Turandot in HD

Conductor...............Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production..............Franco Zeffirelli

Turandot................Christine Goerke
Calàf...................Yusif Eyvazov
Liù.....................Eleonora Buratto
Timur...................James Morris

Today the season for the Metropolitan opera in HD began with a performance of Puccini's Turandot.   I think it was also Yannick Nézet-Séguin's first HD as the Musical Director of the Met.

The plot to this opera must be considered iffy.  It isn't exactly a MeToo opera (I'm thinking of making a list) because the abusive power figure is a woman.  She uses her position as heir to the Emperor of China to destroy as many men as possible for something that happened to one of her ancestors.  One isn't sure what the right response would be.  Becoming Emperor of China might be a greater temptation than the princess.  Calaf is an idiot, but he can hardly be blamed for the unfortunate results of his desire for Turandot.  The ending must be considered happy.

It was nice to spot James Morris under his very heavy makeup. This is going to sound strange, but I thought that the lead role sounded rather light in Ms Goerke's voice.  To me she seemed to be struggling with the role.  I thought the hit performance of the evening was the Calaf of Yusif Eyvazov.  He carried himself with dignity and confidence.  I have started to like him.

Yannick brought us a beautiful opera.  I hope to see more of him, but the only HD he is scheduled for is Wozzeck.  Sigh. They did curtain bows after all three acts.  I haven't seen that in a long time.

Die Walküre in HD

Conductor...............Philippe Jordan
Production..............Robert Lepage
Hostess..............Deborah Voigt

Brünnhilde..............Christine Goerke
Siegmund, brother.....Stuart Skelton
Sieglinde, sister.........Eva-Maria Westbroek
Wotan...................Greer Grimsley
Fricka, Wotan's wife.........Jamie Barton
Hunding.................Günther Groissböck

Opera is the greatest of all art forms because it centers on so many great female characters.  The opera is almost always about them.  Men tried to keep it all to themselves for as long as they could, but as soon as opera became commercial, that was over.

Wednesday I saw Wagner's Die Walküre delayed from last Saturday. I have seen this work many times, but this was very romantic for some reason.  I followed the story of Wotan better than ever.  In the previous opera, Das Rheingold, he is Fricka's husband, and they are happy but have no children.  He gains power by trading away the gold for Valhalla.  He is all powerful and uses his power to do whatever he wants.  By Walkure he is the father of everyone else in the story except Fricka and maybe Hunding.  He's been busy and Fricka is pissed.  All of the 9 Valkyries are his daughters by Erda.  Siegmund and Sieglinde are his children by a she wolf.

They did act bows to avoid making people stay in costume all the way to the end.  Act I is Siegmund, Sieglinde and Hunding.  The twins have not seen one another since the day their house burned down, killing their mother.  Siegmund has wandered alone while Sieglinde was forced to marry Hunding.  The singing in this act was beautiful.. Eva-Maria created the role in the original mounting of this production.  Her partner at that time was Jonas Kaufmann.  They truly looked like brother and sister.  Stuart sang well this time, but Eva has grown in the role.  She was wonderful, with great dramatic presence.

The staging was slightly different.  The planks at the front of the stage didn't stick up in front of the singers this time which looked much better.  When he sings, "du bist der Lenz" I want something spectacular to happen.  I want to feel that in that moment spring has arrived. 

In Act II Wotan, Fricka and Brünnhilde arrive.  Christine is very saucy at this point.  Her Brünnhilde has truly spectacular emotional range.  She shows us joy, love, pride, sympathy, sorrow.  It is the greatness of this performance that makes this production of Die Walküre the best that I have seen.  Wotan asks to see the joy again, and she justly refuses.

I have seen Jamie Barton's Fricka before and loved it again here.  I have also seen Greer Grimsley's Wotan before and found him very much improved.

Act III starts with Valkyries waving.  A bit too silly for me.  However, the act ended well.

Philippe Jordan brought us the emotional range that appeared in the interpretations of all the actors.  I truly loved this.  The Met seems to have realized that Christine Goerke would be something we would all want to see.  Thank you.

Elektra Night at the Museum

Christine Goerke

 👍🏻
Conductor:  Henrik Nánási
Production:  Keith Warner

Elektra: Christine Goerke
Klytemnestra, Elektra's mother: Michaela Martens
Chrysothemis, Elektra's sister: Adrianne Pieczonka
Orest, Elektra's brother: Alfred Walker *
Aegisth, mother's lover: Robert Brubaker
Tutor of Orest: Anthony Reed

Last night I attended a San Francisco Opera performance of Richard Strauss's Elektra.  I have been going here for all of my adult life and can think of only one comparable performance--Die Frau ohne Schatten, also by Strauss, in 1980 with James King as The Emperor, Leonie Rysanek as The Empress and Birgit Nilsson as Barak's wife.  My soul is larger.  Everything that needs to be said has already been said about this, but I will have a go anyway.

In the recent past was another night at the museum production, of Il Trovatore with Anna Netrebko from Salzburg, but the exhibition seemed without a theme and incoherent.  Here we have what seems to be an exhibition of artifacts from Mycenae, the Greek culture which launched the Trojan War.  The house of Atreus with Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, Iphigenia, Orestes and Elektra are the central figures from this culture and appear through history in many art forms.  It is entirely plausible that an  exhibit devoted to physical objects from this time would take place.  Many of these objects appear in this production.  So we have a far more plausible intermingling of the ancient and the modern.  When they speak of Agamemnon, a man wearing the death mask said to belong to him appears.  We believe this.

Christine's character is always clearly a modern person who is projecting her life and family onto these historical figures.  We see this most clearly when this kitchen appears:

Klytemnestra and Elektra

We exclaimed to one another, "My mother had a kitchen like that."  The time travel was handled very smoothly.  This is clearly a very successful concept regie production.  All the other characters have dual identities and appear in modern and ancient clothing.  Other productions for this opera I have seen recently have all the main action take place off stage.  Here the deaths occur before our eyes.  It is intense.

Musically I found this to be a triumph.  The three women--Christine Goerke, Michaela Martens and Adrianne Pieczonka--were performed by three big voices in glorious fashion.  The biggest surprise was in the music.  It wasn't that long ago I was bemoaning the death of great Strauss conducting.  Henrik Nánási has shown us the way back.  It was the best Strauss I've heard in years, and it was by our San Francisco Opera orchestra.  Bravi.  Because the screens were turned on, I noticed that the orchestra stood immediately when the maestro came out for his final bow, turned toward him and applauded.

It was a colossal, towering performance on every level.

Selfie

This is Christine Goerke in her disguise as Fidelio at the Cincinnati Opera.  Then she takes off her hat and looks like this.

They're a couple of months old, but I still like them.

News

Congrats @HeldenMomm! #HELPMANNS Best Female Performer (#Opera) winner for her role in #Elektra.  This tweet means that Christine Goerke won Best Female Performer in an Opera in the Helpmann Awards (Australian) for singing Elektra.

As of today, all but one of the main unions has reached a tentative agreement at the Metropolitan.  I'm glad Mr. Gelb has decided to follow my suggestions.

Stoyanova has withdrawn from Ballo at the San Francisco Opera because of recent surgery.   She is replaced by Julianna Di Giacomo.  She starts in 4:30.