New TRAVIATA at the MET

The new production of Verdi's La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera tries really hard to please New York's Old Guard: the ones who missed Franco Zeffirelli's production when it was replaced by Willy Decker's bare-bones, surrealistic and symbolic rethinking of the work. Currently on display at the MET we have Michael Mayer's new look at the composer's 1853 masterpiece, featuring a solid, but gaudy fin-de-siècle unit set by Christine Jones, costumes by Susan Hilferty and lighting by Kevin Adams. The days when different acts and locales demanded different sets are over. Ms. Jones provides us with a unit set which with the help of Mr. Adam's Bollywood style lighting creates Violetta's salon, her country house and Flora's ball. If you are a newcomer to opera, study your libretto before you go, and you'll know where you are.

The MET has put together what it thinks is an ideal cast for this production, featuring the coloratura of Diana Damrau, who seems to have a hold on Verdi's middle period heroines at the house. Her Alfredo is Juan Diego Flórez who serves the production admirably with his young looks and handsome dashing acting, even if vocally he is hopelessly miscast: a Rossini specialist pushed into a Verdi opera. The results are a small voice competing with the big-boys. It throws off kilter the vocal balance. Add to that the Giorgio Germont of Quinn Kelsey, a cavernous baritone with a loud, and at times unfocused tone, and you have a Traviata that has clearly been cast on looks, with a sharp eye on the HD screen, rather than vocal integrity.

The surprise of the evening was Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his admirable handling of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra.  While this score is often handed to pedestrian conductors who do little else than beat metronome-like phrases, or to a tenor currently moonlighting as a baritone/conductor, Mr. Nézet-Séguin proved why he has been chosen to be the MET's new Music Director. In his able hands the score came to life, as he brought out the inner voices of the orchestration, and found beautiful phrasing in places often glossed over by others. As expected, the orchestra responded to his direction without fault. And even if at times the pacing seemed slow, and the dynamic level reached Wagnerian proportions, it's been a long time since this score has been heard with such detail.

Reason enough to go to this production and hear this often-played work as if it was the first time.

Wildlife: Fire and Water

Primal elements, fire and water, are the catalysts that erupt into primal desires in Wildlife, Paul Dano's brilliant directorial debut adapted from Richard Ford’s 1990 novel.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jerry, a golf pro who gets fired as a result of getting too chummy with the club’s members. It seems that Jerry has trouble keeping down a job, and as a result he’s had to move his family around much too often. His wife Jeannette (Carey Mulligan) and their fourteen year old son Joe (newcomer Ed Oxenbould) have come to accept the necessity to be uprooted multiple times. However, when the club calls Jerry to offer him his old job back he refuses their offer, and instead leaves the family to take a low paying job fighting forest fires. His departure sends the family into a downward spiral that emotionally tears them apart. Jeanette and Joe are forced to get jobs to make ends meet. Joe becomes a photographer's assistant, and Jeannette takes a job as a swimming instructor. Soon enough she begins a relation with Warren Miller (Bill Camp) one of her students, a wealthy war veteran. Joe gets dragged into the affair, his mother allowing him to witness the kind of marital infidelity no young person should be allowed to see. When Jake comes back from fighting fires things get even worse.

Carey Mulligan is destined for glory at awards time. With her perfect American accent, her nuanced, meticulous Jeannette contains many layers. Somehow she is able to reveal all of them, and this is the brilliant aspect of her performance. Likewise, Jake Gyllenhaal is perfect as the wide-eyed dreamer, always searching for the best for his family, although most of the time he fails to recognize the many personal flaws that keep him from getting ahead. Their marital problems, already there before the narrative begins, take on classic routes. The man leaves the nest in order to prove to his family and to himself that he can do it, while the wife seeks comfort in another man she does not love just to prove to herself that she remains a desirable person with urges that must be satisfied.

Ed Oxenbould as Joe is a revelation. An Australian teenage actor with a unique young face that already shows signs of maturity beyond his years, and a pair of baby-blue eyes a la Paul Newman to die for. You won't be able to take your own eyes off him! Mr. Oxenbould joins Timothée Chalamet and Lucas Hedges in that prestigious group of young actors with recent, memorable performances that signal a new generation with a bright future.

Wildlife is one of the finest films of the year. Great performances, outstanding actor-driven direction, and a haunting story about three real people. A film not be missed.

Burning - a film by Lee Chang-don

A film about obsession, where one of the main characters follows another in a car through the streets of an exotic city; and where the main female character disappears halfway through the film; and one of the characters keeps mementos of past relationships. This description could define an Alfred Hitchcock film. Perhaps a remake of Psycho, or more appropriately a new version of his masterpiece, Vertigo. It is also one way to describe Burning, the new Korean film from auteur Lee Chang-dong. A contemporary story involving Lee Jong-su, (Yoo Ah-in) a young drifter with dreams of becoming a writer, who meets up with childhood friend, Haemi (Jeong Jong-seo), a free spirit with plans of traveling to Africa. Both renew their friendship which rapidly becomes sexual. When Haemi comes back from Africa she introduces Lee to Ben (Steven Yeung), a well-off, mysterious young man, whom she met on the airplane on her way back, and who Lee compares to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby. During a party where the three smoke pot, and Haemi dances topless erotically as the sun sets (one of the highlights of the film), Ben confesses to Lee that he has the odd hobby of setting old greenhouses on fire. When Haemi mysteriously disappears, Lee immediately senses something wrong, and starts following Ben, partly because he is worried about his friend, but also because he is obsessed with the mysterious young man and his opulent lifestyle.

The film is based on a short story by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami called "Barn Burning." This is also the title of a 1939 short story by William Faulkner, the Southern author who is Lee's favorite writer. As Lee and Ben's friendship deepens, Ben decides to buy a copy of Faulkner's collected stories.

The film takes a postmodernist approach in its meandering way in which it tells this story. Scenes often do not lead to expected outcomes, thus the structure is freewheeling and loose. At 148 minutes director Lee eases us into the narrative with a sure, firm hand, an invisible camera, and a rambling mise-en scène. However, he manages to engross us in the narrative, thanks primarily to the stellar performances by the three principals.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, it was a selection of the New York Film Festival, and it is South Korea's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Academy Awards.

