Travel

I loved my Italian with a grand passion, and threw myself headlong into Italy. I consumed the art, the coffee, the landscape, the gardens, and most of all the city of Rome with the eyes of love. It is a perspective that mere looking cannot replace.

It is too long since I have been to Rome.

Idomeneo

I bought a ticket for Idomeneo from a scalper at Opera Garnier. Second row of box 13. I went for Isabel Bayrakdarian who sang Ilia, and maybe Vessilina Kasarova as Idamante. In Paris Anna Netrebko has appeared in this production, though not now as the scalper claimed.

Kasarova is always the most manly person on the stage. Isabel rolls her Rs in a rather startling way.

Should I attempt an actual review? The production placed this opera in a modern Cretan fishing village on the shore of the Mediterranean with projections of waves at the back of the stage. I thought this worked.

Commentators always say Idomeneo is Mozart's best opera seria. Elektra is in it for some obscure reason--perhaps for the possibility of rage arias. After the thrill of Werther, it was pretty ho hum.

My seat mate spoke English so we talked about opera. I believe it was here that Berlioz sat in the orchestra pit with the orchestra to provide the material for Evenings in the Orchestra. I don't know if the dates are correct.

Women in Art

One of the things I wanted to do in Paris was visit the exhibition of women artists at the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Early in the exhibition is a poster pointing out that while only a small percentage of art in museums is by women artists, almost all the nudes are women. So here we are with a giant museum full of women artists--where are the male nudes? Women artists in the twentieth century seem obsessed with the politics of gender, with the condition of being female.

Of course the art work that is the Centre is the most fascinating. I will have to return before I leave.

Blogging

It is possible to teach yourself to see and hear more. (Perhaps it is not possible to teach yourself the French keyboard.)

One should be younger for Paris, I think. So far I have been to Notre Dame, Musée d'Orsay, Pantheon.

Art Nouveau revival at Musée d'Orsay turned out to be posters from the Fillmore. I had friends who were rock musicians during that period and had the posters put around the ceiling of their house. Friend would point out the name of their group on the posters, but I no longer remember what it was. Not Jefferson Airplane.

The French have no fear of modern architecture. We may make buildings into cones or boxes, but true modernism requires the French.

Romantic

Jonas has very much the look of a Romantic hero. Berlioz had the same wild hair, though he was not nearly so handsome.

Berlioz persued his own unrequited love, wrote her into his music and basically made an ass of himself until she gave in and married him.

Werther

Massanet's Werther is based on Goethe's novel Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers, 1774, which was the birth of Romanticism. From that day Goethe was one of the most famous people in Europe. He didn't have a similar success until Faust many years later. Everyone in the nineteenth century composed a Faust, but only Massenet seems to have done Werther. By the time of the opera in 1892 Romanticism had run its course. People had been dying on the opera stage for many years.

In the novel the hero's heart is broken and stays broken until he ends his life. Charlotte cannot be blamed. She promised her dead mother to marry Albert, and she must fulfill this promise. Sometimes trajedy cannot be avoided.

At the beginning of the opera Werther is already in love with Charlotte, and they spend the day together. He tells her he loves her, and then her sister cries out that Albert has returned. Oh yes. Albert is her fiancé. Should have, could have mentioned. In the opera she is ambiguous, flirtatious.

In the second act Charlotte marries Albert, and everyone tells Werther (Vair-tair) to cheer up or get out. He chooses to get out.

It is only in the third act that Charlotte truly comes to life. She reassured her husband there were no regrets but finds that she cannot forget Werther. Who writes. He tells her he is alone and in despair. Then he appears and woos her again. The opera character is more manly than the whiner of Goethe's novel. She panics and leaves.

He returns to his hovel and shoots himself. She finds him and there us an extended death scene.

How is one to explain the extreme beauty of this performance at the Paris Opera? It is a question of atmosphere. Werther concerns itself primarily with the interior landscape of the hero's mind. It is all a gentle romantic dream that turns to despair and self destruction. All of the components combined to express this interior landscape.

The production contributes with its cool, bare, minimalist sets.

And then there is the masterpiece of Michel Plasson's conducting and the almost impressionistic effect of the orchestral playing. The orchestra actually received the biggest ovation with sustained rhythmic clapping before the third act and again at the end. Perhaps it works to conceive it as Impressionism. It is an enormous pleasure to praise a musical concept.

Jonas Kaufmann in this musical context is so much more than a mere singer--he is the spiritual incarnation of the interior landscape that is Werther. They none of them struggle against the hero's inevitable destruction but allow themselves to be swept away.

It was a masterpiece beyond my wildest imaginings. Werther will never be the same.

LOpera, La France, etc.

So was it worth it to fly to France to see Jonas Kaufmann in Werther? Oh yes.

Classical Grammys

The list this year doesn't seem at all bizarre.


The San Francisco Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas and Mahler all at the same time are a slam dunk at the Grammys. This year they won Best Classical Album for Mahler 8. The soloists are Erin Wall, Eliza van den Heever, Laura Claycomb, Katarina Karneus, Yvonne Naef, Anthony Dean Griffey, Quinn Kelsey, and James Morris. They also won for Best Choral Performance.

Marin Alsop's Bernstein Mass is an interesting also ran.

Ravel: Daphnis Et Chloé with James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra won Best Orchestral Performance, but I couldn't find a picture. I could not find this recording on any version of Amazon.

The Best Opera Recording went to Billy Budd with Adam Green, Alasdair Elliott, Andrew Kennedy, Andrew Staples, Andrew Tortise, Daniel Teadt, Darren Jeffrey, Gidon Saks, Hugo Shepherd, Ian Bostridge, Jonathan Lemalu, Kyle Kean, Laurie Benson , Mark Stone, Matthew Best, Matthew Rose , and Nathan Gunn. Daniel Harding is the conductor. With no women in the cast I probably won't buy it.

The rest of the list is also interesting: Messiaen: Saint François D'Assise, Musto, John: Volpone, Shostakovich: The Nose and Tan Dun: Marco Polo.


Journey To The New World, by Sharon Isbin with Joan Baez & Mark O'Connor won for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra). She is listed as Artist, Composer, Conductor. This is making me curious.

Yes, I skipped Askenazy doing Prokofiev.

Intimate Letters (Janacek & Martinu) performed by the Emerson String Quartet won for Best Chamber Music Performance.




Renée Fleming won Best Classical Vocal Performance for Verismo.

I feel compelled to mention all the other nominees:

Bach by Anne Sofie von Otter.
Bel Canto Spectacular by Juan Diego Flórez.
Recital At Ravinia Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
Un Frisson Français Susan Graham.

The only ones I own are Recital at Ravinia, a truly wonderful recording, and Verismo. Several of these sound interesting.

It is curious to note that none of the winners goes back before 1890 in repertoire. They are out of synch with the current direction of at least the singing part of classical music.

Someone to think about

James Valenti. He's American, I think.

Bach?

My oh my. I'm speechless.

This has to be the least Italian performance she's ever done.