No Man is an Island: Parsifal at Bayreuth

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 Parsifal, a work that in 1882 Richard Wagner labeled a “Stage-consecrating Festival Drama,” was never to be heard outside of the “sacred precincts” of Bayreuth.  For the composer, the quasi-religious aspect of the work was the perfect liturgy for his cathedral of music on the Green Hill.  More importantly, the orchestration of the work was written with the Festspielhaus’s singular acoustics in mind.  Bayreuth was its home – a veritable Montsalvat on a hill guarding its own Holy Grail.  Wagner died the following year, and his widow Cosima was not able to stop the Metropolitan Opera from staging a rogue production of it in 1903.  Eventually, the dominoes began to fall, and once the copyright expired on the work in 1913, European theaters began staging the work as well.  Parsifal now belonged to the world.

In my lifetime I have attended perhaps twelve performances of this work.  I have not counted -- all of them have been at the Metropolitan Opera.  Over the years I heard Jon Vickers and Plácido Domingo triumph in the title role, and I have heard James Levine and the MET orchestra reach and maintain an outstanding level of musical maturity with this work.

I know the piece fairly well, and I have listened to it multiple times in recording following it with my Dover orchestra score.  My mind’s ear knows what the next musical phrase is going to be.  Now I have heard my first Parsifal at Bayreuth, and it is like listening to it for the first time.  In this epic production director Stefan Herheim dramatizes the background story of the opera, setting it in Bayreuth itself with Wagner’s house, Wahnfried, as the background.  Likewise, this production allows us to see not just the growth of Parsifal (Burkhard Fritz) from guileless fool to compassionate enlightened being, as the composer intended, but we become witnesses to the story of the German nation through the madness of World War I, the rise of the Nazi Party, the destruction of World War II, and the reconstruction and unification of the German people. 

In Act two, the magic palace of the sorcerer Klingsor (Thomas Jesatko) is transformed into a military hospital ward filled with the walking wounded of World War I trench warfare.  Kundry (Susan MacLean) appears to Parsifal as the personification of Marlene Dietrich, complete with tuxedo and top hat, and, at the conclusion of the act, the one who hurls the sacred spear at Parsifal is a “Hitlerjunge”, in full brown shirt and armband regalia, on a stage draped with numerous Nazi flags.  By the way, these flags are red, and have a black swastika inside a white circle, of course.  The same symbol that Yevgeny Nikitin had tattooed on his chest and then covered up.

Act three begins in a Germany in ruins.  Gurnemanz (the amazing Kwangchul Youn) is in uniform, a deserter from the front, and Kundry as civilian casualty unable to say more than the only words that Wagner provided for her: “service, service.”  When Parsifal enters, however, his hair is shoulder-length, and he is the very essence of a knight errand crusader complete with helmet, shield and lance.  As Kundry washes his feet and dries them with her own hair, for a moment this production takes on a very conservative tone.  If for a moment, the settings brings to mind the kind of staging that Wagner would recognize for his work.  Save for Gurnemanz’s modern dress, it looks like the first production of this work that I saw at the MET when I was a young man and knew very little about the work.  Eventually the production recuperates its post-modern feel, and it concludes with the Brotherhood of the Grail as German politicians in the Reichstag.  A giant mirror over them, that all along had been reflecting a gigantic German eagle on the floor, eventually turns to reflect the audience, the musicians in the sunken pit, and then turns into a rotating globe that shines on all of us gathered at the Festspielhaus.  Those of us gathered at Wagner’s theater  represent a microcosm of the world, and the universality of Richard Wagner’s music is seen reflecting on us all.

Sad, Sad, Sad: Tannhäuser at Bayreuth

After the first act of Tannhäuser finished, I stepped outside and filmed the following video.

Be sure that that hopeful smile on my face disappeared very quickly after being subjected to the concluding acts of Sebastian Baumgarten's travesty on Richard Wagner's romantic opera  The production is not a mindless romp, nor is it what many would consider a desecration of holy writ: it's just plain bad!  We are in a unit set where the Venusberg and the Wartburg are one.  Possibly, the one interesting aspect of the production.  The realm of Venus with its caged subhumans, is right out of the film Planet of the Apes, Venus is pregnant, presumably with Tannhäuser's child, and The Wartburg is a biogas factory.  When we enter the theater we see a curtainless stage where actors are already at work.  The focal point of the set is a giant red tank, an "alcoholator" with the days of the week printed on it.  It seems that this is the worker's manna, and by the actions of the chorus they love their manna.  The workers are often seen embracing the contraption as if it's mother's milk.

Baumgarten has also added material to the performance that does not come from Wagner.  It is the custom at the Festspielhaus for audiences to exit the theater during intermission and to enjoy the grounds, the restaurant, and the refreshing air of the Grünen Hügel.  However, if you walk out you miss scenes that Baumgarten has added that shows the daily lives of the workers.  For example, after the conclusion of Act two a group of workers build a makeshift altar where a priest conducts a new-wave mass complete with a litany that exalts the goodness of an industrial age.  It is performance art as filler showing that the story goes on even after the curtain comes down, which is unnecessary.

This Brechtian approach to Wagner, with plenty of projection of German words, leaves me at a loss how it reflects back to Wagner's original story.  For instance, in Act three the pilgrims do not come back from Rome, but from a deprogramming room where their minds have been altered so they can be more productive.  The wonderful Festspielhaus chorus comes back singing Wagner's powerful music, but they are all cleaning each other, and everything in sight, not praising God and the Pope for having forgiven them.  It is a visually interesting moment, but it puts us very far from Wagner's original intention.

At the conclusion of the opera Venus gives birth, and holds up her child as the last chords of the score intones.  Mr. Baumgarten's job is to serve the composer, but it seems that for the most part he is serving himself and his misbegotten view of Wagner's work.

Verstummte Stimmen - Silenced Voices

Here is a short video I took of the Verstummte Stimmen exhibition that is currently just outside of the Bayreuth Festspilehaus, in the garden that surrounds the bust of Richard Wagner.  It is a moving tribute to the scores of artists that were forbidden to performed at the Festspielhaus because they were Jewish.  Many of them fell victims to the Nazis in the death camps during World War II.  It is an unforgettable, sad, moving experience.  A sobering reminder of times past, made even more so because the Festspilehaus itself is only steps away.