BOY ERASED with Hedges, Crowe and Kidman

Boy Erased is not the first film this year to tackle the thorny subject of conversion therapy. This film, featuring three Hollywood A-listers, closely follows the themes of the recent indie The Miseducation of Cameron Post. The fact that big Hollywood is taking a chance on this controversial subject makes it a film worth considering, and certainly one that will be critically discussed as we head towards the end of the year, and awards season time. Especially since the film possesses heartfelt performances by all three principals.

When Jared, played by Lucas Hedges, a young college student, comes out to his parents, a Baptist minister (an almost unrecognizable, overweight Russell Crowe) and his wife, Nicole Kidman, they decide to enroll him in a program to cure him of his homosexuality. It’s a bit like the Joan Fontaine character in Hitchcock’s Rebecca, after she marries Laurence Olivier and enters gloomy, mysterious Manderley. When Jared steps inside the Love in Action program he enters the gothic, a Dickensian institution run by Mr. Sykes, a character with a Dickensian name that Charles Dickens himself might have had fun developing, since from a literary point of view he is only a stone’s throw from Mr. Squeers, the cruel headmaster in the novel Nicholas Nickleby. The fact that this film is based on a true story verges on the unbelievably tragic.

The secondary characters are as fully rounded as the leads. Mr. Sykes, played by Joel Edgerton, the director of this film, is a wondrous creation: a Bible-wielding mountebank who spouts salvation while hiding from everyone his true nature. Also wondrous, as well as scary is one of Mr. Sykes’s enforcers, played with sinister gusto by Flea of The Red Hot Chilly Peppers. There is also a memorable performance by Troye Sivan, the South African-born, Australian actor/singer, whose latest pop album, Bloom, is at the top of the charts. Mr. Sivan has a great screen presence, and one of the members of the cast who is openly gay.

Although the film has many wonderful touches, it falls into a predictable pattern where the characters become recognizable figures verging on the stereotypical. So we get the young, questioning boy, who is far from being a slut, but who carries an incredible amount of guilt because of his feelings. There’s the understanding mother, and the unyielding father who just cannot come to terms with his son’s feelings. There’s also the clever boy who will play along with the conversion program just to get out of there; and regrettably there’s also the boy who is permanently scarred by the program’s abuse, and becomes its tragic victim.

Despite its artistic flaws, Boy Erased is a courageous step from mainstream Hollywood to expose a dubious system that thus far has effected 700,000 members of the LGBTQ community, and continues to be practiced legally in many parts of the country.

Guadagnino's SUSPIRIA

Luca Guadagnino, the much-praised director of Call Me By your Name returns to the theme of inter-generational relationships in his rethinking of Dario Argento's 1977 thriller Suspiria. Whereas the classic horror film was the first of a proposed trilogy depicting the theme of "Three Ancient Mothers," with the results being the familiar "giallo" style for which the Italian filmmaker is best known, Guadagnino's take on the film is a self-contained two and a half hour extravaganza taking the bare-bones story of the original, and riffing on socio-political themes not really present in the original film.

In this retelling we meet Sussie Bannion, a young ingenue from America (Dakota Johnson), aching to escape her Mennonite upbringing, who travels to a divided West Berlin to enroll in the famous Helena Markos Dance Company, a school run by a Pina Baush look-alike named Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). Almost immediately the new girl falls under the spell of Madame Blanc, who recognizes in her an innate talent for dance, and the "je ne sais quoi" necessary to become a great dancer. At the same time, an elderly psychoanalyst (also played by Tilda Swinton wearing a ton of makeup), with a past dating back to the days of the Third Reich, is investigating the disappearance of one of the dancers in the company, and the alleged claims that the school is run by a coven of witches.

While all of this proves to be quite enigmatic, the movie fairly quickly falls off the rails as it tries to bite more than it can chew. Apparently in Guadagnino's mind it is not enough to just make a horror film. The new Suspiria, which is divided into acts like a German Expressionistic film of the silent era, ie, Nosferatu, features the Baader-Meinhof political landscape of Germany in the decade of the 1970's, as well as the vivid ghosts of National Socialism. This, together with a running time of 152 minutes, makes it a bladder-buster of a horror film, too long for a genre which, like comedy, works more effectively when it adheres to a shorter running time. Unfortunately, the film denouement is one of the most extravagant spectacles I have seen in quite a while. Never a good idea to outdo the original. Dario Argento is an excessive filmmaker, no one will argue with that, but in paying homage to the master, Guadagnino totally goes overboard.

So, should you bother with this remake? Try the new Suspiria if you like to be engrossed in a film that asks more questions than it answers, and if you enjoy the experience of a polemic work that's sure to spark some very interesting cinematic conversation.

THE FERRYMAN on Broadway

From London comes last year's West End hit, The Ferryman, Jezz Butterworth's titanic play about the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the decade of the 1980's, around the time Bobby Sands and other incarcerated members of the IRA died in Maze Prison after a long hunger strike that divided a nation.

The well-preserved body of Seamus Carney, killed because he was believed to be an informer for the British, has been discovered buried in a bog, and now the kingpin of the IRA, Mr. Muldoon (Stuart Graham), must make sure that the surviving members of the Carney family do not accuse him and his cohorts of the murder. This threat is especially directed at the surviving brother of the deceased, Quinn Carney (Paddy Considine), the patriarch of a large rural Northern Ireland family. And what an incredible family Mr. Butterworth has created! All of them played with beautiful nuances and expert craft by a company of Irish actors under the direction of the spectacular Sam Mendes, a director who has proven again and again that he is both adept crafting films (from American Beauty to Skyfall and Spectre) to both musicals (the recent revival of Gypsy) and this masterpiece by the author of the monumental Jerusalem, one of the most exciting plays in recent days, which had a monumental Tony award winning performance by Mark Rylance.

Whereas Mr. Butterworth attempted to write an ensemble piece in Jerusalem, the outcome was mostly a vehicle for the talents of Mr. Rylance. With The Ferryman he has achieved this quest. With 21 speaking parts, the writing is able to create 21 fully-rounded characters which range from angry young men who dance furiously to a punk rock song by The Undertones, to a wheelchair-bound aunt, played beautifully by that great Irish actress Fionnula Flanagan, who remembers her unrequited love which left her childless. There is also a simple-minded British handyman named Tom Kettle (Justin Edwards) who works for the Carney family, and who brings the children apples, and who wrings the neck of a goose for the family harvest feast, an eerie act-ender harbinger of the violence that's bubbling under the surface of this work.

