.

[bostonman]

I saw the HD on Saturday afternoon. LOVED it! The staging, pacing, design, and whimsy of it all added so much to the score, that it just pulled me in. (As I mentioned above, I'm not so much a fan of the rigid "opera seria" format, but this production made things so fluid and unpredictable that I wasn't always so conscious of that form going on.) Excellent singing all around, and the detailed physicality by all the singers was wonderful to see. The only thing that seemed a bit odd was what I'm calling a very "Peter Sellars"-ish performance from Kate Lindsey - the angular stances and movements, the rolling on the ground - seemed out of step with everyone else's physicality. But otherwise it was a musical and visual treat. And how about that onstage harpsichord player? Fantastic!

[+ g56whiz]

Here’s hopping it shows up quickly on MetOpera on Demand. I missed it. There’s MetOpera Live in HD in Singapore and maybe Bangkok but they skipped Kuala Lumpur. ?

[Karl-G]

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.

[foxy]

Since I don’t go to the opera all that often (I’m more of a dance guy) I’m pleased that I saw an opera that received praise from more astute members than me. And of course the reason I went was because of the dancer I met and talked to. It turned out he was one of the principal dancers. It was fun seeing him perform on stage but I admit sitting next to him chatting at a gay bar was pretty fun also.

[+ g56whiz]

FWIW Erato released a 3 disk recording of Agrippina late last year with - you guessed it - Joyce DiDonato. This is strictly an "early-music" version with Maxim Emelyanychev leading Il Pomo d'Oro. Instead of Kate Lindsey you get countertenor Franco Fagioli as Nerone and hunk countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski as Ottone. It's quite good! It's available on Amazon for $27 or you can stream or download it from the IDAGIO app. There's also a great brief YouTube video on the making of this recording. I'm still hopping the Met's Live in HD broadcast makes it to their On-Demand library soon.