A memorable Lohengrin at Bayreuth

The first thing that you have to get over in order to strain some type of enjoyment from the current production of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival is that director Hans Neuenfels has dressed the chorus as rats.  On the surface, it is an absurd piece of regie-theatre, and those that never venture past the surface were the first ones booing when the production team took their vows opening night in 2010.  But if we dig deeper, by going to the source, i.e., if we study the story through Richard Wagner’s libretto we might be able to conclude that the citizens of Brabant are trapped in a society where they are abused by the powerful, and forced to serve.   Are they rats as denizens of the lower depths?  Rats as specimens in a laboratory?  Rats trapped in an Orwellian world?  A mixture of all three, I would say.  However, an inspired Winston Smith moment arose early in the first act when one of the rats tried to assassinate King Henry the Fowler after he commanded his subjects (the rats) to rise to arms against the invading Hungarians.  The creature managed to pull a knife on the monarch, but before he could harm the king the rat was dragged away by thought-police types into a laboratory where surely his brain will be re-programmed to believe that two plus two equals five.  Mr. Neuenfels’s metaphors are not stupid, just obvious most of the time.

Last night, the most beautiful singing came from Klaus Florian Vogt.  His shining tenor cutting through the orchestra fabric with the kind of sweet intonation that separates him from the usual hefty heldentenors who usually take on Wagnerian roles.  Annette Dasch sang and acted the role of Elsa with conviction.  She is able to convey a sense of victimization through her acting and her sweet, but at times frail voice.  Thomas J. Mayer and Susan MacLean were both very good as Telramund and Ortrud.  Wilhelm Schwinghammer was a memorable King Henry, and Samuel Youn once again proved that he might just be the busiest singer in Bayreuth these days.  After he has taken the role of the Holländer this year his baritone continues to be a focused, beautiful shining instrument.

The most impressive part of the evening was the Bayreuth chorus.  Time and time again this ensemble, led by Eberhard Friedrich proves that choral singing can achieve astonishing heights.  Last night he took a vow with his group.  It was well deserved.  The same can rightly be said of conductor Andris Nelsons, who lead an impressive reading of the score. 

There were multiple curtain calls at the end, and when Mr. Vogt appeared that ignited the house into my first Bayreuth standing ovation.  When the audience at the Green Hill likes a performance it is as if an explosion occurs.  It was very exciting to be there and experience this.

This photo, taken with my iPhone, does not do justice to the interior of the Margravial Opera House, but at least it gives you an idea of the extravagance and opulence of the place.  Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia participated here as writer, player, composer, actor and director.

My first opera at Bayreuth: Tristan und Isolde

The Festspielhaus does a good job of welcoming newcomers.  At least that’s how I felt yesterday after stepping inside the auditorium for the first time in my life.  I slipped in to my seat rather comfortably, I must say.  For years I had heard that comfort was not something that Richard Wagner’s theater was known for.  Save for the wooden back (no wonder people bring cushions for lumbar support) it’s not a bad way to listen to a Wagnerian act.

I can’t describe properly, at least not yet, what it was like to step inside a place that you always wanted to go to all your life.  Aside from a great feeling of accomplishment, there is also the believability factor that stayed with me throughout the evening.  At times I had to forget the opera, look around, and say to myself: “Oh, my God, I’m at the Festspielhaus!  I’m actually here!  I made it!”  After an eight-year wait for tickets the sense of finally having arrived is very big.  And my first taste of the place was with Wagner’s mature work Tristan und Isolde.

For those in 1865 who were musically trained, the harmonic landscape of Tristan und Isolde must have been mystifying and exhilarating.  They were listening to Wagner hijacking Romantic music into an undiscovered musical territory that Western composers had not explored.  Its daring new musical language quickly influenced many, and it is safe to say that no work written after “Tristan” has failed to be influenced by this astonishing work.  For the ordinary listener, in the mid nineteenth century, however, this opera must have been musically incomprehensible and truly disorienting.  Even now, for modern un-initiated audiences, Tristan und Isolde can sound challenging, and its musical landscape obtuse and murky.  To fully understand the work one has to analyze its musical language.

It all happens within the first ten seconds of the opera.  The “Tristan Chord,” a diminished chord that fails to resolve the previous notes, and instead leads us to another unresolved harmony, serves as the perfect metaphor for the forbidden sexual longing between the two lovers.  It also arguably serves as the starting point in the history of music for the disintegration of tonality.  Wagner dares to carry this experiment for hours, right to the end of the work.  Resolution is only allowed to occur minutes before its conclusion.  The tonal landscape resolves itself with the death of the lovers, and on top of that it is not an easy resolution.  Wagner resolves his music in a way that opens the door to another harmonic development.  To us, the “Tristan Chord” no longer sounds puzzling.  Our modern ears are accustomed to this kind of unresolved dissonances.  We’ve heard it in contemporary classical music, jazz, and punk rock.  However, for mid nineteenth century audiences it was the unheard of music of the future.  Wieland Wagner, the composer’s grandson and director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1951 to 1967 described the work as “the acknowledged summit and supreme crisis of Romantic music, and at the same time the gateway to the atonality of our century.”

Christoph Marthaler’s current production is odd. Set in either a has-been ocean liner or a run-down hotel in a totalitarian state (I can’t decide which), it focuses on rings of light in the sky and walls.  The characters are always looking up at the ceiling, or touching the walls, where oftentimes one finds a switch that turns those lights on and off.  It is a rather odd way to interpret Wagner’s libretto where the lovers constantly sing about wanting to be alone with one another in the darkness of night.

This cast has been singing this production, more or less, since its premiere.  Tenor Robert Dean Smith has sung every performance of this work.  Last night, he sounded a bit weak, and many times covered up by the amazing playing of the orchestra under the capable hands of Peter Schneider.  Iréne Theorin is one of the great Isoldes of our time.  Her singing was forceful, able to ride the orchestra, and even overpower it at times.  Likewise, Kwangchul Youn was a sonorous, dark King Mark.  Unfortunately, during the last part of his Act II monologue an old lady in the audience fainted, and this brought the kind of disturbance that takes your mind totally away from the stage.

