Boris Godunov in HD

 

Conductor...............Sebastian Weigle
Production..............Stephen Wadsworth 

Boris Godunov...........René Pape 
Prince Shuisky..........Maxim Paster 
Pimen .......................Ain Anger 
Grigory, Dmitry pretender......David Butt Philip 
Varlaam....................Ryan Speedo Green 
Simpleton*..............Miles Mykkanen

We saw in the movie theater the original 1869 version of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov performed in the critical edition by Michael Rot. This is a different version of the opera than the one we saw in 2010, but the production is the same and the lead singer, René Pape, is also the same. In this version the character Marina does not appear. Here is a calendar for reference. 

1547 Ivan the Terrible tsar 
1552 Boris born 
1557 Feodar I born 
1582 Dmitry of Uglich born 
1584 Ivan died 
1585 Feodar tsar, Boris regent 
1591 Dmitry died 
1598 Feodor died, Boris became tsar 
1605 Boris died 

We may assume the time line for the opera begins when Feodar dies and Boris becomes tsar, and it ends when Boris dies. In real life people pretended to be Dmitry, and that is the basis for the plot. Boris is very reluctant to be tsar, but eventually agrees. Grigory pretends to be Dmitry and a story about how Dmitry didn't appear dead is added to support this. 

But that is the problem with this opera. For those of us who are ignorant of Russian history we have no idea what actually happened. Did Dmitry go off to Lithuania as a child only to reappear after Boris is tsar? Sometimes it seems he did and sometimes it seems he didn't. Boris seems not to have made up his mind whether or not he killed him. It's all rather confused. 

In this version, focused entirely on politics, there is a sameness to it all. I can see why people complained. The production and performances were all excellent, especially our star René Pape. I may have seen this enough.

Fidelio from the Met

Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Jürgen Flimm

Leonore.................Karita Mattila
Florestan...............Ben Heppner
Don Pizarro.............Falk Struckmann
Rocco...................René Pape
Marzelline..............Jennifer Welch-Babidge
Jaquino.................Matthew Polenzani
Don Fernando............Robert Lloyd

I think I like this production of Fidelio from 2000 quite a lot.  The cast alone is spectacular.  I have only one question.  Why would Rocco suggest Fidelio as a husband for his daughter when he is clearly already wearing a wedding ring?  Curious.  Rocco isn't at all clownish here.

Fidelio is good with money, so Rocco likes him.  Jaquino is very butch and waves around machine guns.  Yes, we've gone modern here. Why wouldn't Marzelline like Matthew Polenzani?  Does he ever get the girl?

Ben Heppner is glorious, though it is difficult to believe he's starving.  That's opera. I love every note of this piece.  Leonore and Florestan sing O namenlose Freude, the walls open up and Don Fernando arrives.  All is as it should be.  Karita Mattile is wonderful in this, but I would love to see my current obsession in this production.  When they say King, the titles say President.  So maybe this is the American's saving Europe scenario.

It's everything a great Fidelio should be.  Karita says that's her real hair.

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Parsifal

Conductor: Kirill Petrenko
Production: Pierre Audi

Amfortas: Christian Gerhaher
Titurel: Bálint Szabó
Gurnemanz: René Pape
Parsifal: Jonas Kaufmann
Klingsor: Wolfgang Koch
Kundry: Nina Stemme

I was overdosed on television, so I waited until the second act to see Wagner's Parsifal from Munich.  The opera started off with the most discussed part of the staging, the fat suits.  Nina was not required to wear a fat suit.  Nor was Jonas.  But I did recognize Golda Schultz.  Most of the Dresden Amens which I always dislike are in Act I, so this turned out to be a good decision for me.

Many people commented that they loved the production, but I felt it explained nothing.  I liked very much the collapsing wall effect, but that was pretty much it.  No subtitles and a production that explains nothing didn't work for me.  Too many things were not portrayed, such as Parsifal baptizing Kundry.

