Gentle Readers, I thank you for your forbearance during a summer of irregular and infrequent blogging. I have been rusticated for the past months, far (alas) from live opera. Withdrawal symptoms have definitely set in. But now, the end of this hiatus is in sight! Zerbinetta over at Likely Impossibilities has a handy summary of what there is to look forward to at the Met. I, meanwhile, will be in Europe! Not only will I be in Europe, I will be in Germany, land of delicious bread, of infinite Wurst, and of lots and lots of opera! I'm feeling very, very fortunate to have my work take me to a country with over fifty opera houses, and looking forward to getting to see new singers, new houses, and new productions.
My operatic home base, so to speak, will be the Oper Frankfurt. I'm already excited about this; it was in Frankfurt in 2007 that I saw Simon Boccanegra in a Christof Loy production, with Zeljko Lucic in the title role. I loved it, cried when Simon drank the water, and was astonished to learn after the fact that it was supposedly a "difficult" opera. This September, I'm hoping to see the new production of Les vêpres siciliennes:
Also this autumn, Oper Frankfurt will be doing Rusalka, which I've (Really Shameful Confession) never seen; Idomeneo, which I've never seen; and Ariadne auf Naxos, which I can never see too often. Nearby Mainz will be doing Boito's unjustly-neglected Mefistofele. So, as in New York, the only limits on my opera-going will be imposed by financial strictures and by my need to get serious academic work done. Winter brings Tannhäuser... and all this is just at the nearest big company! I am experiencing an acute case of what the wonderful German language calls die Qual der Wahl--the torture of choice. I could go to Paris or Amsterdam or Brussels or Berlin in half a day; or to Vienna or Milan in a day. This makes prioritizing a challenge. I already have an all-star Dresden Elektra on my wish list, along with a Johannespassion staged by Peter Sellars. I've entered the ticket lottery for the Kusej-directed Forza in Munich. And I would ask of you, Gentle Readers, to give me your recommendations for what to add to my opera calendar for the season ahead.
My operatic home base, so to speak, will be the Oper Frankfurt. I'm already excited about this; it was in Frankfurt in 2007 that I saw Simon Boccanegra in a Christof Loy production, with Zeljko Lucic in the title role. I loved it, cried when Simon drank the water, and was astonished to learn after the fact that it was supposedly a "difficult" opera. This September, I'm hoping to see the new production of Les vêpres siciliennes:
Also this autumn, Oper Frankfurt will be doing Rusalka, which I've (Really Shameful Confession) never seen; Idomeneo, which I've never seen; and Ariadne auf Naxos, which I can never see too often. Nearby Mainz will be doing Boito's unjustly-neglected Mefistofele. So, as in New York, the only limits on my opera-going will be imposed by financial strictures and by my need to get serious academic work done. Winter brings Tannhäuser... and all this is just at the nearest big company! I am experiencing an acute case of what the wonderful German language calls die Qual der Wahl--the torture of choice. I could go to Paris or Amsterdam or Brussels or Berlin in half a day; or to Vienna or Milan in a day. This makes prioritizing a challenge. I already have an all-star Dresden Elektra on my wish list, along with a Johannespassion staged by Peter Sellars. I've entered the ticket lottery for the Kusej-directed Forza in Munich. And I would ask of you, Gentle Readers, to give me your recommendations for what to add to my opera calendar for the season ahead.
Lucy:
ReplyDelete"Not only will I be in Europe, I will be in Germany, land of delicious bread, of infinite Wurst, and of lots and lots of opera!"
And unfortunately the land of Regietheater too...
While there appears to be no consensus of opinion accounting for the alarming rise of Regietheater, most commentators agree that it has its poisonous roots in the strong left-wing reaction to Nazism that arose after World War II, and was furthered by the violent student movement of the 1960s, ‘a manifestation of the triumph of adolescent culture’, as Heather Mac Donald puts it.
How have we allowed this to come about? How has one of mankind’s most glorious achievements fallen into the hands of this freakish band of directors that seeks only to demean the form in its own narcissistic, solipsistic image? It is perhaps worth a reminder that for more than two thirds of the time it has been in existence, the producer or director was unknown beast in the operatic jungle. Until near the close of the nineteenth century an opera production was in invariably in the hands of the stage designer, the librettist and the conductor (not infrequently also the composer)
The message of Hector Berlioz, who himself suffered from gross philistinism, demands to be heeded: “You musicians, you poets, prose-writers, actors, pianists, conductors, whether of third or second or even first rank, you do not have the right to meddle with a Shakespeare or a Beethoven, in order to bestow on them the blessings of your knowledge and taste.”