There was some ugly sounding singing from Jukka Rasilainen as Kurwenal, and a beautiful interpretation of Brangäne by South African singer Michelle Breedt.

All in all, the truth of the matter is that I will never forget this “Tristan” because it was my first time in Bayreuth.  Perhaps, in future visits to the Festspielhaus during this trip I will be able to distance myself from the place and concentrate on the performance.  As a first timer, I think it's going to be hard.

Bayreuth: The Margravial Opera House

The Margravial Opera House (Markgräfliches OperHaus) is one of the last surviving European theatres dating back to the mid 1700s.  In the words of Stephen Fry in his documentary Wagner & Me it is a “Rococo extravaganza” the likes of which is hard to find anywhere else in Europe.  The ornamentation is truly breathtaking, beyond gaudy in its plethora of decoration.  It transports you back to a time when this late Baroque style was the supreme example of an age. On my first day in Bayreuth I saw the exterior of the theater where I took this picture with my iPhone.  Tomorrow I hope to visit and see the marvelous interior, this time armed with my Nikon D90.

The theatre was already one hundred years old by the time the young Richard Wagner conducted here.  For him this place represented what he hated most about theatre going in his day.  From among its statues of angels and crystal chandeliers, royalty and the very rich came to this jewel box to see and be seen.  The lights would remain lit during a performance, and audiences typically arrived late, talked during the show, and usually left early.  It was a place to admire social superiors in their gilded boxes and scoff at social inferiors.  Meanwhile, the performance would dribble on in the background, no more important than “musak” in a modern elevator.

Thanks to Wagner’s experiences in this theatre and in others like it, he began to formulate particular ideas about what makes a theatre piece, and how audiences should behave during one.  For starters, Wagner was the first to conduct turning away from the audience, a concept that reached its zenith in the hidden orchestra pit at the Festspielhaus, where neither the orchestra nor the conductor is seen at all.  It was also Wagner’s idea to turn off the lights in the theatre so that the audience could concentrate on the action on stage, and not on the social interactions in the boxes out in the audience.

These were radical concepts from one of the most radical minds of the nineteenth century.  Interesting that many of these ideas simmered in the mind of the young Wagner while conducting in one of the most beautifully ornate, but conservative minded theatres in the world.

A New Dutchman at Bayreuth

From the very first measures of its famous overture, in a great production of Der fliegende Holländer we are transported to the middle of a supernatural thunderous storm and to the depths of a very dark sea.  Richard Wagner's fourth opera is such a great leap forward in the musical development of the composer that it seems that his earlier three works were written by someone else. And perhaps they were.  Wagner was not the same man after he and his first wife Minna survived an arduous journey to Paris on the ship "Thetis."  Wagner never forgot the fury of the storms that caused Minna to have a miscarriage.  Surely it is the memory of that event that caused Wagner's genius to develop the great evocation of the sea that makes The Flying Dutchman such a powerful and unforgettable work.  The sea is in the music, and the music is married to the story.  Remove the story from Wagner's maritime world, and the musical spell is broken.  This is unfortunately what happened opening night of the Bayreuth Festival this year.  The fury of the sea was there thanks to Christian Thielemann's superb reading of the score, but for his debut at Bayreuth Jan Philipp Gloger delivered a dry dock version of the Dutchman.  Picture Moby Dick shanghaied to the desert or a jungle.

In Gloger's Dutchman, the leading character, beautifully sung by Samuel Youn (who replaced Yevgeny Nikitin) is some kind of itinerant salesman with a briefcase.  He arrives without a ship, dressed in a modern suit, but with a shiny black tattoo on the side of his head, which suggests an island archipelago.  He falls in love with Senta (Adrianne Pieczonka), a girl dressed in red who works in a factory packing electric fans into cardboard boxes.  What this has to do with Wagner's original intention for a story is beyond me.  It's just another example of Bayreuth being the place for wonderful musical performances of Wagner's works and way-out productions.  Needless to say, the singers as well as the orchestra, along with maestro Thielemann received an outstanding ovation from the audience.  Mr. Gloger and the rest of the production team were booed.

The irritating aspect of this production is that ultimately it does not have anything interesting to say about the work.  The lusty boos that the late Christoph Schlingensief and Katharina Wagner received for their Parsifal and Die Meistersinger respectively were well-earned.  They set out to provoke, and boy did they ever.  This production seems to earn the wrath of the audience not because it deviates from Wagner's original intentions, but perhaps because it does not deviate enough.

Future Bayreuth Parsifal Director Loves Swastikas!

Things are getting curiouser and curiouser at Bayreuth these days.  A little over 72 hours after bass-baritone Yevgeny Nikitin made an exit out of the new production of Der fliegende Holländer following a revelation that at one point he had a swastika tattooed on his chest, Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, who have run the festival since the death of their father Wolfgang Wagner, have announced that the 2016 new production of Parsifal will be directed by way-out radical German artist Jonathan Meese.  And guess what?  Meese loves swastikas!  The artist is notorious for using swastikas in his art, as well as other Nazi imagery.  Meese's own words reveal his unique relationship to these well-known Nazi symbols:

"They should be what they are, not want we want them to be. That’s crucial. It’s not about what I want. It’s about what these terms want. For they want something. Of course a swastika is ideologically loaded, but that’s not in the thing itself. The swastika will tell us itself what it wants. We’ve only lost that. We’ve only forgotten that. That this can also be conceded to these things, to be exactly that, what they want and not what I want—that’s critical."

Even though Meese has had little experience directing an opera, in 2005 he was responsible for a performance art piece using Wagner's complete Parsifal score.  This six hour performance took place at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter der Linden under the baton of Daniel Barenboim.  Here are two picture from that performance.

The news that Meese is coming to Bayreuth immediately brings to mind the 2004 Christoph Schlingensief notorious production of Parsifal that was consistently booed year after year.  Ultimately, that production tried but failed to knock down some of the more conservative walls at the Green Hill.  Artistically, it was not strong enough to do that.  What it did accomplish was to crack the door open and allow an artist like Meese to sneak in with the hopes that he will subvert the place a few notches more. 

Given his track record, there will be a huge outcry when Meese unveils his Bayreuth Parsifal four years from now -- whatever he comes up with.  Those conservative walls are still very much there, and I'm convinced that the Bayreuth management is setting the scene for a tremendous right versus left clash.  It's what they want because they know it's the thing that makes opera exciting these days.

Samuel Youn to replace Nikitin

The Bayreuth Festival has announced that bass-baritone Samuel Youn will replace Yevgeny Nikitin in the title role of Der fliegende Holländer.  Nikitin made a quick exit out of the festival this weekend after a German TV program revealed that among the singer's plethora of tattoos he once had a swastika inked on his chest. 

Samuel Youn is a veteran at Bayreuth.  In 2005 he sang the role of Reinmar von Zweter in Philippe Arlaud's production of Tannhäuser, which was conducted by Christian Thielemann.  He was also in Christoph Schlingensief's notorious production of Parsifal conducted by Pierre Boulez.  This year Mr. Youn was to have a very light festival, singing only six performances of Hans Neuenfels controversial staging of Lohengrin.  With the addition of Holländer this brings the number of performances to twelve.  Let's hope that his voice holds out, and that he is able to fulfill his full commitment.

Nikitin out of Bayreuth due to Swastika tattoo

Major controversy has erupted at the Bayreuth Festival mere days before opening night.  Russian bass baritone Yevgeny Nikitin, who was to sing the title role in Die fliegende Holländer, has pulled out of the festival at the last minute after a German television show exposed the fact that Nikitin, whose body is filled with tattoos, had at one point in his life a swastika inked on his chest.  Here is how AFP reported the news:

"Russian opera singer Yevgeny Nikitin said Saturday he had pulled out of the lead role in a new production of "The Flying Dutchman" at the Bayreuth Festival amid a row over a swastika tattoo.
A festival spokesman said bass-baritone Nikitin, who was to have made his debut at the festival opening Wednesday, had informed the management on Saturday after a television programme highlighted the tattoo on his chest.
German news agency DPA quoted Nikitin as saying, "I did not realise how much irritation and injury such signs and symbols could cause, particularly at the Bayreuth Festival."
German state television ZDF's cultural show "Aspekte" on Friday evening had drawn attention to the tattoo of the Nazi symbol, with another tattoo overlaid.
"I had these tattoos done when I was young," Nikitin, a former musician in a rock band, said. "It was one of the great mistakes of my life and I wish I had never done it."
The Bayreuth Festival, devoted to the works of composer Richard Wagner, attracts thousands of fans every year but is overshadowed by its links to Nazism, with dictator Adolf Hitler a regular visitor to great acclaim.
Nikitin's withdrawal means the festival management has only three days to find a replacement for the role of the captain of a ship doomed to sail the seas for ever until he finds love.
The brand-new production of "The Flying Dutchman", Wagner's first mature opera, by young German theatre director Jan Philipp Gloger, is to premier on the glitzy opening night.
It is this year's only new offering and will feature German star conductor Christian Thielemann, widely seen as Bayreuth's unspoken general music director, in the pit."

A First Look at the New Bayreuth Holländer

So far, Bayreuth has not released any pictures from the new production of Der fliegende Holländer by Jan Philipp Gloger which will open the 2012 Bayreuth Festival on July 25.  The picture above appeared on Facebook.  Whether or not it is an authentic photograph of the upcoming production, I am not sure.  If it is, you are looking at a spectacular stage picture featuring a burning vessel designed by Christof Hetzer.  While we wait for official press releases from the Green Hill, I hope that the above will whet your appetite for this new Wagner production.

Prometheus: a New Film by Ridley Scott

When is an expected prequel not a prequel? When director Ridley Scott decides to revisit his classic 1979 film Alien.  The director is back laying down new mythology, and delving into one of the film's most famous but unexplained images: a giant mummified space traveler sitting at the controls of an alien ship.  Originally, this was a monumental prop, hand-crafted by Swiss artist H.R. Giger, whose imaginative work earned him an Oscar for Visual Effects for his nightmarish visualization of the Alien universe that eventually became a lucrative Alien franchise.  With his new film, Prometheus, director Scott aims to flesh out the backstory of this mysterious being (who among the cognoscenti is known as "the engineer.") by borrowing imagery from his original work and mixing in a story line inspired from Ancient Aliens, the History Channel show that proposes that UFOs visited Earth, engineered the construction of our ancient monuments, and mated with prehistoric man in order to advance our species.

In Greek mythology the Titan Prometheus stole the sacred fire from the gods and brought it down to human beings.  In a short prelude in Scott's new film a titanic-sized engineer, who has traveled to Earth, commits suicide by hurling himself into the flowing waters of prehistoric Earth, thus seeding his DNA with its future inhabitants.  Millions of years later, the ship "Prometheus" is on its way to the furthest reaches of space.  Aboard, a Christian cross-wearing archeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace -- the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in the Swedish film version of the novel) and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are on the journey to prove that the origins of Mankind might be found in alien intervention.  Also aboard are a motley crew (most of whom remain throughout the film as two-dimensional stock characters) headed by mission director Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and an android named David (Michael Fassbender) who is a polyglot who combs his synthetic hair and mimics Peter O'Toole's lines from the film Lawrence of Arabia. A cute post-modern touch that unfortunately is never developed and goes nowhere.

Soon enough, Prometheus reaches the planet moon LV-223 and the crew finds itself at peril inside a mysterious structure filled with dead alien bodies, dark gooey liquid, a severed head, and snake-like creatures.  One by one the crew is either infected or eliminated.  The doomed Charlie impregnates Elizabeth who then soon realizes that she is carrying an alien fetus.  In one of the horrific highlights of the film, she enters a do-it-yourself futuristic surgical machine and gives herself a bloody late-term abortion (which is referred to in the film as a Caesarian section, I imagine so as not to offend the Christian right).

The best thing the film has going for it is the 3D cinematography by Dariusz Wolski.  Scott has always been a keen visual director, and Mr. Wolski has provided him with a palette of muted colors and sharp details that tell the story in a very compelling way, with the 3D taking a subtle backseat this time around.  For best results see it in IMAX.

