Point of Departure

I don't have a lot of musical regrets, but I do regret that I never sang Orlofsky.  At this point in life I begin to regret how long it's been since I saw Die Fledermaus.  Anyway, Brigitte Fassbaender is the best.

Verdi from Chicago

The stream of the Verdi Requiem from Chicago was the perfect celebration for the great Verdi's birthday.  I feel like I'm supposed to explain it now when you know that the perfect musical performance cannot be explained.

Kudos to the maestro Riccardo Muti.  The maestro knows his Verdi.  Kudos to the spectacular performance on the bass drum by Cynthia Yeh.  And very special kudos to Tatiana Serjan for the most wailing in Verdi I've seen in many years.  See here, here, and here for previous references to wailing in Verdi.

What set this performance apart from all other Verdi Requiems I have heard was the fluidity of the tempo, the almost constant rubato that permeated all the performances.  It was like hearing the piece for the first time.  There was a sweetness that made the dynamic explosions heard only in this piece all the more surprising.  There was so much to hear.

Everyone was wonderful--too many names to mention.  I only wish I could have been there.  I hope you all had a wonderful Verdi 200.

For Verdi

This is the chorus, orchestra and conductor we heard at Salzburg--Rome Opera and Riccardo Muti.  In the middle of this film Muti makes a short speech about Italy.  Then follows the traditional encore that is always sung in Italy, but not in Salzburg.  Muti turns and conducts the audience. 

The Girl of the Golden West 👍🏻

Franz Welser-Möst | Conductor
Marco Arturo Marelli | Direction and lighting
Marco Arturo Marelli | Sets
Dagmar Niefind | Costumes

Nina Stemme | Minnie
Tomasz Konieczny | Sheriff Jack Rance
Jonas Kaufmann | Dick Johnson (Ramerrez)
Norbert Ernst | Nick
Paolo Rumetz | Ashby
Boaz Daniel | Sonora

For Puccini La Fanciulla del West was his best opera. For me it has a special place because it was one of the works that we presented in Ulm while I was there. It was in German, sort of the Winnetou of opera. And yes, I have read the Winnetou books, Germany's answer to Zane Grey.

It is perhaps the most American of operas. Here I am in Sacramento watching a film from the Wiener Staatsoper, writing about a man who claims to be from Sacramento, a man who inherited a band of robbers when his father died. They are in the mountains above Placerville.  I will not tell the surprise ending.  Watch it for yourself.  I'll just say that from an American perspective it isn't as shocking as it is to Europeans.

How could you not love them? Nina Stemme's Minnie is a girl to love, a wild and passionate one who rolls around on the floor in the grip of first love. She and Jonas Kaufmann sing the shit out of it. It rises with them. Nothing is held back. If the singers can sing this big, the opera soars with them. I think it requires just this kind of no holds barred, wildly passionate singing and acting to make its effect.

The set looks more like Edmonton oil fields than it does like the California gold rush. Perhaps the Polka is a truck that stays parked outside the refinery to provide lunch and dinner for the laborers, guys that don't come from Edmonton.

Minnie tries to look like a laborer, too. She reads to them every day out of the Bible. They are now in the Psalms. She explains what hyssop is, which means she knows what hyssop is. She is a good girl who rejects their advances and has never danced with any of them. In return they all love her and bring her gifts.

I love the way she summons him.  "I want a man I can love like that," she sings, and there he is.

Dick enters and asks for whiskey with water. This is to make him look like a softy. She immediately remembers him because he said she had the face of an angel. For him she dances and brings home cigars to give him. For him she brings out her Sunday best dress, shoes and gloves.

He doesn't tell her about the other woman. What man tells a woman that he is seeing someone else? She is very naive with him. Perhaps he really likes her.  She tells him that she keeps the miners' gold in the saloon--he doesn't seem to coax it out of her--but he has already tried to find where it is hidden. She invites him to her cabin. All he's done is ask her if she lives in the Polka, and she has told him she lives in a cabin in the mountains. In this production she lives in a mobile home. Minnie may never have danced, but she knows how to cheat at cards.

Eventually Ramirez tells her everything, and she throws him out. He doesn't steal her gold. I think the intention of the opera is to show that this is true love, not just on Minnie's side but Ramirez's too. It is clear from the start that he might steal her heart or her money but would never cause harm to Minnie.  When she is guarding the gold in Act I, she looks him straight in the face and says that he can steal the gold, but he will have to do it over her dead body.  Perhaps she knows.  After all, he's only been a thief for six months. Perhaps their first meeting was before this. I refuse to think he's a cad like Pinkerton. In Butterfly Cio Cio San sings all the big emotions. In Fanciulla both must sing the big emotions, and in this production they did.  I have never loved it so much as here.

Dear Puccini, I think I too will love it best.

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Interview with Riccardo Muti

My usual translation from Kurier.

"We are talking with God, thank Verdi"

The star conductor Ricardo about Verdi, wrong notes, Regietheater and the KURIER live stream.