The biggest applause, as always in Munich, was for Kirill Petrenko.  I'm not sure I want to write any more about this.  As a listening experience, it was fabulous.  Such wonderful singing and conducting.  It was an especially good role for Nina Stemme.  I loved her blond wig.  Thank you.

Sexiest in Drag

We have a new candidate.

René Pape, of course, as Méphistophélès in the Royal Opera House's Faust.  Would you give up your soul for this?

Guns

Anna Netrebko in “Il Trovatore” by Verdi at the Vienna state Opera 

Die Zauberflöte in HD

 👍🏻
Conductor:  James Levine
Production/Costume and Puppet Designer:  Julie Taymor

Pamina:  Golda Schultz
Queen of the Night:  Kathryn Lewek
Tamino:  Charles Castronovo
Sarastro:  René Pape
Papageno: Markus Werba
Speaker:  Christian Van Horn

Nadine Sierra was our announcer today for Mozart's Die Zauberflöte from the Met, and she did a fine job.  She has charisma to burn.  Julie Taymor's production of The Magic Flute first played in HD with cuts and in English in 2006 and has replayed since then. This performance was for those of us who love this opera in German.  It was lovely to hear the original words in an uncut version.

It is interesting to me that in his final year of life Mozart wrote two operas about forgiveness.  Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito.  Perhaps it was for us.  This is Kurt Moll.  In this holy hall we don't speak of revenge.



Out of the cast listed above, only Markus Werba was completely new to me.  His Papageno was a joy.

Kathryn Lewek was in Cecilia Bartoli's Ariodante which I very much wish I had seen.  She was outstanding here.

Golda Schultz appeared in the La Clemenza di Tito from Salzburg this past summer. Pamina suits her better.

Charles Castronovo has appeared a few times in San Francisco.  My favorite outing from him was Il Postino with Placido.  His voice is robust for Tamino, but I agree with his comments--he enjoys a heroic sounding Tamino.

Everyone knows the one and only René Pape who flew over just for this performance.  He's the best now.

I love the Julie Taymor production and enjoyed seeing it again.

Tristan und Isolde in HD

Conductor:  Simon Rattle
Production:  Mariusz Trelinski

Tristan:  Stuart Skelton
Isolde:  Nina Stemme
Brangäne:  Ekaterina Gubanova
King Marke:  René Pape
Kurwenal:  Evgeny Nikitin

English Horn Solo:  Pedro R. Díaz

Things I liked about Wagner's Tristan und Isolde live in HD today.

I liked the outstanding conducting by Simon Rattle.  I very much enjoyed listening to him talk about today's performance.

I liked Debbie Voigt interviewing Nina Stemme, one Isolde to another.  I liked it when Nina said playing a Valkyrie could make you more of a Valkyrie.

I liked that this was the first time I thought while listening to the performance that only the Metropolitan Opera orchestra could play this piece this much more beautifully than anyone else.

I liked Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton putting their own personal stamps on this opera.  So much emotion, so much emotional singing and acting.

I liked René Pape, the best Wagner baritone around.

I liked so much love.  So much love by everyone on the stage, in the pit, behind the stage.  So much love.  I cried.

I liked the production which took images from the libretto to form the basis for its visual effects.

I liked talk about the anniversary performance of Antony and Cleopatra by Samuel Barber.  It was a new house with all the fancy new equipment.  Franco Zeffirelli used every new gadget in his production, and most of them failed.  Rosalind Elias and Justino Díaz were interviewed from the original cast.  And it's not true that the other performances were cancelled.

I liked Richard Wagner's libretto which I could primarily understand in Nina's singing.  This was a surprise.  This production might just work better without the surtitles.  In the house this would be possible.  For me the text was too bright against the dark background.

I liked seeing the love in their faces.

I haven't thought of anything I didn't like except Isolde smoking.  I feel recovered from Donnerstag.

