The Hardball Tango

Brian Carson, the announcer on my WagnerOperas Podcast was the videographer on this new video that was just put up on YouTube. Enjoy!

Satyagraha comes to The Metropolitan Opera

Last April, I went to London to see the English National Opera's production of Satyagraha, the opera about MK Gandhi, by American composer Philip Glass. A year later, that very same ENO production has reached The Metropolitan Opera where I got a chance to see it on Friday.

Visually, very little has changed from London, although the dimensions of the Metropolitan stage are much bigger than those of the London Colosseum. Last month when I attended one of the MET's performances of Peter Grimes I happened to sit next to the puppeteers who had come from the UK in order to work on Satyagraha. Basically, they informed me that indeed very little had changed with the production, although they had had a longer rehearsal period at the MET. Also, the bigger dimensions of the MET's stage allowed them to fly the puppets much higher than in London

Overall, the New York performance was tighter musically than London's. In the second act, the MET chorus was as precise as a metronome as they sang an unbelievably difficult four-square section repeating the syllable "ha" over and over again. Regretfully, last year in London, the ENO chorus crumbled during this section.

The focus of the evening in any performance of Satyagraha is the tenor singing the role of Gandhi. Richard Croft sang a beautiful performance on Friday. From my seat in the second row there was no doubt that he was wholly immersed in his character. Twice, however, he was forced to step out of character and cover his mouth when he sneezed twice. I had never seen this happen to a singer on stage, but he dealt with it as silently and discreetly as possible. So good, in fact, that I don't think anybody noticed beyond the first few rows.

They say that nobody comes out of a modern opera humming the tunes -- not true! I dare anyone to come out of a performance of Satyagraha and not intone in your head, or outright hum or sing the ascending phrygian scale that Gandhi repeatedly intones over and over again in the last scene of Act III. That incredible restful line is one of the most serene moments in opera -- old or new.

It was wonderful to revisit Satyagraha on this side of the ocean. Although there was something special about experiencing an opera about Gandhi in England, the MET production this year was the culmination of the journey that started last year at the ENO.

News from Bayreuth

This week two news items came out of Bayreuth. The first was that after 57 years, Wolfgang Wagner would be leaving the leadership of the Bayreuth Festival. Since the historic re-opening of the Festival in 1951, Wolfgang Wagner has been at the helm of the Festival. The second bit of news involved the replacement of a singer for this summer's festival. Soprano Linda Watson will be replaced by Adrienne Dugger in the role of Brünnhilde. Here is how The New York Times reported the change of leadership at the Festspielhaus:

After 57 years as chief of the Wagner festival in Bayreuth, Germany, Wolfgang Wagner, 88, plans to step down, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Wagner, right, grandson of the composer Richard Wagner, wrote to donors on April 8 to express his support for his daughters Katharina Wagner, from his second marriage, and Eva Wagner-Pasquier, from his first, as part of a group to succeed him. He had previously rejected the appointment of Ms. Wagner-Pasquier, who is supported by the Richard Wagner Foundation, which supervises the annual Bayreuth Festival. And he had insisted that he would step aside only if Katharina were allowed to succeed him. The German-language television network 3sat reported that Mr. Wagner had suggested that the half-sisters could be part of a team that included the German conductor Christian Thielemann and Peter Ruzicka, the former director of the Salzburg Festival. Mr. Wagner has led the festival since 1951, first with his brother, Wieland, and then by himself after Wieland’s death in 1966.

Peter Shaffer's EQUUS comes to Broadway

This morning The New York Times ran an American Express full page ad officially announcing that last year's West End smash hit Equus, the controversial play by Peter Shaffer, will arrive in America for a limited Broadway run at the Broadhurst Theater. Heading the cast will be the original co-stars of the London run: Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe.

When I saw the play on April 10 of last year at the Gielgud Theatre, I immediately knew that the production was destined, when it ended its limited run on Shaftesbury Avenue, to come to the States. And although Richard Griffiths is not my ideal Martin Dysart, he will return to Broadway where he won the Tony Award for his unforgettable performance in The History Boys.

Americans will get a chance to see Daniel Radcliffe's incredible performance as Alan Strang, the boy who blinds a stable of horses in rural England. His performance in London was incredible. Here was a movie superstar, making his West End debut in a difficult role where he had to shed his clothing, and perform one of the key scenes of the play totally naked. The British are generally blasé about nudity on stage. Certainly, the audience at the performance I attended were adult about it. Although there were plenty of curious teenage girls and boys in the audience that had come to see their Harry Potter in the all-together, they were quiet and serious. Interestingly, many had come to the performance with their moms, and these ladies all had that look that told you that they knew exactly why their children had suddenly acquired a taste for the theater.