With a rousing version of the Irish fighting song "A Row in the Town," the mention of the feared legendary creatures called the Banshees, and an ending that you will never forget The Ferryman is most definitely an Irish play crafted out of ancient mythology and the violence of the times it portrays. Yet, the themes that it presents are as universal as those of the great playwrights of the English language. With this spectacular work, Mr. Butterworth joins that prestigious list.

NYFF: At Eternity's Gate

The director of At Eternity's Gate, Julian Schnabel became a sensation during the 1980s with his "plate paintings:" large scale canvases set on broken ceramic plates. He emerged as the most famous of the bad-boys of that artistic generation that also included David Salle, Keith Haring author Jay McInerney and Jean-Michel Basquiat: artists that made downtown Manhattan the epicenter of the artistic world. As a matter of fact, when Schnabel traded in his canvases for a movie camera, his first project was a biopic of the late Basquiat. Now Schnabel turns his cinematic attention to another bad-boy artist: the infinitely tragic Vincent van Gogh and his last tortured days in Arles, in the south of France: frantic days in which the artist descended into madness while at the same time capturing the light of Arles in one brilliant canvas after another. Van Gogh stayed at Arles for eighty days, and managed to paint seventy-five canvases. The large majority of them the well known masterpieces he is best known for.

Essentially the film follows the relationship between Vincent (an incredible Willem Dafoe) and his brother Theo (Rupert Friend), as well as the friendship between van Gogh and artist Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac). But like Schnabel's early broken canvases, the film is a disjointed look at the artist's downward spiral into madness, mutilation and suicide. Certainly it is not Lust for Life, Vincente Minelli's 1956 biopic starring Kirk Douglas as the tortured Dutch artist.

Willem Dafoe's understated van Gogh is the highlight of this work, and the glue that keeps this film together. Mr. Dafoe has been the darling of the Independent film sect lately, morphing from one character to another with the greatest of ease. He can be Pier Paolo Pasolini in Abel Ferrara's 2014 biopic of the murdered Italian filmmaker, or he can become Bobby, the manager of the Magic Castle hotel in last year's great The Florida Project. His van Gogh might just be his greatest role since he played the Son of God in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ.

If your idea of a biopic is not a definitive reconstruction of the past, and if your taste in film favors a narrative of moments, impressions and fragments, then you will certainly enjoy this arresting, luminous film.

A Star is Born: this time with Cooper and Gaga

There’s s great line in Bradley Cooper’s new film A Star is Born referring to music being just twelve notes, “and the story repeats again.” It’s a referential line to the history of this well-known show-biz story which began in 1937 with Dorothy Parker and Ben Hecht’s original script for David O. Selznick, and the talents of Fredric March and Janet Gaynor. For many this early Technicolor film is the quintessential version of this story, but the story was told again in 1954, changed to a musical to accommodate the prodigious talents of Judy Garland. This version, helmed by George Cukor remains incomplete with sections missing, but what remains intact is gold. Music also remained when the story was told a third time, this time with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in 1976, in perhaps what many consider the weakest of the three versions, although the film has its champions.

One of them is Bradley Cooper. The current version of the story draws much from this version. The story is well-known. Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) is a hard drinking famous rocker who meets Ally (Lady Gaga) a talented, but unknown singer. Jackson gives a boost to her career, and the two fall in love and marry. But as Ally’s fame takes off, Jackson’s demons catch up to him. He horribly embarrasses Ally and himself the night she wins the Grammy award, and things go headlong downhill for Jackson to the inevitable tragic conclusion already familiar from the previous versions.

Thanks to Bradley Cooper’s intelligent handling of this material as co-screenwriter and in his directorial debut, A Star is Born has become the film to beat at the Oscars this year. The film features great emotional acting from Cooper, and shows a triple threat Lady Gaga who might just have carved out a niche for herself come Oscar night. Also giving memorable performances are Andrew Dice Clay playing Ally's father, Anthony Ramos as Ally's friend from her time when she was singing at a drag bar, Sam Elliott as Jackson's older brother, and Rafi Gavron as Rez, a music producer and Ally's manager who precipitates the tragic conclusion of the story with his unfeeling approach towards Jackson's alcoholism.

They don't write them like they used to, and Hollywood knows this. They keep resurrecting this property time and again because filmmakers know that audiences love a great tragic love story. This version of A Star is Born speaks to current audiences in a way the previous versions satisfied their particular public. And when it comes to the movies we love to see a performer who has already distinguished herself in another facet of showbiz making a kill on the big screen, and this is exactly what we get when we witness Lady Gaga's great performance.

NYFF: Roma

We will never know the meaning of everything that's in the new film Roma, Alfonso Cuarón's loving black-and-white recreation of his childhood in the Roma section of Mexico City. As with any autobiographical movie, the writer-director shares scenes filtered through the lens of memory, and artificially recreated through the performance of actors and the objectivity of the camera, manned by the subjective intellectual directorial decisions that make a complete cinematic product. After exploring the adventure of a Mexican road trip (Y tu mamá también), a dystopian future (Children of Men), outer space (Gravity) and a world of wizards and humans (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), he's exploring the memory and magic of his childhood. Roma, in addition brings on board a wealth of cinematic references, some personal, and others culled from a lifetime of movie watching.

When you watch Roma you are also watching Cuarón's homage to the directors he loves and those that have influenced his career. Visually, it's impossible to watch Roma and not bring to mind the work of Federico Fellini and the other architects of the Neorealism movement. This is particularly evident in the choice of casting non-professional actors in key roles, such as Yalitza Aparicio, a woman from a village in Oaxaca, who had never acted before, and who plays Cleo, an indigenous servant/nanny to an upper middle class family.

But make no mistake about it: this is a 100% Mexican film, one which could not have been made elsewhere. Though touching upon Mexican themes of racial inequality and university students unrest, the core of the film remains the breakup of a family, and the way their nanny manages to keep them together, while confronting her own dire problems. This gives the film a universal appeal while at the same time remaining very close to Cuarón's memories of his beloved Libo, and indigenous woman whom he considered his second mother.

There are many epic moments in this film that stand out: a trip to the movies (to watch 1971's Marooned) where the disintegration of the family begins (the scene might remind you of a key scene in François Truffaut's The 400 Blows), a New Year's celebration featuring a shooting party which culminates in a forest fire, a student demonstration that ends tragically, and a visit to a seaside resort where a dangerous undertow and raging waves threatens the very lives of the main characters. Despite these superbly crafted showstoppers, it is the intimate moments of family life that catapult this film into the realm of greatness.

