Dmitri

It is important to notice that Dmitri Hvorostovsky is still listed for Il Trovatore at the Met this fall.  The formal announcement has been made.  Dmitri will sing in three performances, including the simulcast on October 3.  Then he will return to London for more treatments.  Best wishes and good health in the future.

Interview with Jonas Kaufmann

Kleine Zeitung, July 26, 2015  [My usual translation.  I apologize that there is no link.]

Luigi HEINRICH

He is one of the big stars of this year's Salzburg Festival. On August 4, Janas Kaufmann will premiere as Florestan in "Fidelio".

For fans in September there will be a special gift, namely the new CD "Nessun dorma - The Puccini Album" - recorded in Rome. You sang this repertoire recently at La Scala Milan. This was sort of a special appearance? 

Jonas Kaufmann: I had promised to sing "Cavalleria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" at La Scala. But my schedule is too full. I had to cancel. This concert was a sort of reparation.

La Scala di Seta

Conductor:  Gabriele Ferro 

I decided to watch my DVD of Rossini's La Scala di Seta which I bought years ago from House of Opera.  I bought it because it featured a young Cecilia Bartoli (she is 22) singing in Bologna.  I think I put off watching it because there were no subtitles, and it's very wordy.  The sound is good, but the picture is blurry.

The music is charming but contains no surprises.  Rossini was only 20 when he wrote this.  In my list of Rossini operas this is the earliest.

The staging is astonishingly formal.  They stand in formation like something from the eighteenth century.  The versions on YouTube are staged in a much more modern way.  There is a bed which they get on every once in a while.

Cecilia is herself.  Despite the formality, when her beau expresses an interest in her, she drags him behind the screen and starts pulling his clothes off.  The guardian throws her onto the floor.  She rolls her R's as one expects. The main soprano is Luciana Serra.

There is no explanation for the plot.  A young woman lives with a guardian who wants her to marry his favorite.  Meanwhile she is already married to someone else whom she lets in and out of her bedroom using a silk ladder.  Why not just tell the guardian his services are no longer required?  This is too modern a perspective, I suppose.

The audience likes everything.

Hair

Last night I put on my dashiki and my wrist bands and set out to see Hair (also called Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical) at the Sacramento Music Circus.

Poliuto from Glyndebourne

I'm glad I saw Donizetti's Poliuto from Glyndebourne.  It sounds mysteriously like Verdi only not as good.  Nothing is ready to become a hit tune.

Paolina:  Ana María Martínez
Poliuto:  Michael Fabiano

The weight of this very heavy opera is carried by these two singers.  Both of them shined very brightly.  I was particularly happy to see Michael in a role that truly showed off his voice.  It was an excellent performance of a pretty monotonous opera.  Lots of percussion.

The plot is that they are Christian martyrs in the time of the Roman empire.  Not surprisingly, it was censored in Italy.

This is a complex story about love, faith, country, loyalty and oh so many things.  The music emphasizes almost exclusively the anger, betrayal, disloyalty parts of the story, saving the softer parts for a bit at the end.  It didn't attract me.

New People

People I heard for the first time this year.  The first is Angel Blue.  She is the real deal.

West Side

Last week I went to the Music Circus to see Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.  I only remember seeing the movie before.  It's another show with lots of dancing.  The director and choreographer was Jerome Robbins.

Tony:  Justin Matthew Sargent
Maria:  Carolann M. Sanita
Bernardo:  German Alexander
Anita:  Desireé Davar,

Everything is very heavily miked which I'm not used to.  There are no supertitles, and since it's theater in the round, they are frequently facing away from you.  The pace is frantic and intense which I think people who enjoy musicals like.  St. Louis does opera in the round but with supertitles.

I was discussing this with my neighbor who said she saw it with a friend that is Puerto Rican.  Her friend complained about the clothing and the accents.  Puerto Ricans don't actually wear red and black all the time.

I feel it is important to explain this.  Theater and reality are two widely different things.  In real life people just wear what they wear and look the way they look.  If you are old enough to have lived in New York at the time--it premiered in 1957--you might know what people looked like in that time and place.  I vaguely recall button down collars, petticoats.  The purpose for putting them in consistently colored clothing isn't to accurately portray them--it is to clearly differentiate them from the New York kids in the rival gang who wore oddly pastel clothes.  When I go to a show, I don't like to be spending my time trying to figure out who each person is.  That's what the production is for.

The way the production looks is how the story is told.  One group runs quickly off the stage and is replaced by another.  "Who are these people?" is a question that should be instantly answered.  I always remember the Aida in Rome where the principals and the chorus all wore similarly designed outfits.  Which one is Radames?  Constant puzzlement is not a desirable quality in a production.

A theater production isn't trying to be a movie, although the use of films as background is increasing.

Fidelio from Salzburg

Franz Welser-Möst musical direction
Claus Guth stage director

Jonas Kaufmann (Florestan)
Adrianne Pieczonka (Leonore)
Sebastian Holecek (Don Fernando)
Tomasz Konieczny (Don Pizarro)
Hans-Peter König (Rocco)
Olga Bezsmertna (Marzelline)
Norbert Ernst (Jaquino)

I watched the live stream of Fidelio from the Salzburg Festival today.  Perhaps it's best to talk about the music first.   Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan and Adrianne Pieczonka as Leonore were great, perfectly cast in their roles.  Hans-Peter König was familiar for his Hunding in the Met Ring, and Tomasz Konieczny was previously seen as Jack Rance in Girl of the Golden West.  I liked this cast very much.  This was probably the most beautiful canon quartet I have heard.

Leonore #3 overture was played between the two scenes of the second act.  It was probably necessary to accommodate the set change.  The orchestra received the biggest applause of the performance here.  This is the most I have liked Franz Welser-Möst.

The production.  All the spoken dialog was left out.  Where the dialog would have gone were extended periods of strange sounds:  wind, people breathing, the heart monitor going to the death sound, etc.  This had the effect of making the whole thing much more serious.  I didn't mind this.  I missed "Ich habe Mut und Kraft."  But that's about it.  But if you truly love Fidelio, you don't want it changed.

There were two acting only characters:  Paul Lorenger (Shadow Pizarro) and Nadia Kichler (Fantôme de Léonore).  The Fantôme de Léonore seemed to be one of those people who mime the dialog for the deaf.  I don't know enough sign language to tell if this is true.  Perhaps that's where the dialog went.

Florestan seems to have been driven mad by his imprisonment.  Loud noises and Leonore frighten him.  He collapses at the end.  Perhaps he has died.  He needs to be taken somewhere quiet to help recover from his PTSD.  In the picture above Leonore thinks perhaps he needs a drink. 

I think this production suggests that Fidelio might be successfully presented as a more serious opera, but I reject absolutely that it should have an unhappy ending.  "Die Liebe wird's erreichen. [Love will make it happen.]"  This is what it's about.
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News

Dmitri Hvorostovsky had his last radiation therapy session today. We can only hope that he's all better now.

Anna Netrebko at Salzburg

This is interesting.  It's from stol.it, news for south Tirol.  It is a completely over the top review of Il Trovatore from the Salzburg Festival.  The best parts are here: