"I'm so glad that awful woman [Pamela Rosenberg] is leaving. All those dreary German operas!"
"Where do they find these people? They're dreadful!"
"Composers wrote their operas in specific settings at specific times! These young directors completely ignore the operas themselves and move the settings to the 1920s... They're always terrible!
"That tenor's quite bad, isn't he? Much too small a voice for an orchestra this size."
"None of the program covers this season have any relationship to the operas at all! For Traviata, the Lady of the Camelias, they had a photograph of lilies! Those marketing people have absolutely no grasp of reality -- they're awful! They have no standards."
"99% of the time the people they find to fill in at the last moment are just terrible. If they were any good, they would have been cast in the first place."
There's nothing like an outspoken, indignant, pompous British dullard issuing irritating proclamations whilst taking up too much space at the standing-room rail to get my hackles up. She had made all of these pronouncements by the end of the first intermission... sorry, interval. I mean, if you dislike everything so much, why even bother coming? Back to the Proms, I say -- Heave, ho. Luckily, she decided to keep mum during the next break. (Perhaps my telling her off had something to do with it.)
Yes, it was another entertaining night at the opera. Carol Vaness was singing Floria Tosca (1) and Mark Delavan sang Scarpia, but the regular Cavaradossi took ill and was replaced by Richard Crawley, who found out at 4pm that he'd be singing that night. Frankly I didn't have any expectations going in. I just went 'cause I like the tunes.
Everything was basically OK. Delavan sang all right, but never got me to hate him as a sadistic bastard. Crawley did a respectable job too; you know, not a remarkable or flawless performance, but he seemed fairly comfortable in what were surely daunting circumstances, and gave it a good go. And Vaness... For the most part she was all right. Singing way too heavy in the low/middle, but still palatable and dramatically appropriate. As for the top, mmm, that vibrato is really just much too wide. I mean, you shouldn't be able to hear two distinct notes a half-step apart in one sustained pitch, right?
And I realize this is going to sound pretty snarky (and to my friends: yes, yes, I know), but... Well, it's just an unexpected dynamic when there's like a 20-yr age difference between Tosca and Cavaradossi. That's all.
So the second part of the SF Opera season is obviously well underway now. Tomorrow is Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, or "The Big Mac" (which is, I hear, what the staff has been calling it). Madness! The apocalypse! Car horns! Should be great fun. I happened to score a comp, so I can even enjoy this one sitting down.
No more barihunks in this part of the season, I'm sorry to say. The only candidates are Russell Braun, who plays Eugene Onegin (2), and Juha Uusitalo, the Flying Dutchman (3)... Well, I'm sure they've got great personalities. Interestingly, in Dutchman we have another woman who in despair throws herself from a great height to her death. That's why I love classical music: it's so relaxing.
~~~~~~
It occurred to me that some TSR visitors might appreciate some refresher info about the shows mentioned herein. And so I turn to Sir Denis Forman's amusing A Night at the Opera (The One Where Each Opera Is Given a Synopsis Like a Friends Episode Title):
(1) Tosca. The one where the prima donna sticks a knife into the chief of police and her lover goes before a firing squad who shouldn't shoot him but do.
(2) Eugene Onegin. The one where Tatyana takes all night to write a letter, Onegin kills his best friend and there is a lot of ballroom dancing.
(3) Flying Dutchman. The one where the Dutchman seeks a good woman to release him from sailing the high seas for ever: he finds one who jumps off a cliff and they both ascend to heaven.
Mon Frère: I believe we both were comped last night at "Macabre." We could have met for a cocktail in the Lower Lounge!
I wonder if anyone actually paid for a ticket. I can't wait to read your impressions...
Posted by: Albert | Nov 19, 2004 at 07:36 AM