Roma is a Netflix film that you will be able to stream towards the end of the year, but this is the kind of movie that you need to watch on the big screen with an audience. Roma is Mexico's official entry into the 2018 Oscar race.  If I were you I'd race to a theater to watch it.

NYFF: THE BALLAD OF BUSTER SCRUGGS

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, is a rare, strange beast. An anthology film consisting of separate stories that go from the ridiculous to the sublime. The first one, featuring a singing cowboy Roy Rogers style was written twenty-five years ago. The film is a homage to the western, perhaps the most neglected genre in contemporary Hollywood. Of course, the Coens grew up in the heyday of the television western craze. So, visually, the stories borrow from Gunsmoke, Bat Masterson, Bonanza, and a myriad of others. There are also homages to the great cinematic westerns of the 40's and 50's as well as the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns that became a staple in theaters in the decade of the 60's.

So, the movie is a mish-mash of styles: there's a segment with a singing cowboy (Tim Blake Nelson) who is fast on the draw, who keeps on singing even after he loses a "high noon style" shootout. In another sequence James Franco comes to rob a bank looking like one of those laconic cowboys in the credit sequence of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, complete with a long riding coat. In another segment Tom Waits plays a gold prospector who strikes it rich to the tune of "Mother Machree," and in the longest sequence of the film a wagon train heading west is attacked by the kind of savage Indians that John Ford specialized in, and which I thought Hollywood had done away with in its revisionist phase. Perhaps the most poignant episode features Liam Neeson as a kind of traveling P.T. Barnum who displays one "freak:" an English actor (Harry Melling) with no arms or legs, a talking torso who recites everything from poetry to the Declaration of Independence. The episode builds to a climax of pure heartlessness, making it for me, the most satisfying of all the segments.

At the Q&A after the film, Kent Jones, the head of the selection committee at the New York Film Festival suggested that the unifying theme of the six stories is mortality. I'm sorry to say that this statement caught the brothers by surprise. Or were they just kidding, and playing to the crowd? With the Coens you never know. However, one thing's for sure: the movie is a very entertaining trifle which will surely please their fans.

Aïda at the MET

This is my second visit to the Metropolitan Opera in one week. My first visit was the MET’s opening night, and now I'm back here on Saturday night. Twice I have seen performances where the tenor delivers an abysmal performance. I’ve already described Roberto Alagna’s awful Samson, disgracing opening night, and now we can add Aleksandrs Antonenko’s appearance in Aïda. His terrible Radames has no place on the MET's stage.

Mr. Antonenko suffers from a variety of musical and acting ills. But his silent cinema acting could be forgiven if there were a voice behind the silly theatrics. Instead he offers an unfocused attempt at a vocal line where pitch problems abound as he scoops up to most notes. Incredibly enough his top is ringing and secure, which is the reason, I'm convinced, that he still gets hired here and in Europe. But the vocal journey to an above-the-staff destination is one of the most ugly and arduous I have heard in a long time. His curtain call received a cool reception, and a smattering of boos. 

The evening clearly belonged to the ladies. Anna Netrebko offering her first house Aïda was nothing less than a triumph. Those that were fortunate enough to see her first trip down the Nile in Salzburg two summers ago knew that she would not disappoint. Her Ethiopian princess featured sturdy vocalism, beauty of sound, and those precious high notes that make your ears ring. She is truly our current reigning queen of the operatic stage, and I hope that she continues to steer her career in the right vocal direction. Anita Rachvelishvili sang Amneris with vigor and a strong mezzo, and was a credible rival to Ms. Netrebko.

As Aïda's father, Quinn Kelsey delivered an impassioned reading of Amonasro; his steely baritone able to handle the vocal complexities of the role. Dmitry Belosselskiy was a sturdy Ramfis, as long as the role does not go below the staff where his voice disappears. Ryan Speedo Green made a lasting impression in the small role of the King. Conductor Nicola Luisotti led the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a work which I'm sure they can do with their eyes closed.

A word about the MET's production of this opera.  On the one hand, it is great to see the enormous stage of the MET being used by this larger than life conservative staging. On the other hand, in these days of experimentation, this production is starting to look a bit aged, a bit kitschy. Perhaps, it is time to take a long hard look at this perennial favorite and grace it with the production it deserves, not just use it to bring in the crowds who want to see what opera staging was like thirty years ago.

SAMSON ET DALILA: Opening night of the MET

The years have not been kind to Roberto Alagna's voice. As a matter of fact, I worry about his career, I think he is all washed up. The former star of Faust now gone to Hell. This summer he cancelled his debut at Bayreuth where he was to sing Lohengrin. This was a good move. He should have cancelled opening night of the MET. Bayreuth was spared this summer, but the Metropolitan Opera has suffered a black eye thanks to his catastrophic singing in the title role of Samson et Dalila, Camille Saint-Saëns's popular Biblical opera.

The new staging was directed by Darko Tresnjak, a Broadway director of some reknown (A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, and Anastasia) making his MET debut.  It has been the goal of General Manager Peter Gelb to bring new blood into the opera house by engaging Broadway directors to breathe new life into the warhorses. So far his record is a spotty one, and last night might have been another failing experiment. The production, with sets by Alexander Dodge and costumes by Linda Cho brings us nothing more than a kitschy staging, exactly what Peter Gelb is trying to move away from.  Some of the sets looked like the circles on the proscenium of Radio City Music Hall. The set of the final act in the temple of Dagon is a technicolor monstrosity that even Cecil B. DeMille would have rejected. As a matter of fact, DeMille's 1949 film of this story features a memorable epic set which Victor Mature topples down. Ms. Cho's costumes seem to also come right out of old-time Hollywood; maybe the Babylonian section from D.W. Griffith's 1916 film Intolerance. I'm sure that in 1916 these costumes would have been right at home at 39th Street and Broadway, at the old MET.

 Dalila was sung by Elina Garanca, who made such a splash last season as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Last night the Latvian mezzo-soprano was in good voice, but she never really got inside the skin of the character. Perhaps Mark Elder's conducting, with its slower-than-usual tempi, did not help her characterization. This score, with its many formal chorus pieces (there's even a fugue for the Israelites) and unusual music, whict at times hints at Peter Glass-style minimalism is a tricky one to pull off. Unfortunately last night, it all seemed flat, except for the chorus which sounded amazing, as always.

