Calling all Opera Queens. . .

[bostonman]

L'Italiana in Algeri is a total jewel! Zany, but in a quite urbane manner! Plus there is the exquisite aria "Per lui che adoro" which I prefer with in its cello version as done at the MET this season.

 

I assume you may already know this - but the cello solo was Rossini's original intention - for years, it was done with flute. It is nice to hear the cello there instead.

 

Lots of wonderful moments in L'Italiana for me - but nothing beats that crazy "din din/tac tac/boom boom" stuff in the Act I Finale. Zany indeed!

[TruHart1]

If there is / was / will be an opera that I will never "get" it's Der Rosenkavalier so I dare not comment. I admit that the shortcomings are are all mine as my ears are very old-fashioned. Furthermore at this stage in my life I have no desire to explore that which I never have liked. Perhaps my good friend @TruHart1 needs to respond as he is one of the real opera experts on this forum when it comes to the entire scope of what opera has to offer. I am more of a specialist who prefers the Italian school with an emphasis on the Bel Canto. I would assume that disqualifies me from being classified as a true card carrying Opera Queen! Plus, as is well known here I adore Callas so that means that I have a tin ear as well! :eek::confused:...

Well, since people are admitting their real feelings, I suppose this is a good time for me to fess up. I adore the love stories and accompanying music in Rosenkavalier, and am bored to death by the rest of it; i.e., almost any scene with Ochs. I think Strauss did a much better job of combining the comic and sublime in Ariadne...

...I will spare you the longeurs of my opinions.

It's funny. I have always been of the same opinion about the "Ochs" music. The Marschallin's monologue and duet that ends the first act, the presentation of the Silver Rose that opens the second act, and, of course, the final trio and duet which end the opera is some of the most sublime music ever composed. This MET production (after 50 years of listening to Der Rosenkavalier and basically ignoring all the rest of the opera except for those three glorious sections) finally got my attention with the casting of the "over the top" but oh, so sexy, Günther Groissböck as Ochs. This is not from the MET production, but you get the idea:

 

Sometimes it takes a great singer (or a hot male singer! ) to bring me to love an opera which I have never been able to "get into" before: Leontyne Price in Ariadne and Gwyneth Jones in Tannhäuser and Tristan come to mind. I guess it's appropriate that my very first Marschallin (except for Schwartzkopf on records) was Leonie Rysanek, a Vienna native, and Herr Groissböck is also a native of Vienna. Anyway, with this production, I have been enjoying the entire opera without the boredom I used to feel between the ladies' sections. Is it because once I saw Günther Groissböck, I was crushing on his sex appeal?

 

As for the production, I do feel Carsen shoehorned his concept into the libretto somewhat questionably, especially in the second act with those ridiculous huge cannon in von Fanninal's house and then setting the third act in a brothel instead of a somewhat disreputable inn. The previous MET production designed by Robert O'Hearn remains my favorite: a setting all 18th century Viennese; from the second act of that production:

 

TruHart1

[whipped guy]

It certainly wasn't, lol. And given what Rossini thought of the then-new fad of tenors belting high notes ("like the sound of a capon having its throat cut"), I can't even imagine how he would have reacted to Berg's music lol.

Said of Gilbert Duprez who "invented" the high C from the chest, it is one of my favorite Rossini quotes! Plus think of the symbolism as tenors singing with such a technique also solidified forever the "death" of the castrati as a force in opera or at least tenors such as Adolf Nourrit who sang their high notes in a mixed voice more reminiscent of the castrati! Unfortunately the success of Duprez was directly responsible for the demise of Nourrit, who committed suicide when he could not compete with his rival.

I assume you may already know this - but the cello solo was Rossini's original intention - for years, it was done with flute. It is nice to hear the cello there instead.

 

Lots of wonderful moments in L'Italiana for me - but nothing beats that crazy "din din/tac tac/boom boom" stuff in the Act I Finale. Zany indeed!

Yes, and the reason it's rarely done is because when Azio Corghi devised his Urtext Edition it was based on how the opera was most often performed in Rossini's time which was more or less memorialized in the printed Ricordi score. (With all sorts of changes such as the flute replacing piccolo and added timpani and trombone parts, and some cuts etc.). The flute version was a revision for performances in Milan and most of the copies that circulated used that version and since Ricordi was based in Milan the cello version originally written for the Venice premiere fell by the wayside.

 

Oh, and that finale to the first act that you mention... is probably the best example of the so-calked Rossini crescendo to boot!

[bostonman]

I'm trivializing to an extent here, but for me, Ochs is really about the low notes. If he has really good ones, it's fun to hear.

 

Here's the great Kurt Moll singing the low C in Act I (not all basses opt to sing this - but I always look forward to it!) Phrase starts at 8:32 in the clip.

 

[TruHart1]

...and just because I love the elegance of this interpretation by Herr Groissböck, Prince Gremin's aria from Eugene Onegin:

 

TruHart1

[rguer]

Regarding Herr Grossbock, if he had shown a bit more skin in this production (where Ochs is portrayed as younger than is normally the case) as he seems to be quite athletic, I might have been somewhat interested.

 

Ochs, like the Marschallin, is in his 30's. If you were casting the opera from today's political figures, he'd be Donald Trump Jr.

 

I suppose Hillary Clinton would be the Marschallin. We need a merchant of death for Faninal - Dick Cheney perhaps, but he's too old. I'm stumped on who might play Octavian.

[bostonman]

Ochs, like the Marschallin, is in his 30's. If you were casting the opera from today's political figures, he'd be Donald Trump Jr.

 

I suppose Hillary Clinton would be the Marschallin.

 

I think you're contradicting your own casting lol.

[TruHart1]

Ochs, like the Marschallin, is in his 30's...etc.

 

So, if Ochs is in his thirties like the Marschallin, why do most productions cast him as a fat, lecherous, dirty old man?

 

TruHart1

[bostonman]

So, if Ochs is in his thirties like the Marschallin, why do most productions cast him as a fat, lecherous, dirty old man?

 

TruHart1

 

Similar to the reasons why Butterfly, Manon, Mimi, Rodolfo, at al are often sung by singers in their 40's/50's etc...

[rguer]

This MET production (after 50 years of listening to Der Rosenkavalier and basically ignoring all the rest of the opera except for those three glorious sections) finally got my attention with the casting of the "over the top" but oh, so sexy, Günther Groissböck as Ochs. This is not from the MET production, but you get the idea:

 

Golly. Not my type, but raw sexuality. I can see why the opera was originally named for that character.

[TruHart1]

Similar to the reasons why Butterfly, Manon, Mimi, Rodolfo, at al are often sung by singers in their 40's/50's etc...

Which is why a younger man such as Herr Groissböck, though his role shows him as a bawdy pain in the ass to all who meet him, is a breath of fresh air (for me!) in his being cast in this role!

 

TruHart1

[rguer]

So, if Ochs is in his thirties like the Marschallin, why do most productions cast him as a fat, lecherous, dirty old man?

 

Lecherous young men are usually not viewed as villains in our culture.

[+ g56whiz]

So, if Ochs is in his thirties like the Marschallin, why do most productions cast him as a fat, lecherous, dirty old man?

 

TruHart1

 

Because these guys can hit the low C loud enough to be heard beyond the second row.

[AdamSmith]

Well, since people are admitting their real feelings, I suppose this is a good time for me to fess up. I adore the love stories and accompanying music in Rosenkavalier, and am bored to death by the rest of it; i.e., almost any scene with Ochs. I think Strauss did a much better job of combining the comic and sublime in Ariadne.

Of course, Mozart is the real master of the hybrid, and all of his greatest operas move seamlessly between serious and comic.

 

The only truly "comic" operas I fully enjoy are Rossini's. I can admire what Wagner did (or attempted) in Meistersinger, and what Verdi did in in Falstaff, but they are not operas that I would normally pay to see more than once, whereas I could see any opera from the Ring innumerable times. Give me the heavy dramas any day (except Frau ohne Schatten, which I think is Strauss at his most pretentiously serious).

 

I could opine on any number of other operas and composers, but I will spare you the longeurs of my opinions.

That's it exactly. Strauss hovers back and forth between sublime and pretentious in, in the end, the most tedious way. Listening through all of Also Sprach Zarathustra -- and one has of course forced oneself through that torture many times, just to make sure -- is nothing less than Hell on earth.

 

The vast technical accomplishment is, in the end, just not enough at all.

[AdamSmith]

I have somewhat the same feeling for Hindemith. Whom I probably underrate, but he strikes me the same way the poet John Ashbery described Robert Frost:

 

"Our dullest 'great' poet."

[+ Charlie]

Sorry, but Spenser grabbed that title years ago.

[AdamSmith]

In his day Spencer was a Great Leap Forward.