Whole article by Brian Robins can be read here:
http://earlymusicworld.com/id44.html
Anon, I'm not quite sure what you see as the point of posting this. I'd encourage you to look beyond Robins' grossly simplistic assessment of Regieoper. There are, I'm happy to say, many creative directors working in vastly different styles, with different attitudes (inevitably!) towards the drama and music of opera. Franco Zeffirelli's aesthetic tastes and interpretations of opera are part of his productions as surely as, say, Stefan Herheim's are part of his. If you've read in the archive of this blog, you'll know that I've enjoyed and been bored by so-called "traditional" productions, and have enjoyed and been left cold by more adventurous undertakings. I'm not going to join any handwringing party. The "Regie, or not Regie?" blog to which I link on the right is a great resource for conversations about what "Regie" is, and what various opera directors are doing.
DeleteLucy,
DeleteI am genuinely surprised that a nice woman like yourself could admire aspects of this pernicious malignancy known as Konzept_ Regietheater.
:-(
'Endlose Wurst' is a fascinating spin on an old Stammtischphilosophen debate which you may not or indeed may wish to enter into (viel Vergnügen dabei!). Eindeutig als 'ned wurscht' bestätigt wurde jedenfalls der Ozean, der zwischen mir und der Frau Heather MacDonald liegt ;-).
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of how I have to spend a year or two in Berlin at some point, and have slim hopes of getting any work done there. Die Qual der Wahl, indeed. Österreich provokes far less Qual and I'd give Wien and Salzburg limited priority over Deutschland. My only two Salzburg must-sees next year are Stoyanova's Marschallin debut and the Dalbavie commission that comes a year earlier, replacing the Kurtág Uraufführung which has been postponed again until 2015. The planned Trovatore with Netrebko will likely be comparable to this year's Don Carlo, i.e. something better caught earlier in Germany (in Berlin of course. The production was done at the Wiener Festwochen in May and is very good). At the Wiener Staatsoper it's mostly a diet of 'aggressive Fadesse' though I'm looking forward to the new Homoki Lohengrin with KFV. There's also Fanciulla with Kaufmann and Stemme and FWM, which will be... something. Apart from that there's only the new productions which for whatever reason don't merit travelling halfway across Europe for, the unrehearsed revivals (yeah, pleeenty of those), and the no-matter-what Viennese loyalty to aged Publikumslieblinge, to wit: a new Schenk production of Příhody lišky Bystroušky and Norma in concert with Gruberova (actually that one I take back, I am kind of awed by Gruberova). At the Theater an der Wien any hilarity is avowedly intentional and I happily go to everything they do, even though the results are sometimes mixed. Lastly, not officially announced yet but well worth bearing in mind: the Festwochen's major operatic production in May, Orfeo ed Euridice directed by Romeo Castellucci.
The one thing going for the busy Viennese sausage factory is that highlights are often gut kombinierbar in a short trip, z.B. April offers the new Lohengrin, a Meier/Botha/Goerne Parsifal, and the Guth Messiah at the TadW - nothing says Easter weekend like the Viennese Spielpläne - which can indeed all be done over that three-day weekend. Or of course less frantically with a spielfreier Tag or two.
Many thanks for the good wishes and the good suggestions! If I can see Stoyanova's Marschallin, I will. And I've enjoyed past visits to Vienna, so I may see if I can find some leicht kombinierbare highlights for some weekend or other (that Easter schedule is tempting indeed.)
Deletewonderful news, and many congratulations. How about the Kaufmann Winterreise recitals in April,(Berlin, Graz, Paris) and his Mahler recitals in May (Munich, Toulouse, Paris, Baden-Baden)?
ReplyDeleteanything interesting at the new opera house at St. Petersburg? Barcelona's Liceu? Palermo? Parma? Venice (just to say you've been there....) Lovely to have the whole of Europe as your operatic oyster. Frankfurt is practically the centre of the web (I mean, of the oyster....) Pitch-perfectly placed!
Thank you! I will see what my schedule and budget look like in the spring, as I'd be interested to hear Kaufmann in either program. An Italian journey might be prohibitively costly, but it would be fun to make the operatic pilgrimages you suggest. Especially now, I'd feel much happier going to Barcelona than to St. Petersburg.
DeleteTheater an der Wien is reviving Kusej's Rake, with Otter as Baba the Turk http://www.theater-wien.at/index.php/en/
ReplyDeleteEXCELLENT. *steeples fingers meditatively*
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