If you partially turn off your brain for two hours and nine minutes, the movie reaches a fair level of excitement.  But this is the kind of summer product made for an audience that throughout the years has embraced and scrutinized a popular geek franchise.  In other words, fanboys (and girls! -- thanks to Sigourney Weaver's Ripley the Alien tetralogy has always been big with both sexes) that live to analyze every frame of the previous films.  It becomes very clear after watching Prometheus that this latest addition fails to stand up to such scrutiny, and it is arguably doubtful if it deserves a place in the Alien pantheon. 

Tim Burton's Take on Dark Shadows

When I was a grade school lad back in the late sixties and early seventies, I remember I used to hurry home from school to watch Dark Shadows on ABC. Dan Curtis's supernatural soap opera was the kind of creepy fare that was perfect for a kid spending his afternoons alone while waiting for his parents to get home from work. It wasn't considered cool for a pre-teen to watch the other soaps on TV.  Nobody my age would have thought to tune in to General Hospital or As the World Turns, but Dark Shadows was different. It was a genuine horror tale tracing the misfortunes of the Collins family, setting the story in an old dark house with a macabre name: Collinwood.  I was too young to discern that the series could have been perhaps a Gothic commentary on the Vietnam War, or a social statement on the disappearing New England WASP upper-class. Whatever the cryptic undertones of the series, it was definitely scary business, and it was always played in earnest.  When Barnabas Collins, the patriarchal ancient vampire, (played memorably by the late Shakespearean actor Jonathan Frid) bared his fangs it was to satisfy an unholy appetite.  Nobody laughed, and everyone's eyes were glued to the TV set.  I always made sure that my rabbit ears were picking up the network's signal as flawlessly as possible.

Tim Burton's new film adaption of Dark Shadows is a camp creepshow. The film is not exactly a remake, but more a silly riff on the series.  If we're looking for a remake from the director, I guess we'll have to wait for Frankenweenie, Burton's upcoming stop motion animated full length film, about a boy and his dog, based on his own 1984 live action short.

Using some of the characters and settings from the original series, Burton has transformed Dark Shadows into a stylish vehicle for the talents of his muse Johnny Depp.  The actor plays Barnabas Collins as a resurrected bloodsucker -- his face as white as a Kabuki performer -- constantly marveling at the world of the 1970s where the movie takes place.  This Barnabas is certain that a McDonald's Golden Arches neon sign is a Mephistophelian signature, and that the image on a television set is a stage for diminutive performers.  Very little is played straight, and throughout most of the film the tone is very much tongue-in-cheek.  The film's prologue, which tells the backstory of the rise and initial fall of the Collins family, is the only segment of the movie that vaguely channels the spirit and atmosphere of the original series.

Also appearing in this film are Eva Green as a jilted witch out to get revenge on Barnabas, Bella Heathcote as Barnabas's true love, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth, the matriarch of the Collins family.  Also hanging around are Elizabeth's daughter (Chloë Grace Moretz) who has a deep secret that I can assure you not a single intelligent viewer of this movie will care about, and Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman (one of the most memorable and popular characters played in the TV series by Grayson Hall).  In this film, however, this character is a two-dimensional caricature who unfortunately has a death scene reminiscent of Shelley Winters's underwater demise in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter.  This scene, right at the end of the movie, triggers the possibility of a Dark Shadows sequel.  However, since the film has gotten universal poor reviews and earned low box office I have the feeling that Barnabas Collins and company might be put to rest in the family crypt for many years to come.

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, dead at 86

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's voice was one of my first operatic experiences.  Decca had repackaged the Sir Georg Solti Ring and was eager to sell it to a new audience of potential Wagnerites.  A colorful envelope containing a plastic disc arrived at my house.  It was a three minute commercial selling Richard Wagner's titanic music.  I must have been eleven or twelve years old.  The music blew me away.  I had never heard such sounds before.  Nestled among the more stentorian excerpts on the disc was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Gunther's entrance line from the second act of Götterdämmerung ("Brünnhild', die hehrste Frau, bring' ich euch her zum Rhein.") There was an effortlessness in his singing that was unique.  I was hooked on his sound.  Later on, of course, I learned about his incredible command of diction, breath control, and purity of sound, nurtured in years of studying and singing lieder, in particular, the songs of Franz Schubert.  Fischer-Dieskau's voice was a small instrument compared to the titans of his day, but he knew how to use it.  In the London/Decca recording of Puccini's Tosca, in which he is paired against the powerhouse singing of Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli, his reading of Scarpia's music leaves a lasting impression for its subtlety and aristocratic phrasing.  Even when he was miscast in a role, Fischer-Dieskau was memorable. However, when the role suited him like a glove as in Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, he created an operatic triumph. 

I've no doubt that he will be best remembered for his extraordinary performances and recordings of the songs of Schubert.  His association with pianist Gerald Moore created some of the definitive readings of this genre.  Luckily, it was all recorded when they were both at the height of their talents.  Below is a film of the young Fischer-Dieskau, with Gerald Moore at the piano, singing the quintessential Schubert song "Der Erlkönig."  The way that he embodies the four roles in Goethe's poem (Narrator, Father, Son, Erlkönig) is a master-class in technique, and a fitting tribute to this amazing performer.

An Advanced Look at the new MET Parsifal

The Metropolitan Opera will premiere its new Parsifal next season.  It is a production conceived by François Girard that just had its premiere in March at the Opéra de Lyon.  Here is an advanced look at what the MET is getting next year. 

In addition, here is an unofficial film, shot during one of the dress rehearsals.  It shows that in this production Klingsor's Magic Castle in Act II is suffering from some major blood flooding.



And, as you can see, by the end of the act, the Flowermaidens get a blood soaking worthy of a Sam Peckinpah final reel.  From the publicity that I have seen, aside from the pool of sanguine fluid, this take on Richard Wagner's last opera also promises a shirtless Parsifal.  Since Jonas Kaufmann is scheduled to sing the title role here in New York, I am sure that that will get a large crowd to the house.  I really wonder how the New York audience will react to this latest Peter Gelb offering.