 

But only -- in a vastly larger sense -- in the same way that 'Greensleeves' was.

 

Timor mortis conturbat me!

[BasketBaller]

I also saw the Live in HD broadcast, and found it a mixed bag, as I do the opera overall. The great parts are greater than the dull parts are dull in my view, so I like the piece, but Strauss is never entirely successful for me. (I like Ariadne, and even Die Frau Ohne Schatten, but have to zone out through some stretches. Capriccio, Elektra, and Salome work best.)

 

I loved the performances, but the concept got worse as the opera went on. Setting in the time it was written is fine, it suggests the looming end of that world. But hammering it with the cannons, and the war scene during the sprightly closing moment, meant to be Mohammed running back in to find the Marschallin's handkerchief, was not just heavy-handed, it contradicted what we were hearing in the music. This is a director imposing what he wants us to see over what the composer and librettist gave us to hear.

 

Also, a weird complaint to make in the context of these forums, maybe, but I thought it was sexualized in a coarse way. The brothel setting was ludicrous, but Ochs' bastard son as a voyeur trying to watch his father with Mariandel and humping the furniture, Octavian and Sophie staying in the brothel and getting into bed together as Faninal and the Marschallin watch and then leave them there-- these seemed like smarmy adolescent touches. Ochs' sexiness worked great, and I'm no prude, but some of the lewdness just made no sense.

 

I generally like German opera more than Italian, and Meistersinger is my favorite, by the way.

[hornytwells]

Why exactly did you find the brothel scene "ludicrous"? What's the huge difference between " a seedy inn" which has dining rooms with private beds, designed for the purpose of illicit sexy meetings, and a brothel? Remember the piece was written at a time where it was perhaps more necessary to imply things...

Also, a director has licence to impose his view, that's why he is the director. We don't have to like it or to agree, but the idea that every performance of an opera or a piece of art is not open to more than one interpretation is stifling and is a sure way to kill the art from. Lots of different views/interpretations are what stimulates art and discussions, even if you absolutely hate a concept.

[BasketBaller]

Why exactly did you find the brothel scene "ludicrous"? What's the huge difference between " a seedy inn" which has dining rooms with private beds, designed for the purpose of illicit sexy meetings, and a brothel? Remember the piece was written at a time where it was perhaps more necessary to imply things...

Also, a director has licence to impose his view, that's why he is the director. We don't have to like it or to agree, but the idea that every performance of an opera or a piece of art is not open to more than one interpretation is stifling and is a sure way to kill the art from. Lots of different views/interpretations are what stimulates art and discussions, even if you absolutely hate a concept.

Why would Ochs set up a rendezvous with Mariandel in a brothel? He takes her to the private room in the inn to be discreet about their encounter, not to a room filled with couples in various stages of undress. It makes no more sense for pre-WWI than it would for the 18th century.

 

I'm all for director's visions offering reinterpretation of a work of art. I've seen many plays and operas where a director's new take on it was revelatory. This wasn't, in my opinion, it was a concept that he pursued despite the score's contradiction of it. The death of the Field Marshal and his soldiers at the end, with Octavian and Sophie in bed at the brothel, while Mohammed's perky little phrase of music played, was, again in my opinion, ham-handed and inartistic. I certainly don't mean to say he had no right to impose his vision. He just did it badly.

[BasketBaller]

Speaking of director's concepts, I wonder how this production of Un Ballo in Maschera worked?

http://cdn.tourismontheedge.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/floating-giant-book-stage-bergenz-festival.jpg

[hornytwells]

We have to disagree on whether it worked or not, I think he used it as dramatic irony to take away the schmalz, but I can totally see how someone would hate that. Also Ochs was looking for a private room, the whole idea was in this production, octavain/Mariandel became the aggressor and intimidated ochs, just a different way of looking at it that I didn't mind at all having seen it done endlessly the more conventional way. I also found so much to watch at the start of act three, whereas I usually find that one note joke an interminable bore for the first 35 mins of that act, so I guess I was more open to looking at it differently.

[bostonman]

I guess it all depends on what you think Strauss and Hofmannsthal were going for at the end of the opera, and whether or not the music (in particular) lends itself to very different interpretations.