It was sad to hear Roberto Alagna in such horrendous vocal shape. His singing sounded thin and frail, and devoid of any top notes. Vocally, the opera ends with a B flat for Samson as he brings down the temple of Dagon, but at that point all that came out of Alagna's voice was a sad croak. The best that one can say about Alagna was written by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini: "To his credit, against all odds with this staging, he tried mightily all night."

The Man of the Hour: CARLOS RAMOS

Carlos Ramos, the Portuguese tennis umpire, became the man of the hour when he was on the chair for the Serena Williams/Naomi Osaka finals match. Why this honor in my book? Because he stuck to his guns, and he made sure that the match would follow strictly the rules of tennis, without pandering to Serena Williams and her custom of resorting to a meltdown when things don't go her way.

What happened during the match? Mr. Ramos realized that Serena's coach Patrick Mouratoglou was coaching Serena from his box seat at Ashe stadium. This is not allowed, so he gave Serena a warning. Serena protested that she does not cheat, and that she was not being coached. (Later on, Mouratoglou admitted that he was coaching her!) Minutes later, when Serena was down in the match, she smashed her racket. This being her second infraction, he deducted a point from her score. Serena went crazy! She had a massive "Mac-Attack" and insulted Ramos by calling him a "thief." Ramos fired back by deducting a whole game from Serena. Serena blew her top again, and called for the tournament directors, who followed the rules, and did nothing more than support the umpire.

Carlos Ramos's decisions were all according to the book. However, the audience at the stadium, many of them, Serena's fans, began to boo Ramos. And to add salt to the wound, after Serena lost the match, during the presentation of awards, Mr. Ramos was not recognized for his courageous work during the match. I have already called the USTA stupid for not closing the roof and putting on the air conditioner when the temperature reached the three digit mark during the first week of the tournament, but now I have to add that they are also gutless for not supporting one of their own, and letting themselves be persuaded by the crowd, and by the shenanigans of Serena, who continues to be a deplorable prima-donna.

The US Open is in Action, but why isn't the Roof?

This has been a summer where the heat has plagued events that are close and dear to my heart. My trip to the Bayreuth Festival this year from August 1-9 coincided with a heat wave that attacked Germany like it never had before.  It was uncomfortable at the Festspielhaus, a theater with no air conditioning, and it was unbearable at the Bayerische Hof Hotel, also with no AC.  This was my third trip to Wagner's city, and I had never experience such temperatures before.

The 2018 50th anniversary edition of the US Open has coincided with one of those New York heat waves that drives you indoors to a place where the air conditioning is going full blast. The players have been struggling through triple digit heat together with very high humidity. The USTA will not close the roof and pump the AC at Ashe Stadium because they claim that the Open is an "outdoor event." Of course, as soon as there is a threat of rain the roof will close -- so much for an outdoor event!

Fox News and the Associated Press reported that the powers-that-be at the Open are thinking of closing the roof if the heat continues. While they think about it, players are retiring, suffering through cramps, and fans have to seek shelter and hydrate before they faint. I guess keeping the roof open is good for water sales!  Here is the Fox News article:

Extreme temperatures at the U.S. Open on Tuesday and a scorching weather forecast for Wednesday have officials debating whether to close the roofs at two of the tournament's venues.

The temperatures during Day 2 of the season’s final major topped 95 degrees and the humidity nearly reached 50 percent, making it feel like more than 105 degrees on the courts of the Bille Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y. Six players were forced to quit their matches Tuesday, with five citing cramps or heat exhaustion.

The heat had U.S. Tennis Association executives considering whether to close the roofs at Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadiums, the Los Angeles Times reported. However, the newly renovated new Louis Armstrong Stadium is a naturally ventilated arena and it was unclear how much relief its new retractable roof could provide, especially with temperatures set to reach the upper 90s once again.

“We may close the roof in both buildings in an attempt to bring down the ambient temperature,” U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier told the L.A. Times.
The brutal weather even forced tennis officials to do something that had never been done fore at the U.S. Open: offer men the chance to take a 10-minute break before the fourth set if a match went that far. A similar rule is already in place for women, allowing 10 minutes of rest before a third set when there’s excessive heat.

At the end of the day, the ATP or a lot of the supervisors, they’re kind of sitting in their offices, where (there’s) an A.C. system on, where it’s cool. And we have to be out there. They tell us it’s fine; they’re not the ones playing,” Alexander Zverev, the No. 4 seed in the tournament, said. “For sure, the rule should be more strict. There should be a certain temperature, certain conditions where we shouldn’t be playing.”

Novak Djokovic, one of the favorites to win the men's title, felt the humidity as well.
“Everything is boiling — in your body, the brain, everything,” he said.

On the women’s side, Alize Cornet changed her shirt mid-match and received a warning. Male tennis players are allowed to change shirts on the court. Petra Kvitova told reporters after her match she was glad it lasted only a little over an hour.

“I really tried hard not to play the third one in this kind of heat,” she said. “I knew it's going to be very hot, but I couldn't imagine how horrible the heat was in, so it was pretty difficult conditions. … When you are playing, you are not just really thinking about it. But when you stop for a while, then you feel the heat like from the ground, as well. Yeah, it was the humidity, as well, was there. We didn't really play, like, long rallies. I think that was kind of helpful.”

Arthur Ashe Stadium opened in 1997 as an open-air stadium. But after several years of rain at the tournament, its roof was installed for around $150 million. Louis Armstrong Stadium opened in 1978 and has undergone several renovations. Its roof, newly installed, cost $200 million and the stadium is not air-conditioned. U.S. Open rules state that the tournament is to remain an outdoor event and the roofs will close only due to threat of rain, according to tournament director David Brewer.

BlacKkKlansman is the latest from Spike Lee

An incredible, almost unbelievable real cop story about the infiltration of a backwaters Ku Klux Klan chapter by a rookie black undercover police officer, using his white, Jewish partner as his double, serves as Spike Lee’s resounding career second act, his latest agitprop piece that rightfully puts him back on the charts for a new audience.

Spike Lee never really went away, but his recent output did not feel like the Fort Greene, 40 Acres and a Mule Spike of old. Sure, artists change and develop, but Spike seems to have emerged out of NYU already formed, already sure of himself, as he brought to the screen Afrocentric fare wrapped in socio-political discourse. BlacKkKlansman, his latest joint, is the real thing: Spike on top of his game, even with the excesses of old. Not a copy of his former art, but a textbook chapter on how to apply lessons from the past to a new public in order to empower them for a new fight. Make no mistake about it: this might be a story from the 1970’s, but this movie is all about Trump’s America, and the director makes no bones about it. Risking the very fact that the film could be dated years from now, this is the strongest indictment of the Trump administration to come out of Hollywood to date. The director has not lost his edge, in fact, his satiric vein might just be stronger than ever, and his anger over the current state of events boils over.