Juan Diego Flórez: Gelb's Encore Patsy at the MET

Ever since he broke the ban on encores at the Metropolitan Opera a few seasons ago in the new production of La Fille du Régiment, Juan Diego Flórez seems to be the only artist thus far to be allowed this privilege at the MET. My personal feeling is that he is being encouraged to do so. Peter Gelb, general manager of the MET, seems ready to relax this house rule in an effort to make opera more exciting and entertaining.

It all happened during the MET's Toll Brothers radio broadcast of Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore. Which means that it was heard worldwide by millions. Flórez had just sung a ravishingly beautiful "Una furtiva lagrima" to thunderous well-deserved applause. Towards the end of the ovation, a loud, enthusiastic male voice from the balcony yelled out the word "encore." Juan Diego looked up at the house with a smile, and then he nodded approvingly at the pit. Conductor Donato Renzetti was more than ready to give the orchestra the downbeat. Juan Diego went on to sing the aria a second time, as flawlessly as the first, and even adding a number of vocal ornamentation that turned back the musical style clock on Nemorino and made Donizetti's 'romanza" feel more like a G.F. Handel Da Capo aria. Holy musical de-evolution, Batman!

Why is this being allowed to go on?

When the MET established its ban on encores decades ago, it did so in order to make opera a more realistic, more dramatic art form. Basically it curtailed the excesses typical of 19th century prima donnas and it invented the modern American opera singer. Allowing encores back at the house is a definite giant step backward into a bizarre theatrical world where artifice reigns and singers forget that they are also actors portraying realistic human sentiments.

What made last Saturday's stage shenanigans even worse was that after the second encore the audience went absolutely ape and were on the verge of demanding a -- God forbid! -- third go-round. For the first time since he stepped on the stage that day, Flórez seemed ill at ease. He looked into the wings, obviously exchanging looks with someone. Then unexpectedly he broke character, stepped up to the apron of the stage, and adressed the audience. "Ms. Damrau is waiting in the wings," he said referring to Diana Damrau, his co-star. When Ms. Damrau finally did enter from the place that Flórez had been looking, the audience couldn't help but laugh. The fourth wall had been broken. We all had to make an effort once again to get into the conventions of theater. Encores will do that to an audience.

Of course a few minutes later, during Nemorino and Adina's love duet, a cell phone in the house went off multiple times. But that's another story.

The 2012-2013 Metropolitan Opera Season

The Metropolitan Opera announced this week its 2012-2013 lineup. It features exciting new productions, a totally new work, and a a good crop of revivals. Sadly, nowhere in sight, is there a mention of James Levine's name. Fabio Luisi has taken over all of Mr. Levine's duties, although Mr. Levine continues to be the MET's official music director. This will be the first time since he joined the MET in 1971 that Mr. Levine will not be conducting anything at the house.

Once again, Peter Gelb, general manager of the MET, is presenting us with a batch of new productions that will challenge New York's essentially conservative view of opera. Michael Mayer's new Rigoletto places the action in 1960s Las Vegas. Not too surprising a turn if we remember that Mr. Mayer staged Broadway's Spring Awakening a few years ago. The season, however, will open with what promises to be a more crowd-pleasing offering: Bartlett Sher's new take on Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore starring Anna Netrebko.

In celebration of Giuseppe Verdi's birth bicentennial the 2012-2013 season will be rich in Italian opera. There will be a new production of Un Ballo in Maschera by David Alden, and a new production of Donizetti's Maria Stuarda by David McVicar. the trilogy of Tudor-era works was foreseen by Peter Gelb as the perfect vehicle for Anna Netrebko to sing the three queens. However, Ms. Netrebko has vowed out of Maria Stuarda (and 2013-2014 Roberto Devereux) and Joyce DiDonato is scheduled to sing the title role in Maria Stuarda this year. Director McVicar is scheduled to direct all three works using different production teams. In addition, Mr. McVicar will bring his new modern dress production of Handel's Giulio Cesare, from Glyndebourne starring David Daniels and Natalie Dessay. The other Verdi operas to be presented include Aida, conducted by Fabio Luisi, Don Carlo, led by Lorin Maazel, La Traviata, with Plácido Domingo taking the baritone role of Germont, his second at the house after Simon Boccanegra, and the Verdi celebration will conclude with the MET's current production of Il Trovatore.

The other two new productions are The Tempest, a new work by composer Thomas Adès, in a new production by Robert Lepage (who brought us the current Ring production), and a much-awaited new production of Richard Wagner's Parsifal by François Girard. This production will have its premiere at the Opéra De Lyon in March. Here at the MET, the production will feature Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, and it will be conducted by Daniele Gatti, who has conducted the work for four consecutive summers at the Bayreuth Festival.

The MET will bring back some of its most spectacular production, namely Poulenc's unforgettable Dialogues of the Carmelites and Berlioz's mighty Les Troyens, two works that have not been heard at the house in quite some years. These, together with three rounds of Mr. Lepage's Ring of the Nibelung and a Christmas production of The Barber of Seville promises a very rich opera season. If you would like to browse the season further click here.

I'm Bayreuth Bound!

After being on the waiting list for about nine years, which of course felt more like nine centuries (there's an Italian bel canto line if I've ever heard one), I have been selected to buy tickets for the Bayreuth Festival this summer. I'll be at Bayreuth from August 6 -12, and will be attending performances of Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, and Parsifal.

A mixture of emotions is going through my head. The realization that I am going to the shrine, to the holy musical place revered by some, hated by others: a place that often elicits emotions as grand as the very works that are presented there. I'm going to the Mecca of Wagnerism, in a town in northern Bavaria that has been coming alive for a month, year after year, since 1876 with the music of just one man. Certainly the most cultured town in Upper Franconia, certainly the most cultured company town along the Roter Main.

I'm looking forward to this first visit, and what intrigues me the most is experiencing that Bayreuth sound and that Bayreuth acoustic everyone talks and writes about.

A few years after Richard Wagner's death Mark Twain visited Bayreuth. This is how he described his first time: the moment when the music first starts inside the famous auditorium:

"Finally, out of darkness and distance and mystery soft rich notes rose upon the stillness, and from his grave the dead magician began to weave his spells about his disciples and steep their souls in his enchantments. There was something strangely impressive in the fancy which kept intruding itself that the composer was conscious in his grave of what was going on here, and that these divine souls were the clothing of thoughts which were at this moment passing through his brain, and not recognized and familiar ones which had issued from it at some former time."