 

Carsen is clearly going with a circular idea - for him the opera begins - and ends - with a couple having sex in bed. Not implausible - but I don't think the music really says this. And in fact, what I tend to feel is that we hear/experience a change in Octavian in these last minutes - the opera opens with him having lust-driven sex with the Marschallin (THAT's in the opening music, lol), but is experiencing a more genuine, heartfelt, mature love with Sophie. Now sure - we can expect that the 2 of them will most likely be wild in the sack before the night is over, lol, but in the present moment Strauss is showing us more of a contrast from where Octavian starts and where he is now.

 

Otherwise, what's the message that Carsen wants to leave us with - that despite this pretty romance, the only real difference between the Marschallin and Sophie is their age (and marital status) - and, to quote Cole Porter, "in the dark they are all the same"? I don't think that's what the composer/librettist had in mind, and I don't think Carsen's idea makes sense with the given circumstances. We don't know what will become of the new couple's relationship - whether it's real love or just a fling (and I expect Faninal's exit line alludes to that) - but I do still think that for Octavian, the raw sexuality of his relationship with the Marschallin has now given way to something else with Sophie. If we see the 2 of them getting into bed, it just makes irony of the whole thing instead of giving us a moment of bittersweet bliss - that bittersweet bliss that Strauss writes into the music.

 

It seems to me that the majority of what we call "regietheatre" productions truly seek to sour the plot, add irony that wasn't really intended, and explore more overtly the cerebral/didactic/dramaturgical side of the characters and setting, instead of just letting us enjoy the story. It's as if we're really not supposed to enjoy the opera at all, rather we're supposed to always leave the theatre with a heavy-handed message. And I just don't think that's always appropriate.

[AdamSmith]

I guess it all depends on what you think Strauss and Hofmannsthal were going for at the end of the opera, and whether or not the music (in particular) lends itself to very different interpretations.

 

Carsen is clearly going with a circular idea - for him the opera begins - and ends - with a couple having sex in bed. Not implausible - but I don't think the music really says this. And in fact, what I tend to feel is that we hear/experience a change in Octavian in these last minutes - the opera opens with him having lust-driven sex with the Marschallin (THAT's in the opening music, lol), but is experiencing a more genuine, heartfelt, mature love with Sophie. Now sure - we can expect that the 2 of them will most likely be wild in the sack before the night is over, lol, but in the present moment Strauss is showing us more of a contrast from where Octavian starts and where he is now.

 

Otherwise, what's the message that Carsen wants to leave us with - that despite this pretty romance, the only real difference between the Marschallin and Sophie is their age (and marital status) - and, to quote Cole Porter, "in the dark they are all the same"? I don't think that's what the composer/librettist had in mind, and I don't think Carsen's idea makes sense with the given circumstances. We don't know what will become of the new couple's relationship - whether it's real love or just a fling (and I expect Faninal's exit line alludes to that) - but I do still think that for Octavian, the raw sexuality of his relationship with the Marschallin has now given way to something else with Sophie. If we see the 2 of them getting into bed, it just makes irony of the whole thing instead of giving us a moment of bittersweet bliss - that bittersweet bliss that Strauss writes into the music.

 

It seems to me that the majority of what we call "regietheatre" productions truly seek to sour the plot, add irony that wasn't really intended, and explore more overtly the cerebral/didactic/dramaturgical side of the characters and setting, instead of just letting us enjoy the story. It's as if we're really not supposed to enjoy the opera at all, rather we're supposed to always leave the theatre with a heavy-handed message. And I just don't think that's always appropriate.

[whipped guy]

 

It seems to me that the majority of what we call "regietheatre" productions truly seek to sour the plot, add irony that wasn't really intended, and explore more overtly the cerebral/didactic/dramaturgical side of the characters and setting, instead of just letting us enjoy the story. It's as if we're really not supposed to enjoy the opera at all, rather we're supposed to always leave the theatre with a heavy-handed message. And I just don't think that's always appropriate.

 

 

Eaxactly! Plus, it is amazing the number of DVD's that I have transferred as audio only WAVE files for enjoyment via CD or iPod, many of which are great performances that are hampered by the director's conceit. As @hornytwells rightly notes above the director has every right to do whatever he thinks will enhance the experience, and at times some concepts can be brilliant and even thought provoking. However, many don't stand the test of time and in the final analysis it all boils down to the music and the singing and if the composer is respected. Fortunately quite often the musicianship of the performers outclasses the director's thoughts, or triumphs in spite of them. As such, I'm reading more reviews of BluRay and DVD performances where the reviewer states that it might have been better to release the performance also on audio. Fortunately some companies (such as Dynamic based in Italy) have indeed done just that for some controversial stagings thus giving purchasers a choice.