Not only is he one of the greatest conductors of the present, but also one of the leading Verdi experts. Currently Riccardo Muti is rehearsing Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" in Chicago, that will be experienced on the 10th October via live stream on KURIER.at ( see details below). The Neapolitan maestro in conversation.

KURIER: Maestro Muti, your interpretation of the Verdi Requiem is transmitted via live stream.  A concession to the new media ?

Riccardo Muti: Rather a concession to Giuseppe Verdi. We want to reach as many people as possible with this transmission. Everyone should have the opportunity to hear Verdi's wonderful music. It's not about to make Verdi even more popular. This is hardly possible. The point is rather that millions of people around the world feel this music at the same time and through this music are linked to one another.

Do you think that music can unite people ?

We live in a society with so many problems. There are wars, crises,  poverty and misery.  I think music can bring people together, because it is a universal language that everyone can understand. Whether through this something has improved, I do not know.  Maybe it's just a dream. But definitely one that you should dream.  In music it should not go primarily to the personal success of the performer, but to a message of humanity.  If you will, to Verdi's message to mankind. If Herbert von Karajan were still alive, he would, however, certainly be the most fervent ambassador to the new media.

What do you personally associate with Verdi's " Requiem"?

I conducted the requiem for the first time in the 1970s. In a basilica in Florence and at the graves of the Borgias. I'll never forget this. Verdi was a Catholic in a very liberal sense. He speaks here to the basic problems of humanity. We speak, thank Verdi, directly with God.  In the sense: You created me, so save me also.  It is a demanding Requiem, and Verdi leaves us in doubt. But as in all his works, by the way also in the operas, Verdi's gaze is always directed towards the heavens. Although Verdi had doubts about what may be after death.  But he knew that answers to this question are a need of the human soul.  In this respect we take a journey into the heart of our soul.

You grant in your new book "My Verdi" intimate insight into your musical understanding and criticize the present treatment of Verdi ...

We have in the Verdi year 2001 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death missed the opportunity to study it again. Now we have this opportunity.  Because we are often very far away from what Verdi wanted. The performance practice has since made ​​many mistakes. And the audience has become a bit sloppy since.  Everyone is waiting only on high notes, and wanting Verdi to be sung like Puccini.  That is completely wrong. Verdi is a classical composer and stands much closer to Haydn than to Puccini. Nevertheless, one must not play him on original instruments, that would be a sacrilege. But this fact should be borne in mind. And then there are also directors ...

... where you basically stand very skeptically opposite  ...

What some directors do there is a single insult to Verdi. But also an abuse of the singer and an affront to the thinking audience. Unfortunately we have too many of these so-called "clever" directors who even delete roles if they don't like a character, who cannot even study the score, who impose their so-called "ideas" on each work. I refuse to be a part of this.  [Bei so etwas mache ich nicht mit.]

So one should stage Verdi entirely classically?

Beware, one thing must not happen: Verdi did not want any "show business" [in English]. Neither scenically nor with swanky voiced singers. Verdi was a man of the theater, he knew exactly why he wrote the way he did.  Everything is there in the scores.  One needs only to look at them.

Is that one of the reasons why you rarely conduct opera?

As well. But there is another reason. It lies with the houses themselves and their scheduling . When I study a new opera, I need to do this conscientiously, at least a month's time. But this time is rarely given. But I do not accept when singers or conductors arrive a week before the premiere, to then bring in a botched action something on the stage. Unfortunately in this regard the Vienna State Opera also doesn't give me the time required.

You love Vienna ...

Very much so. Vienna is a great city with a very fine and educated audience. And of course there is the city of Vienna Philharmonic.  I love this orchestra.  I have learned so much from the Philharmonic in the course of my life and I'm always happy to come again for concerts.  But as for opera in Vienna or Salzburg, then: You should never say never.

Eugene Onegin in HD

Onegin and Tatiana in the city

I have long been an admirer of Chekhov, the Russian writer of plays and short stories, so when Peter Gelb compared his new Metropolitan Opera production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin to a play by Chekhov, I was prepared to enjoy it.

Conductor:  Valery Gergiev
Production:  Deborah Warner

Tatiana: Anna Netrebko
Olga: Oksana Volkova
Madame Larina, their mother:  Elena Zaremba
Tatiana's Nurse:  Larissa Diadkova
Lenski: Piotr Beczala
Onegin: Mariusz Kwiecien
Gremin: Alexei Tanovitski

I liked enormously the sets for the house in the country.  It created an atmosphere of reality and strengthened the sense of the relationships between the characters.  There was too much contrast in the last act with the bare stage and huge columns.  There was no sense of artistic unity for the opera as a whole.

Lensky and Olga in the country

The beginning and ending had a new symmetry.  As Onegin rejects and coldly dismisses Tatiana, he looks at her face and kisses her before walking away.  Netrebko's Tatiana rises to equal Onegin's coldness and arrogance in the final act.  She tells him she loves him but will not sacrifice her life for him.  She stares him down coldly and then kisses him before she walks away in the snow.  There was a kind of perfection to this.  Perhaps Mariusz is the right singer for this conception after all.