Heading a cast, ripe with Academy Award potential is John David Washington as Ron Stallworth, Colorado Spring's first African American cop, entering into a force replete with racial antagonism. Washington, with his "fro" looks like a figure straight out of the 1970's blaxploitation films that the movie quotes, as he builds a righteous persona for his character. Adam Driver, his doppelgänger in the sting operation, is Flip Zimmerman, a Jewish American detective who learns much about how he is perceived by others. The rest of the cast shines. Laura Harrier plays Patrice Dumas, an Angela Davis-type activist who Stallworth falls in love with. Topher Grace plays David Duke, the Klan's Grand Wizard, in a three-piece suit, as if he were running a business empire, and not the "invisible empire." Jasper Pääkkönen, as Felix, a dangerous member of the Klan chapter, is one of the scariest movie villains in quite a while. His performance is memorable and chilling. His wife, played by Ashlie Atkinson, is a monster who relishes the day when blacks will be eliminated by deadly force.

Spike Lee is a student of film, and a professor at NYU, his Alma Mater. BlacKkKlansman is filled with movie references both old and new, and on the shot seen above, he even copies himself. It's the "Spike Lee shot." No joint is complete without it. At a pivotal moment in the film, characters seem to glide forward towards an unknown destination. (The best use of this technique was in Malcolm X, as Denzel Washington -- John David's dad -- advances towards his tragic destiny at the Audubon Ballroom as we hear on the soundtrack Sam Cooke singing "A Change is Gonna Come."

It's a moment where young Washington must have felt connected to his dad, and a brilliant way for Spike Lee to bridge the generations as the struggle continues.

Castellucci brings Salome to Salzburg

Romeo Castellucci is a director of deep, abstract ideas.  His stage productions are abstractions that constantly ask the audience to think. This was his approach to Richard Strauss's Salome, that amazing one-act work that after so many years still amazes the listener, and given the right staging, it is still capable to shock an opera audience out of its complacency.  This is the aim of this production, which premiered at the Salzburg Festival on July 28, and which continues playing until August 27th. Conducted with utmost precision by Franz Welser-Möst, and played by the amazing Vienna Philharmonic, the scores bristles with dark, thunderous excitement that reminds us that in 1905, the year of this work's premiere, Strauss was a young enfant-terrible looking to shock. Enter Castellucci with a production that visually attempts to top Strauss, and at times almost succeeds.

The opera has been staged in the auditorium of the Felsenreitschule, and the first thing we notice is that its famous arches have been covered. This evening will be all about hard cold stone: gray walls, gray men in 1930's fedoras and long coats, faces inexplicably half-painted red, and a John the Baptist, his face painted black, wearing a black fur coat that makes him look like a Biblical King Kong. Salome, meanwhile, dressed all in white, is his worshiping Ann Darrow. And constantly, naked bodies are being dragged across the endless stage giving us an atmosphere of horror, perfect for this work.

Forget about watching Asmik Gregorian do the "Dance of the Seven Veils." The Lithuanian soprano, who scores a triumph with this production, is crushed under a block of stone during that amazing music. And forget about seeing a facsimile of bass-baritone Gábor Bretz's head brought on a silver platter. When the time comes, the prophet's headless body instead is brought out for the Jewish princess to drool over. The only severed head we get is that of a horse. I'm sure Castellucci will argue that it is not a homage to The Godfather, and it is not. A girl's first infatuation in her life oftentimes is for a horse. This Freudian fetish beautifully mirrors Salome's fixation on Jochanaan.

Overall, an interesting and provocative production that will keep you on the edge of your seat musically, while intellectually entertaining your senses with images you will not be able to shake out of your system for a while.

My third PARSIFAL at Bayreuth

The current production of Parsifal, now in its third year, replaced the Stefan Herheim staging I was lucky to see in 2012. That production moved the action to Bayreuth itself, and enacted the history of Germany from the antebellum turn of the century, its entrance into World War I and on through the debacle of the Second World War and beyond. It was a spectacular achievement, my first Parsifal at Bayreuth, and so inspired that it was truly a hard act to follow.  The current production, which I first saw last year, moves the action to the present-day Middle East, transforming the knights into a sect of monks, who harbor a Christ-like Amfortas who is literally bled for his sins and ours.  It is an interesting vision which strives towards a universality to Wagner's work, but ultimately just ends up being a series of good ideas and pretty stage pictures lacking a cohesive factor to unify the staging.

There have been some changes in the cast since this production premiered three years ago, most notably, the departure of Klaus Florian Vogt last year, who dedicated his summer at the Green Hill to Walter, as he did this year, and Georg Zeppenfeld who this year moved on to sing King Henry the Fowler in the new Lohengrin. This was the second year that Parsifal was sung by Andreas Schager, a tenor with a true robust, heldentenor voice, which, however, he uses only in its forte and fortissimo capacities, giving the impression that he is shouting the role. The Festspielhaus is small enough to allow subtlety. Günther Groissböck took on the role of Gurnemanz this year, and I thought the results were mixed. The quality of his voice is certainly suited for the part, but I think the problem here is that we have grown accustomed to listening to more lyrical voices sing this part (i.e. René Pape, who seems to own the role around the world). But to be fair to Mr. Groissböck, the bass sang with determination, and depth of tone. It was just not a pretty sound. Baritone Thomas Meyer sounded like he was under the weather. His Amfortas in the third act felt like he was singing from under the sea, fathoms deep. His aria to his father was a mess, and he resorted to the "Bayreuth Bark" when he knew the notes were far beyond his reach. Elena Pankratova has remained with the production since its first year, and her Kundry is a master class in singing and acting.

Arguably, this production has suffered from a lack of musical leadership right from the start. The original conductor of this production was to have been Andris Nelsons, but he left the production at the last minute with an axe to grind against Christian Thielemann, so say Bayreuth insiders. Harmut Haenchen stepped in at the last minute, and conducted this staging for the first two years. This season Semyon Bichkov has taken over the orchestra, and although his tempi are on the fast side, his conducting of this intricate score was solid, at all times making sure that his singers were not drowned out. Interestingly enough, as a result of his cautious handling of the pit, I felt the chorus at times drowned out his orchestra: a first for me at Bayreuth.