In case I haven't been clear enough I want to say that I found this Tristan und Isolde to be deeply satisfying on every level.  I felt that the story penetrated my consciousness as never before, that the orchestra playing was profoundly beautiful and the singing actors the best ever.

Of course the production is Regietheater.  We are moved to an abstraction of today with military uniforms and modern dresses.  If there were difficulties, they were to be found in the projections, sometimes symbolic, sometimes personal.  A boy is seen and a thin man in a white uniform who cannot be King Marke.  I think this comes from the Act III solo by Tristan where he describes how he knows the sad tune he is hearing.  His mother died when he was born and his father when he was still a child.  So the projections picture the young Tristan and his father who must also have been a high ranking military man.  The ghost child is also Tristan.

I thought I was seeing a solar eclipse in the black circle surrounded by light.  And some kind of nautical device in the other circle.  I always feel free to ignore symbolism.

Sexiest Opera Singers

The selection is based primarily on photographs.  I try to use pictures I haven't used before.

Vittorio Grigolo

Pavol Breslik

There are so many choices for Pavol that it is impossible to pick.  Man with gun always works.

Anna Netrebko

Philippe Sly

Susan Graham

Nadine Sierra -- Photo: Dario Acosta

Jonas Kaufmann

René Pape with gun

Anja Harteros

Nothing with gun

Gockley Gala 2016

This is the set for last night's David Gockley Gala celebrating the retirement of the current San Francisco Opera Intendant at the end of the current season.  Most of Gockley's opera management career took place in Houston, and the Gala was specifically designed to celebrate his entire career.  Gockley was general director of the Houston Grand Opera from 1972 to 2006, and then became the general director of the San Francisco Opera up to the end of the current season.

Overture from Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, conducted by John DeMain.  1/4

Many people were introduced at this point in the program.  The masters of ceremony were Frederica von Stade and Thomas Hampson.  We were reminded that Gockley had commissioned Heart of a Soldier for him.  Gockley commissioned about 45 new operas. 

My current top 14

Angela Gheorghiu
Anna Netrebko
Renée Fleming
Nina Stemme
Anja Harteros

Cecilia Bartoli
Elina Garanča
Joyce DiDonato

Jonas Kaufmann
Juan Diego Florez
Piotr Beczala

Željko Lučić
René Pape
Dmitri Hvorostovsky


It's been a couple of years since Limelight named their top 12 singers, and I feel it's time for a new list.  There have been a few changes.  Natalie Dessay seems to be retired from opera and is focusing on song repertoire.  We can't rank Placido Domingo among the tenors any more, and he doesn't really rank that high as a baritone.  For me Bryn Terfel isn't singing up to his former standard, though I caught part of his Dutchman and found it rather good.

To qualify for this list the artist must be performing now and be rated according to their current performing standard.

People who should also be considered are:

Mariusz Kwiecien
Simon Keenlyside
Ildar Abdrazakov
Javier Camarena
Michael Fabiano
Lawrence Brownlee

Argue amongst yourselves.

Selfie of the Week

Close in second place is this....

You have to guess.  I like these, too, but I won't make you guess.

Lawrence Brownlee and Anja Harteros.  I still need to see her live.

The one and only Brigitte Fassbaender with Brownlee.  He gets around a lot.  This has to be for Rosenkavalier and maybe the above one is, too.

To heck with guessing.  The top one is René Pape in his makeup for Gurnemanz followed by Luca Pisaroni as Henry VIII in Anna Bolena.  Doesn't Rene look like a street bum?

The Scottish Opera

CONDUCTOR: Fabio Luisi
PRODUCTION: Adrian Noble
LIVE IN HD HOST: Anita Rachvelishvili

MACBETH: Željko Lučić (baritone)
BANQUO: René Pape (bass)
LADY MACBETH: Anna Netrebko (soprano)
DUNCAN, KING OF SCOTLAND: Raymond Renault
MALCOLM, DUNCAN’S SON: Noah Baetge (tenor)
MACDUFF, THANE OF FIFE: Joseph Calleja (tenor)

This performance of Verdi's Macbeth simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera is the same opera and the same production that we saw in 2008.  So why doesn't it feel like it?  Because it is about 100 times sexier.  For me Netrebko simply transformed the production.