Netrebko sang extremely well, giving the letter scene a special intensity.  Alright.  I'll say it.  She looked terrible in the girl's dress.  But the mature Tatiana's outfits made her look beautiful.  Few singing actresses could bring so much strength to a character. 

I couldn't help wondering how this would all play in the house.  Chekhov is not for the huge theater.  Could the softness of the singing be heard in the house?  Could such an intimate and interior conception be seen, heard and indeed felt in the huge expanse of the Met?  Chekhov's sense of humor seemed to be missing.

Beczala was the best Lensky ever.  My favorite was the Nurse, a wonderful actress.  The sense of it all being truly Russian was very powerful.  I would like very much to see this kind of treatment of Pique Dame which somehow just misses for me.

P.S.  Netrebko seemed to be in the mood to argue with Debbie in her interview.  I wonder what that was about?

PPS.   The plot of Onegin is from Pushkin (1799-1837). I know that. What was being discussed was the PRODUCTION which was moved to the time of Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) which it just so happens overlaps with the time of Chekhov (1860-1904). My remarks referred to the production and not to the opera.   Gelb is the one who brought up Chekhov.  I liked this and went with it.  The production comes from British theater people who are undoubtedly far more familiar with Chekhov than with either Pushkin or Tchaikovsky.

A truly Chekhovian ending would require much more ambiguity.  Instead of perfect symmetry we would need to be left wondering if perhaps they might get together on occasion, just as we are left wondering in the story "The Lady with the Little Dog."  If she is not required to sacrifice her life and her husband, would Tatiana occasionally meet with Onegin in secret?
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Heidi Melton online

Here is a fun interview with Heidi Melton by Rhoslyn Jones about what it's really like to be an opera singer.

Blogging

Blogging posts are meant to be self criticism of the process of blogging.

I haven't commented on the crisis in Minnesota.  It is hard to grasp this.  What do they imagine they are doing?  The only thing I can think of is union busting.  Minnesota is not a right to work state, but perhaps it wishes it were.  If they fire the entire orchestra, doesn't the union stay?  Wouldn't they still have to negotiate with all those recently graduated students they want to hire?  Students rehearse a lot more than professional musicians generally do. 

I don't get the impression that there is a lot of understanding of how professional musical organizations work in America, at least in the states that are not right to work.  If a state is right to work, the board can negotiate with the people it can find who are not in the union.  I know that the primary reason for the existence of the New Mexico opera I won't name is that New Mexico is right to work.  In a union state the existence of the union requires all the musicians to join.  There's no getting around it.

The board of an American arts organization is generally expected to come up with the money when tickets don't pay enough.  Perhaps the Minnesota board has been paying out more money than they want.  If the orchestra doesn't make enough money, the musicians don't pay anything.  Perhaps these board members imagine that it should actually make money like a regular business.  That's a laugh.

Don't get the wrong idea.  I find this as appalling as everyone else, but the why part of the discussion always seems missing for me.  Maybe they've been listening to too many conservative politicians and think everything will be better if they just shut everything down.

When I was designing software, I went around and talked to each person one at a time to try to understand what that person wanted to achieve.  Then I made up something that did all those things.  These people have completely stopped talking.  They will be happy when they have killed their orchestra and no longer have to pay its bills.  At least that's how it looks from here.

Sexiest Conductors

While out of town for Thanksgiving, it has been suggested to me to conduct a sexiest conductors contest. These are the proposed contestants:

Joana Carneiro is a new entry for sexiest conductor.  She is currently the conductor of the Berkeley Symphony.  Conductors have all the fun.

Russian Valery Gergiev is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg and principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel is currently the principal conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony in Gothenburg, Sweden, and music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Italian Nicola Luisotti is music director of San Francisco Opera since September 2009 and principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.

American Marin Alsop is music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

American Michael Tilson Thomas is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Italian Riccardo Muti is music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He apparently has backed out of directing the Rome Opera.

American Kent Nagano is music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera.  After 30 years, he has finally given up the Berkeley Symphony.

Englishman Sir Simon Rattle is principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.

German Christian Thielemann was in October 2009 appointed the chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, effective with the 2012-2013 season. He is also effectively the music director of the Bayreuth Festival.

Since people in Europe have been ignoring the Americans, I have been careful to name a few, along with conductors working mainly in America.  Have I omitted your favorite?

Lucy wants to nominate Laurence Equilbey, conductor of Chœur de Chambre Accentus, a small group that works regularly with the Limoges Baroque Ensemble.  I wanted a picture that looks more like she is conducting, to go with the rest.

Emmanuelle Haïm also belongs in this list.

This is Pablo Heras-Casado who started out in early music.

This is fun.

Kick Boxing in KC

 

Photo by Cory Weaver.

Here we have Joyce DiDonato showing off her street fighting skills in I Capuleti e I Montecchi at the Kansas City Opera, with William Burden.  What other profession provides so many varied opportunities?

Sorry.  Cory Weaver photographs in San Francisco.  What do I know.