I can't wait!

Robert Lepage's Götterdämmerung at the MET

Robert Lepage's Metropolitan Opera Ring of the Nibelung has finally come to a conclusion with the unveiling of Götterdämmerung, the last music drama in Richard Wagner's mighty trilogy. Readers of this blog, and those who have been following the Peter Gelb years at the MET, are probably aware by now that the crux of this production revolves around a 45 ton 24 plank behemoth known simply as "the machine," a complex mechanical apparatus that twirls into different shapes and intricate formations, while hyper-realistic projections are shone on its planks, thus creating environments that oftentimes react to the singers' voices and movements. The machine is the perfect metaphor for the one major fault in the conception of this production: on the one hand the gizmo is a marvel of up-to-date technological stagecraft, and at the same time it is a clunky and noisy piece of 19th century machinery.

And like the machine, the production is of two minds: half conservative and wanting to please the MET Old Guard with the moneybags, and half radical and innovative, and hungry for younger audiences that will hopefully keep the MET afloat in the years to come. When Peter Gelb was guest of honor at the Metropolitan Opera Club a year before the unveiling of this production he was asked if the new Ring would take place in mythological times and he assured the club that it would. He did not tell a lie. Once the machine arranges itself into place, the scenes that it creates are quite traditional. The problem is not the machine's ability to create beautiful settings, it is the machine itself. And it is not just the critics that object to this dychotomy. MET audiences are not buying that the end justifies the means. On opening night of Götterdämmerung, Lapage and his creative team were once again booed, as they were last year when Das Rheingold's rainbow bridge failed to work. I'm not sure if the booing came from the Parterre or from the Family Circle, but one thing is clear: the outburst that followed Götterdämmerung seemed not to be directed just at the final opera, but at the whole conception of the tetralogy.

These days solid, across-the-board Wagnerian singing is hard to come by, and modern audiences seem to have accepted this. This Saturday afternoon the performance of Götterdämmerung featured some stellar singing from Waltraut Meyer in her sole scene as Waltraute, and from Hans-Peter König, whose dark, cavernous and nasty Hagen brought Golden Age singing back to the MET. Also fairly strong were Wendy Bryn Harmer as Gutrune, as well as Iain Paterson as her brother Gunther. Eric Owens, who scored a triumph as Alberich in Rheingold, was back reminding his son Hagen of their rightful ownership of the ring. Mr. Owens's voice sounded a bit tired this time around, and he resorted to a hint of the Bayreuth bark in his scene.

Deborah Voigt's recent vocal problems have no doubt been precipitated by too many journeys down the Rhine. Her choice to sing Brünnhilde was a brave one, and at the same time the logical role to take on at this point of her career. The results have been mixed. Her voice lacks luster, and is devoid of much warmth these days, and without these the role of Brünnhilde fails to be complete. Jay Hunter Morris, as Siegfried, got through the role, and actually improved as the afternoon went along. His heldentenor voice is strong and able to ride above the crowded pit, but the quality of his instrument is not too appealing, and ultimately he produced some sharp ugly sounds along the way.

The chorus, an absent commodity in the rest of the Ring, is a very vivid presence in Götterdämmerung, and it sang with incredible power and masterful diction. At times, I thought it sang too loudly, though, seemingly starting at fortissimo and increasing in volume from there. However, their sound managed to stay solid and impressive, making the vassals scene and the welcoming of Brünnhilde and Gunther the show stopper that it should be.

Fabio Luisi has taken over the Ring from the ailing James Levine. It is too early yet to make an objective decision as to his conducting. The orchestra still seems to be in Levine-mode, and Mr. Luisi seems to like that just fine. There were a few uneven entrances from the brass section, but overall, the orchestra handled this huge score with its usual expertise, producing some luscious, incredibly beautiful sounds. We might get a wonderful Italianate Ring a la Toscanini from him in the future, and I am sure that by the time the MET mounts its three Ring Cycles towards the end of the season, Mr. Luisi's interpretation will be in place.

The end of Götterdämmerung should wow an audience. This is when every production team and every opera house has a chance to pull out all the stops. Unfortunately, this production doesn't even come close. Though it is nice to see Grane, Brünnhilde's steed back in the Ring, this particular nag looked like a reject from the production of War Horse next door, and not the noble horse that once upon a time flew around with a Valkyrie on its back. Then the fire that consumes the world looked digitized, fake, and ultimately quite cold. The very last image of the production: an empty machine surrounded by thick clouds of fog was somewhat memorable -- but only because deep down I wanted the machine to just die and never rotate, twirl, or do any other production aerobics ever again.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

It soon becomes clear as you watch the new American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that director David Fincher is the perfect person to direct Stieg Larsson's runaway international best seller. This story, involving a twisted serial killer with fragments of the Bible on his mind, is a terrain that Fincher has memorably explored in perhaps his best known film, Se7en. Further, as the title character, he has cast Rooney Mara, an actress that last year played the role of the girlfriend of computer hacker and creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. It is now Ms. Mara who assumes the role of über computer geek Lisbeth Salander, an unusual girl who assists journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) to piece together the events that connect a wealthy Swedish family to a series of unspeakable crimes.

But the similarities between Salander and Zukerberg's main squeeze end the moment we first see Ms. Mara on screen in this film. With her pale face covered with piercings, her jet black hair in a mohawk, (which she later lets hang down in a downtown version of Louise Brooks), and her lithe body covered in ink she is the very essence of 1970s punk rebellion, and the total antithesis of last year's perky Ivy League coed. In fact, Ms. Mara creates an iconic figure in this film. An unforgettable portrait of a no-nonsense drifter who can hack into computers as well as get decent results when she uses a tattoo gun for the first time. A rape victim, she now callously calls the shots in bed: she can pick up a luscious brunette at a lesbian club one night, as well as make all the right moves that get her in bed with Blomkvist. Tough as nails (or as the metal that pierce her alabaster skin), she is the very essence of femme fatale and hardboiled detective wrapped up in one cool biker chic. But Ms. Mara makes sure that we also see her other side. In one of the closing moments of the film we discover that she is as sentimental as they come, and that her heart is quite vulnerable.