There are at least two other Scottish operas besides Macbeth, the name you are not supposed to say aloud:  Lucia di Lammermoor and Handel's Ariodante.  There wasn't anything particularly Scottish in this production.  Perhaps the landscape might resemble a wooded part of Scotland.  It bothered me that there were no branches illustrating the movement of Birnam Wood.  In fact there didn't seem to be much relationship between the play and the set.

So much of this performance has been written about already that there is little I could add.  Anna was stunning, truly shocking.  There were lots of chairs.  I've never seen women carry their purses the way the witches did.  If there's a strap, don't they just hang it over their arm?  Perhaps they carried them like that so that they would be easy to open and let the lights shine out.  The witches had lights inside their purses.

There was only one thing I would criticize about Anna's performance--she is intensely self-confident for long stretches of the play and then is suddenly having nightmares about the blood on her hands.  Could we have seen this coming just a little?  Perhaps I am being nit picky.

Lučić was excellent, better than his Rigoletto.  There is a roughness to his voice that doesn't go with Rigoletto for me but was ideal for Macbeth. The entire cast was excellent, especially Rene Pape.

I was struck by how huge both the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are.  Luisi called the opera short, but we were out after 3 1/2 hours.  Except for the chorus, all the other roles are insignificant.  This is part of why the opera is so difficult.

I was pleased that Netrebko did not try to push into her chest voice.  In the really quite mad intermission interview she said that she would give herself 2 years on Lady Macbeth and then let her go.  I am hoping this is true.  There will probably be a DVD.

No one generates the sheer excitement and intensity that Anna Netrebko can.  She is the singer for our time.

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Life Ball 2014

The Life Ball is a Viennese celebration and AIDS charity event, and the blogs are full of pictures. Forgive me, but I am going to steal some. This one is from Facebook.

 

This is Conchita Wurst and René Pape from Intermezzo.

 

And here's Conchita with Thomas Hampson.



If you are unfamiliar with Conchita, Google her.  Not everyone there was an opera singer.  I get the impression that this event tops even our West Coast celebrations.

Sexy Pictures

I'm always on the lookout for new sexy pictures of opera singers.  Here are a few.

This one is called René Pape Easy Rider.  I'm not too young to remember this movie.

This is Noah Stewart in The Pearl Fishers. He works out.

Every picture of Vittorio Grigolo is sexy.

The same could be said of Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  This picture is by Pavel Antonov.

 

And I'm not exactly sure why I find this picture of  Piotr Beczala sexy.  It's sort of the Thin Man syndrome.  Or just exactly why is Die Fledermaus so sexy?

Clearly I need a new sexy picture of Jonas.  The girls don't seem to be keeping up.

I use a lot of pictures from around the internet uncredited, but many of them are in costume.  I always assume these are freely available as publicity.

Parsifal

You're not going to believe this.  I hardly believe it myself.  I loved it.  I am speaking of the simulcast of Parsifal from the Metropolitan Opera.

Conductor:   Daniele Gatti
Production:   François Girard

Parsifal:   Jonas Kaufmann
Gurnemanz:   René Pape
Amfortas:   Peter Mattei
Kundry:   Katarina Dalayman
Klingsor:   Evgeny Nikitin

Daniele Gatti was the key.  He has been conducting Parsifal all around the globe for the last 5 years and has managed to sublimate the annoying passage [this refers to my personal annoyance with the use of the Dresden Amen as a leitmotiv--see here] into the overall texture of the opera, making it the key to understanding it all.  You see, Wagner's Parsifal is so corny as to completely transcend corniness.  Gatti conducted without a score and was simply magnificent.  I was very surprised to hear hints of impressionism in the score.  One can't help wondering.