Americans, on the other hand, are entrenched in deeply-rooted puritanical attitudes when it comes to nudity, and even New York papers such as The New York Post had something negative to say about a West End run that was distant. Now, the play will be here in New York City, and the rush for tickets, the hype, and the controversy will soon engulf the Great White Way.

On September 5, New York is in for a nice treat. But pay close attention: if you intend to see it, I suggest that you begin making arrangements to buy your tickets fast. This limited 22 week run has all the makings of a fast sell-out, and people will be trampling over each other to get in to see it. See you at the Broadhurst!

Important Debut at the MET: Janice Baird

When Janice Baird made her triumphant debut last night as Isolde, stepping in for the ailing Deborah Voigt in this year's troubled revival of Richard Wagner's work, she brought with her over a decade of international operatic singing. Ms. Baird's roster of major Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Italian roles have been the staple of opera houses from Tokyo to Berlin, Buenos Aires to Vienna. She is an accomplished artist, who began her career as a mezzo and developed into a dramatic soprano under the guidance of such notable Wagnerians of the past as Birgit Nilsson and Astrid Varnay, whom she credits as two of her most important vocal coaches.

But everything changed last night: she made her official Metropolitan Opera debut! I stress official because last week Ms. Baird was pushed onstage to continue the role of Isolde when Ms. Voigt was suddenly stricken with some kind of stomach malady which forced her to run from the stage. As Ms Voigt's stand-in, Ms Baird finished the performance to great applause and cheers.

Last night she got to do it all from the start. If you were lucky enough to be there, save your little paper insert that appeared inside your playbill. Since Ms. Voigt's cancellation came in after the programs had already been printed, this is your only record of her debut.

Ms. Baird's Isolde was filled with energy and passion. Sure of herself vocally, and surprisingly comfortable with the production's staging and blocking, her Isolde was a fiery creation whose dark soprano had no problems soaring over the intricate orchestration. Only in the few fortissimo moments of the role did her voice tighten a bit at the top, allowing a smattering of a tremolo to creep through. Isolde's Curse in the first Act was chilling, and the Liebestod at the end was powerful and moving at the same time.

It was a great debut which earned roars of applause and bravos from the audience, making us all keenly aware of the kind of talent available out there which, unfortunately, does not always seem to be tapped at the right time by MET management. Over the years the MET has had singers step in at the last moment to save the day. Leonie Rysanek covered the role of Lady Macbeth in 1959 when Maria Callas was removed from that production, and years later Plácido Domingo filled in for Franco Corelli when the great Italian tenor had to bow out of a performance of Adriana Lecouvreur. For both, Domingo and Rysanek this last minute coverage was the beginning of their stardom.

I hope that it proves to be the same for Ms. Baird, and that Peter Gelb and James Levine consider her for the upcoming Ring Cycle. She will be singing the role of Brünnhilde in Seattle's upcoming new staging of the Ring.

Last night also marked the return of Ben Heppner, looking fit and strong, and delivering one of the best performances I have heard him give. More than in other occasions, Mr. Heppner was vocally secure throughout the entire vocal range, and his third act was truly heartbreaking.

The orchestra under James Levine was the well-oiled machine it has become, with incredible playing in all the sections, and all throughout the evening. Last night, the off-stage banda interplay of horns in the beginning of the Act II was executed with razor sharpness precision and exquisite beauty of tone.

Thankfully, everything went well with the staging. I guess from now on, when Act III begins and the curtains part to reveal Tristan upstage in crucified form, slowly descending towards the apron of the stage, we will all remember the night when Gary Lehman almost became a contender for the luge competition. Let's hope that never happens again.

There's one more performance of Tristan und Isolde left; it is this Friday. Could it possibly be that finally Heppner and Voigt get a chance to sing together? We shall soon know. Please, post your impression of that show if you will be in attendance on Friday.

Janice Baird as Isolde debuts tonight!

There has not been a performance of this Metropolitan Opera run of Tristan und Isolde that has played with a complete scheduled cast. Tonight is no exception. Tonight we have another debut. This time Deborah Voigt is out and taking her place is American soprano Janice Baird.

Ms. Baird comes with great credentials from Europe, where she sang a stunning Isolde in Rome as well as an unforgettable Salome in Paris. She is also scheduled to sing the role of Brünnhilde in the new Ring scheduled to open in Seattle, a role that she has sung extensively in Seville's Teatro de la Maestranza, La Fenice, Venice and the Deutsche Oper, Berlin She is a former mezzo, and most reviewers make a point of mentioning that, since it is a distinctive trademark of her dark voice. However, her high notes are supposed to be right on the money, so we will see.

Ben Heppner (remember him?) is due to appear tonight. Again, let us see what kind of shape he is in. I am sure that Gary Lehman will be in the wings, in costume, just in case.

I think that it is going to be an interesting evening. If anything, an Isolde debut is always exciting. I will report about how the evening went soon.