Although very much a film that centers around Ms. Mara and Mr. Craig, there are also fine supporting performances from Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgård as patriarchal members of a family with a dark past.

The script by Steven Zaillian is quite faithful to the English translation of this Swedish novel, whose original title Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women) takes the focus away from the Salander character and places the novel squarely in the realm of pulp noir where it belongs.

Hugo, Movie Magic via Martin Scorsese

When Martin Scorsese's point of departure for a film is personal, the result is always an outstanding movie. This is the case with Hugo, a family film with a feel-good warm glow that surely on the surface does not feel at all like a Scorsese picture, but one that harbors, at its core, a loving homage to the magic of film making, making it perhaps the most personal of all the films that he has directed in his brilliant career.

When young Marty was a kid growing up in New York's Little Italy, often his health did not allow him to play with the other neighborhood kids. He would observe the world from his Elizabeth street window, and fill notebooks with storyboards of imaginary films. As a child, he was already measuring reality through the frame of a window, similar to the way the camera eye composes a shot. When we first meet young Parisian orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) his big sad blue eyes are staring at the world from inside the giant clock in the large railway station in which he lives. His "Hunchback of Notre Dame" existence consists of winding the big clock to ensure that he will not be sent to an orphanage by the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), as well as stealing gears from a toy seller with a past (Ben Kingsley) in order to make a mechanical automaton -- a legacy from his dead father (Jude Law) -- come to life. As young Hugo begins to work for the mysterious toy seller he learns that the old bitter man is a very special person, none other than Georges Méliès the great film pioneer magician who between 1896 and 1913 made more than 500 short films including the classic "A Trip to the Moon" but who fell into bankruptcy and obscurity after the Great War. Before long, young Hugo and his pal Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) are on a mission to deliver Méliès (Isabelle's godfather) back from obscurity.

This is Mr. Scorsese's first 3-D film, and it finds him in a playful mood with his new toy, echoing the world of cinema right and left. His trademark moving camera, traditionally always on the prowl, here achieves a sense of depth that Alfred Hitchcock was able to capture in his one and only 3-D film Dial M for Murder. As a matter of fact, there are many homages to the Master in this film. The way that Hugo spies on the regulars that gather at the railway station reminds us of Jimmy Stewart looking out of his Rear Window. Even Hugo's dwelling inside the clock, with dozens of moving gears and mechanical parts, reminds us of the inner workings of a motion picture projector. The stairs that lead up to it bring us back to the Master by giving us a sense of Vertigo.

But when the movie flashes back to the end of the 19th century, that's when the real cinematic magic begins. Scorsese's recreation of the heyday of Georges Méliès and his wondrous, hand-tinted, theatrical and fantastical films is an unforgettable, loving homage to the time when the movies began. Ben Kingsley gives a memorable performance as Méliès, forgotten and wounded in his old age, but as a young man sunny, full of enthusiasm, and wide-eyed at the possibilities that this new medium can offer.

In many ways I picture Martin Scorsese sharing this enthusiasm when making this film. A work so different from the rest of his other works, and yet so close to his own heart and imagination. It might just become the movie that he will be best remembered for.

J Edgar, Clint Eastwood's film with Leo DiCaprio

In a memorable scene from J Edgar, Clint Eastwood's new biopic of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's first director, the young J. Edgar Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is entertaining actress Ginger Rogers at the Stork Club and gets invited to dance with the Hollywood hoofer. Immediately Hoover declines, gets nervous, says that he does not know how to dance and perspiring he excuses himself from the premises taking along with him his assistant Clyde Tolson (played by Armie Hammer). Later that night at his home, which he shares with his mother, Mrs. Hoover (Judi Dench) wonders what people will think of her son if he refuses to dance with women and is constantly seen with his male assistant. She tells him that she'd rather have a dead son than a "daffodil." That night, J. Edgar Hoover gets his first dancing lessons, with his mom leading.

In 1995, three years before the titanic turn that turned him into "Leo," DiCaprio showed that he could portray sexually ambivalent characters convincingly. In Total Eclipse, he played the young French poet Arthur Rimbaud, a performance soaked in absinthe and featuring a torrid and graphic lust affair with older poet Paul Verlaine (David Thewlis). It was the first and last time that we would see DiCaprio having sex with a man on screen. After Titanic the very thought of it seemed ludicrous. Now, In J. Edgar, DiCaprio once again plays a character awash with feelings for a man, but whereas his Rimbaud was a sexual animal on the prowl, the extent to which his Hoover shows affection does not go beyond a momentary touch of Clyde Tolson's hand. As played by Mr. Hammer, Tolson is just as sexually inept as his boss, and this leads to quite a memorable scene in a hotel room.

Aside from spying upon J. Edgar Hoover's sexual peccadilloes, the film largely focuses on delineating the beginnings and growth of the FBI, while portraying Hoover as a monster who seeks the limelight at any cost and who keeps secret files on everyone. Clint Eastwood relishes the chance to do early 20th century period once again as in his Changeling back in 2008. The color palette provided by cinematographer Tom Stern (who also shot Changeling) captures well the 1930s as well as the 1970s, the two decades which the movie explores.

Any film that covers half a century for its character is going to need old age makeup, and as usual, this is where today's films always falter. The glory days of Citizen Kane, where with simple theatrical makeup Orson Welles was able to transform himself into an old man, have disappeared. The credits to this film lists twenty makeup artists, and the results are mediocre. The film features liberal use of prosthetics in well-lit scenes: never a good combination. For example, one daylight exterior scene at the racetrack reduces Armie Hammer's face to that of an immobile waxen dummy. Somehow, DiCaprio pushes his performance through the latex and in the struggle with makeup he manages to survive. Naomi Watts, who plays Helen Gandi, Hoover's longtime secretary, ends up looking creepy.

If you can get through the makeup I am sure that you will enjoy J. Edgar. It is the kind of well-made, well-paced film that Hollywood tends to favor around Oscar time. Already, the buzz is on for DiCaprio. This is the closest he has come in his career to making us forget that he is Leo and making us believe that he is the character. Maybe it's the make-up, after all, adding gravitas to his performance. Perhaps this year the Academy will honor his efforts.