All the tempos were painfully slow.  By the time I made it out to the parking lot it had been over 6 hours since the opera started.

The story arc of Kundry is interesting.  In Act I she is the messenger of the Knights, a person who seems always to do what she is told while facilitating their destruction.  She is a kind of eternal woman like Emilia Marty.  As Herodias she laughed at Jesus and was punished with a curse that she would never die.  During the time of the opera she is a slave of Klingsor.  In the second act she tries to seduce Parsifal.  The harder he resists, the harder she tries.  Parsifal defeats Klingsor and releases Kundry from her curse.  In the third act she washes his feet and he baptizes her.  In our production she takes the grail from its shrine, holds it aloft and dies.  Katarina Dalayman was our Kundry.  Describing her part, she said, "It has no real tessitura."  This means it doesn't emphasize any particular part of the range and instead covers the whole voice.  Her concept of Kundry's character was impressive and very enjoyable.

I moved Gurnemanz up in the cast list because he is the narrator and sings more than anyone else.  René Pape could do this part in his sleep.

Parsifal means pure fool.  He is raised alone, like Siegfried, and knows nothing of life.  He doesn't know he isn't supposed to shoot a swan and makes his entrance having done just that.  He is suddenly enlightened just as Kundry kisses him.  This is Jonas Kaufmann who clearly loves this opera a very great deal.  This is only his second time singing it, but it lies deep in his soul.

The style of the production reminded me of the latest super hero movies like Avengers.  They are the people of great strength of character who go around in drab costumes on dark sets.  Parsifal is a great super hero who performs feats of mystical power.

Both our Germans, Jonas Kaufmann and René Pape, wanted to greet their relatives watching in Germany. 

It was all deeply emotional throughout, a marvelous cast with great commitment.  Is it possible to have a spiritual quest without following any particular religion?

Perhaps this was the Parsifal for me.  Congratulations to all.
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Julie Taymor's Magic Flute

Pamina:  Ying Huang
Tamino:  Matthew Polenzani
Queen of the Night:  Erika Miklósa
Sarastro:  René Pape
Papageno:  Nathan Gunn

I'm writing about the rerun of Mozart's The Magic Flute in HD from the Metropolitan Opera because I missed it the first time around.  I am out of the loop so I didn't realize it was in English.  I've seen Flute in English before and found the whole thing offensively misogynistic.  Someone was always making insulting cracks about women.  They've edited all of that nonsense out, and no one missed it.  The plot made the most sense it ever has.  Hear, hear for Mozart in the 21st century.

The biggest problem with doing Flute in English, especially for the non-native speakers, most of the cast, is that they are coached so thoroughly on pronouncing English that the musical legato suffers.  For that reason this is not the most musically satisfying Flute.  For the singer language and phrasing are intimately joined.  It isn't enough to say it right.

Mozart was an enthusiastic free mason and Julie Taymor's production uses a lot of masonic symbols, pyramids and so forth, things that mean little to the ordinary person.  Visually it is a treat.  The most effective parts of the production come with the bird elements that surround Papageno and the three boys.

Nathan Gunn as Papageno shines. He is charming, cute, athletic and a good singer. What more could you possibly want?

I enjoyed the fairy tale vision, and the conducting of James Levine.  In fact there was a lot to like.  It was over in under 2 hours.

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Faust in HD

Faust: Jonas Kaufmann
Marguerite:  Marina Poplavskaya
Méphistophélès:  René Pape
Valentin:  Russell Braun
Siebel:  Michèle Losier
Marthe:  Wendy White
Wagner:  Jonathan Beyer

Conductor:  Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Production:  Des McAnuff

Today in Faust Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD we had the privilege of hearing loud boos from the audience for the production designer Des McAnuff.  The production is a bit Eurotrashy, but after the bizarre production in Santa Fe--Marguerite on roller-skates--it didn't really seem too boo worthy.  One of the advantages of being in the house over being in a movie theater is that one can participate in the post production audience antics.  I "bravo" at the movies, but it does seem a bit silly.

Faust in this production is an aging bomb maker between the two world wars.  The current trend is to explain the opera as a dream or hallucination between the poison and dying.  Faust flashes back to his own youth, and the costumes change.  Faust and Mephistopheles always dress alike.  Perhaps Satan is his alter ego. The sets are spare, abstract and gray.

The goal is to cast the sincerity of the medieval religious fable into the cynical frame of the present.  The sincerity of the music plays against this cynicism.  I was prepared for the production to be confusing, but I did not find this to be the case.

In case there was any doubt about who the opera is really about, our Marguerite Marina Poplavskaya's face was projected on the curtain for extended periods throughout the opera.  These were films.  Her facial expression would change gradually, but she never blinked.  When Faust is still in his laboratory, Marina enters and sits down at one of the work stations.  He is hallucinating about a real woman.  I enjoyed her performance, but her expression in the Jewel Song was rather textbook for my taste.  In her interview with Joyce DiDonato she worked on her sewing the entire time.  Perhaps she has never sewn anything before.
 
As an old man, Jonas Kaufmann's hair will apparently go straight.  His problem in this role is that it is hard to think of him as a cad.  He was irresistible.  That is the idea, isn't it? 

Musically this Faust was somewhere between the extremely somber San Francisco Opera version and the really quite gay Santa Fe Opera version.  (Remember I am an old woman who has lived in a time when "gay" had a variety of meanings.) 

René Pape was explaining to the very elegantly dressed Joyce DiDonato that he had no desire to be a tenor.  Why, in fact, would he wish to be anyone but René Pape?  He was simply awe inspiring.  In his interview he greeted his mother who was supposed to be watching from a movie theater in Nuremberg, not too far north in Bavaria from Munich where Jonas is from. 

I enjoyed the calming effect of the modern context.  I cried anyway.

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Boris Godunov in HD

Boris Godunov...........René Pape
Prince Shuisky..........Oleg Balashov
Pimen...................Mikhail Petrenko
Grigory.................Aleksandrs Antonenko
Marina..................Ekaterina Semenchuk

Conductor...............Valery Gergiev
Production..............Stephen Wadsworth

Perhaps 4.5 hours of Boris Godunov live from the Met in HD is easier for us on the west coast.  9 a.m. to 1:30 doesn't seem so bad.  Especially not when you are watching the absolutely spectacular René Pape.  The entire role of Boris, especially when sung by René, is a mad scene, it would seem. He's been watching too much Anna Netrebko mad scenes, or perhaps Natalie Dessay.

I understand we were seeing an uncut version so there were probably a few scenes I had never seen before.  My main previous memory of this opera, in San Francisco possibly in 1983, is of the chorus work which was spectacular.  It is one of the more powerful choral operas and was again spectacular today.

I notice that on its last appearance in SF in 2008 the role of Marina was completely cut.  The scene with Dmitri, sung brilliantly by Aleksandrs Antonenko, and Marina, sung today by Ekaterina Semenchuk, was wonderfully sexy.  Sex at the opera always keeps things moving.

I liked everything about this.  The last scene after Boris is dead does seem a bit superfluous.  I flagged this opera as eagerly anticipated and it was definitely worth it.  Magnificent.

After trashing Rheingold, am I required to comment on the production?  It did what productions are supposed to do:  provide an illuminating context while not trying to take over the story.

14

I am happy with this list only if there are 14 names.

 

Renée Fleming

 

Natalie Dessay

 

Anna Netrebko

 

Angela Gheorghiu

 

Elina Garanča

 

Cecilia Bartoli

 

Joyce DiDonato

 

Juan Diego Florez

 

Jonas Kaufmann

 

Placido Domingo

 

Simon Keenlyside

 

René Pape

 

Bryn Terfel

 

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

And yes, this is this year's sexiest list. I have tried to use pictures I've never used before. Surprise. In this set of pictures the sexiest by far is Placido Domingo.