The New LOHENGRIN at Bayreuth

The new production of Lohengrin, with sets and costumes by husband-and-wife team of Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy promised the first swan knight from Roberto Alagna, an unprecedented career turn for the French-Italian singer. Of course, it was too good to be true, or perhaps too true to be good, in any case, Alagna bowed out a few weeks before the July 25 opening night claiming that he had not learned the part.  Polish tenor Piotr Beczala came to the rescue, and why not: he had not only performed the role earlier, but his conductor was Christian Thielemann who was also conducting this production.  Opening Night was telecast to theaters in Germany as well as over BR Klassik, and it was the first time in a long while that a new production was not savagely booed.  The audience loved the blue colors of the new staging, and Rauch, Loy and director Yuval Sharon, the first American to direct at Bayreuth, received a rousing ovation

Watching the production live at the Festspielhaus is like witnessing a Neo Rauch painting come to life. The devil is in the details, However, and that's where Ms. Loy's costumes make a difference. She takes her husbands flat canvas backdrops and 2-dimensional cut-outs of trees and populates them with principals and a chorus dressed brilliantly, recreating the social realism look of the New Leipzig  School that over the years we have come to expect.

 Piotr Beczala is a trouper: a life-saver for the Bayreuth Festival.  When they were stuck for a new tenor he cancelled his other engagements and agreed to do all the Lohengrins this summer at the Green Hill.  But, beware this role! The great tenor Nicolai Gedda only dared perform it once. It is a voice killer for a light tenor. Beczala had performed it before under the baton of Thielemann -- that's how he got to this year's festival, and although last night's performance was a triumph, I heard him pushing his voice to the brink, and I would exercise caution in attempting this role once more.  Anja Harteros started very weakly, but by the time the third act came about that silky voice that has been compared to a fine tuned Stradovarius shone through.  If you have not hears her, picture a young soprano with the golden voice of Renata Tebaldi, and then you'll know why this German/Greek artist is so sought after around the world.

Although she is a crowd favorite for being active on the stage for so long and for a multitude of brilliant performances around the world, Waltraud Meier sang flat throughout the evening. The role might be getting to her after performing it four times already at the Festpielhaus. It's a challenging role for an elder singer.  Nonetheless she brought years of experience to the part, which translated into fireworks for the audience, and they loved it. The Telramund of Tomasz Konieczny was quite remarkable, as was the conducting of the orchestra by Thielemann who by now knows every nook and cranny of this pit and house, and is able to bring out the sound like none other. 

Overall, the new Lohengrin is a non-controversial staging of this lovely work, which seems to be enjoying the audience's adulation this summer.  After so many years of controversial productions, and experimental designs, is this the way Bayreuth is heading?

Meistersinger 2.0 at Bayreuth

One of the highlights of last year’s trip to Bayreuth was attending Barrie Kosky’s new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.  The Australian gay director, who also happens to be Jewish, chose to highlight the anti-Semitism found in Richard Wagner’s work as it is found in the character of Sixtus Beckmesser, superbly sung and acted by Johannes Martin Kränzle, who is back this summer reprising this role.  As a matter of fact, most of the principals from last year are back, which makes this Meistersinger 2.0 a pleasure to witness, since Mr. Kosky has not just sat on last year’s laurels, but he has gone back to the drawing board and improved upon last year’s wonderful staging.

What is different this year? Act II lost the grassy surface that at the end of the act was rolled up anyway. Objects and furniture from the first act, which takes place in Wahnfried, Wagner's home in Bayreuth, were suddenly thrown together on stage left. The end of the act still features the controversial Jewish head ballon that shocked many viewers last year.  The only difference being that I do not remember booing during the opening night telecast, or the performance I attended.  This year, the conclusion of Act II featured vociferous booing from segments of the audience, although applause and cheers far outweighed those that were booing this production. Why the boos? Something tells me that there were some in the audience that like their Wagner cut and dry, conservative and without  any directorial intervension.  Or perhaps it might have been that segments of the audience that are still troubled by  Anti-Semitic references, and the role Wagner's music played in the development of National Socialism: the last time that Germany officially tried to destroy its Jewish population.

You couldn't ask for a better cast: the aforementioned Kränzle has settled into his role, and gives a masterful performance that last year could have been described as "shtick" but this year has matured into a character of Shakespearean dimension.  Michael Volle is right now the finest singling and acting Hans Sachs, and the same can be said about Klaus Florian Vogt's Walter. Together with newcomer to the cast Emily Magee as Eva, the principals are surrounded by a great cast of meistersingers, each of whom has a distinctive personality.

Philippe Jordan conducted with a sure hand, and achieved the kind of unique sound that manages to escape from the sunken pit and envelop the audience. Not every conductor manages to do it, but Maestro Jordan was quite successful in making us closer to Wagner's great music.

As long as this cast stays together, this will be a production for the ages.  Now, it is time to film it, and share it with the rest of the world.

The Flying Dutchman as Light Operetta

Certainly one of the wonders of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer is how close it was to the music of Weber and Meyerbeer.  Although Wagner is already a fully formed composer at this time, he still holds on to the trappings of Romantic Opera, where set pieces were the norm of the day.  Thus, this work is filled with arias and ensembles that later on Wagner would drop in favor of a more unified musical creation.  The current production at the Bayreuth Festival, directed by Jan Philipp Gloger is an uncontroversial, and, at times, a light, and apathetic look at the age-old story of the mariner who blasphemed and thus has been cursed to wonder the seven seas in search of a pure maiden who can redeem him.

In this production, the director accentuates Daland's greed upon seeing the Dutchman's wealth, and turns the spinning wheels into a factory where portable fans are being packed and shipped by factory girls in sky blue uniforms. Of course, Senta is the only one not packing fans: she is too busy with her fetishistic sex doll of the Dutchman (a real ugly, misshapen object. Why would anyone fancy this?). No wonder when Daland brings the Dutchman to the factory and Senta finally meets the man of her dreams she is struck by his beauty and sex appeal.  It is a riveting moment in this staging.  I wish there had been more.

In an evening where the singing was first rate, the work of the chorus must be singled out. Eberhard Friedrich's ensemble is a well-oiled machine which can sing brightly and powerful, as in the chorus of men who move from the back of the deep stage to the apron pulling forward the set for the spinning wheel AKA fan scene. The chorus of women at the factory also did exemplary work, and boy, can they act.

The principals all sang their roles with gusto and good cheer, and the audience applauded them with even more gusto. Despite a very high temperature inside the Festspielhouse, there were many curtain calls, unlimited, as is the custom at the Green Hill. Among the principal players Tomislav Muzek showed off his powerful tenor voice as the forlorn Erik, and the steersman of Rainer Trost delighted the audience with this acting. John Lundgren's Dutchman is a dark, malevolent figure and Ricarda Merbeth's Senta is a powerful, wild driven woman. The two were made for each other! Axel Kober's conducting was firm, and he led a vigorous reading of this early score.

After six years, it is time for this production to be retired, and in its place we need a darker version of this story. After all, it's what Wagner's music calls for.

"Basket of Deplorables" at work

This was the scene in Tampa, Florida as Jim Acosta from CNN was doing his reporting at one of Donald Trump's rallies.  The crowd, incited by many months of hearing about fake news from POTUS, turned on the journalist yelling at him, raising their middle fingers and screaming "CNN sucks!"

As I prepare to leave the United States to go to Bayreuth, Germany for the Bayreuth Festival I hang my head in shame that this is the state of my country at this moment.

Bayreuth Opens with a new LOHENGRIN

Remember that line Jeff Goldblum said in the film The Fly, as he was leaving his humanity behind and turning into a hideous monster? "Have you ever heard of insect politics?...insects don't have politics. They're very brutal, no compassion, no compromise."  For some reason, I thought of this moment from the film as I was watching the telecast from opening night of the Bayreuth Festival. The new production of Lohengrin, directed by Yuval Sharon, the first American to direct at the Green Hill, with sets and costumes by noted artists Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy, features principals sporting insect wings, and living in a Brabant that looks like a blue Munchkin Land.

The look of the production closely mirrors Neo Rauch's works, where figures dressed like Baroque figures from a Flemish painting (the costumes are by Ms. Loy) occupy a landscape filled with figurative and abstract objects. A power plant, with visible electrical wires comes to life as Lohengrin (Piotr Beczala) appears, dressed as an electrician, his weapon is a lightning rod sword. Elsa (Anja Harteros) already seems to feel the "sparks" brought on by her knight since her bluish hair seems to stand up on its own.The villains of the piece, Telramund and Ostrud (Tomasz Konieczny and Waltraud Meier) are deliciously evil in a silent movie kind of way, although we really feel sorry for Telramund when Lohengrin tears off one of his wings during their combat scene, and then pins it on a tree.

It's all about the colors in this production, and why not, since the sets are by a famed artist. Although much of the evening is clad in the kind of blue that reminds one of the backdrops of many a Balanchine ballet, the love scene in Act III is a very bright orange. When Gottfried finally makes his appearance at the end of the opera he is a man covered with bright green fur. These surprise colors are quite remarkable.

Is it a great production?  I'm not sure yet.  I'm looking forward to watching it live at Bayreuth in a couple of weeks. It looked great for the cameras, and I hope it looks just as beautiful at the Festspielhaus.

PARSIFAL at the Bavarian State Opera

There is a new production of Parsifal at the Bavarian State Opera. It features a stellar cast of Wagnerians: Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, Nina Stemme as Kundry and René Pape as Gurnemanz. Kirill Petrenko leads the orchestra of the Staatsoper.  The production, directed by Pierre Audi, features sets and costumes by famed German artist Georg Baselitz. Today you can watch a re-broadcast of yesterday's performance for free.  Go HERE for more details.  Enjoy!

Piotr Beczała will sing LOHENGRIN at Bayreuth

Piotr Beczała has accepted the challenge of taking over the title role in the new Bayreuth production of Lohengrin, after Roberto Alagna walked away from the Green Hill claiming that he was not ready to sing the role.  The following was posted on Mr. Beczała's website:

The last few days were full of excitement and doubts, but the decision has been made. Piotr agreed to take over the role of Lohengrin at the famous Wagner’s festival. Now he has 3 weeks of rehearsals left before his big debut at the Bayreuth Festival, where he will also be the first Polish singer in a title role.

Piotr sang Lohengrin at the Dresden Semperoper in 2016 alongside Anna Netrebko, and under the current conductor Christian Thielemann. This acclaimed production was later released on DVD.

This performance has been posted on YouTube:


Piotr accepted the assignment on a short notice and was forced to cancel some of his scheduled performances. In a statement on his social media profiles, the artist wrote:

Dear Friends!
As you may have just read, I am taking over the title role in Richard Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at this year’s Bayreuth Festival. I am of course extremely excited to make my Bayreuth debut this year, and to collaborate again with Christian Thielemann and so many wonderful colleagues.

But with all the excitement, I also want to tell you that this has been a very difficult decision for me. I know I am disappointing many of you who were planning to see me in other cities around the world. Please know that I hate nothing more than disappointing you, dear friends. I can only hope for your understanding that this is such a very special situation and promise to make it up to you in the future! I want to thank all the wonderful cultural institutions who understood this and helped me to get to Bayreuth. And I want to thank you, dear friends, for your love and support, always. See you very soon! Piotr

The fans of the artist were very supportive and Piotr received hundreds of comments and private messages of congratulations and encouragement for which he was very grateful.

The new production of Lohengrin is created by director Yuval Sharon and conductor Christian Thielemann, the stage design comes from the well-known artist couple Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy. The premiere will take place on July 25^th.

Alagna is out of Bayreuth's new LOHENGRIN

 Roberto Alagna has withdrawn from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival. The festival announced that the tenor, who was set to make his festival debut and sing his first Wagner role, withdrew from the festival due to "work overload." The statement also noted that Alagna was unable to spend enough time with the role.

In other words, the July 25 opening night of this opera is almost here, and he has not learned the role.

The festival has yet to announce a replacement, but the remaining cast members remain the same. Alagna will next perform at the Metropolitan Opera where he will open the season singing the title role in Samson et Dalila. The tenor will also perform Andrea Chénier at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Otello  at the Opéra National de Paris, Luisa Miller in Opera de Monte Carlo, and La Traviata in Paris.

Meanwhile, the Bayreuth Festival opens on July 25 with Christian Thielemann conducting this new production of Lohengrin, which currently has no tenor. Director Yuval Sharon will become the first American to direct at Bayreuth. Scheduled singers Anja Harteros and Waltraud Meier are still scheduled to perform.