Waltraud Meier in Walküre at La Scala

Now that the news officially appears on her agent's website, perhaps the persistent rumors were really true. Waltraud Meier will sing the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre at La Scala, Milan during the 2010-2011 season.

The production, which is to be conducted by Daniel Barenboim, will also feature the Wotan of René Pape, a role that many of us have been salivating at the mouth, waiting for him to finally tackle it. This dream cast will surely make the La Scala Walküre the hottest ticket in the Western world.

No confirmed news yet as to who has been cast in the roles of Siegmund and Sieglinde, or Hunding, for that matter. If you've heard something definite, please don't hesitate to post it here.

J.S. Bach: The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Johann Sebastian Bach completed and performed The Passion According to St. Matthew, BWV 244 sometime between 1727 and 1729, in the middle of his life, during his long tenure at Leipzig's Thomaskirche.

The New York Philharmonic, under its Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur performed this massive work four times this Holy Week, and I attended the last performance on Saturday evening. It was my first Matthäus-Passion, and I was overwhelmed by the power and serenity of this musical setting of Christ's passion and death. Without a doubt, it is the musical pinnacle of one of the great composers, and one of the most monumental outpourings of religious faith. It is difficult not to be in awe of it even after an initial hearing.

I was impressed by Mr. Masur's spirit of discovery as he led selected members of the New York Philharmonic and the Westminster Choir and the American Boychoir. At 80, Mr. Masur has seen it all musically, and yet, this performance showed how he is still striving to find the inner meaning of Bach's intricate writing. It was a voyage that included the sweet-voiced American tenor James Taylor in complete command of the high tessitura of the role of the Evangelist, and the incredibly involved Matthias Goerne who employed his deep baritone in an unforgettable performance as Jesus. Mr. Goerne is an impassioned artist who looks nervous and fidgety when he is sitting down and not singing, but who totally gets into character when the time calls for him to perform. While the rest of the men sported white tie and tails, Mr. Goerne dressed in a black suit with an open-necked shirt. Now, that's what I call a Jesus! He did it his way!

The New York Times reported that in one of the earlier performances the baritone aria “Komm, süsses Kreuz" was the low point of the evening, with substandard playing by the viola da gamba soloist. In the performance that I attended, this aria was cut. Somebody is reading the reviews!

For many years, I have been listening to Bach's St John Passion, and have come to know and admire that shorter work. It served as a good introduction to the intricacies found in the St. Matthew Passion. Now all I need is a few years to study, and hopefully perform one day this great work.

Robert Dean Smith triumphs as Tristan

Peter Gelb and James Levine can breathe a sigh of relief. After a roller coaster week at The Metropolitan Opera that saw one Tristan get booed, and another one get injured with almost a near concussion, the Saturday matinée finally got a Tristan that could sing the role: Robert Dean Smith.

Many thought that Gary Lehman deserved the HD telecast and radio broadcast, especially after replacing John Mac Master and at the same time getting clunked on the head when he slid down the stage right into the prompter's box. Although Lehman physically looks the part of Tristan, the MET went with as much a sure thing vocally as you can these days: they got a tenor that's done the part at Bayreuth. The MET likes impressive credentials like that, especially when the house finds itself in a bind; never mind that his Green Hill reviews in 2005 were only so-so.

Robert Dean Smith made his MET debut today, two years earlier than scheduled, and it was a great success. He really did very well! Impressively well! He was magnificent in Act I (most Tristans are), he soared in Act II (most Tristans remain earthbound), and he was heartbreaking in Act III (he lived though it, and that's an accomplishment these days!) He soared above the orchestra -- which played gorgeously -- in the concluding act, and managed to get through that most difficult of music unscathed, definitely finishing much better than in the 2005 Bayreuth production.

I'm finally going to see this opera on Tuesday. I wish that Robert Dean Smith could stay for another performance, but his was a one shot deal, and I hear that Gary Lehman will be back in the role on Tuesday. Oh, well, it will be fun to see what this young American artist has to offer. Hopefully the MET's stagecraft will behave this time around.

Four Notable British Deaths

This week four notable British men died. Each one a leader in his field. Arthur C. Clarke, whose science fiction novels and non-fiction books assured us that the future of Mankind was tied to the exploration of outer space was one of the best known science fiction writers of our times. 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film that he created with American film director Stanley Kubrick revolutionized science fiction movies, and became the work for which Mr. Clarke would always be remembered.

It was also primarily in movies that director Anthony Minguella made his mark. Beginning with his first film Truly, Madly, Deeply back in 1990, Mr. Minguella showed that he was a true artist. His film The English Patient earned him an Academy Award for Best Director, and following that film he went on to direct The Talented Mr. Ripley, featuring a cavalcade of some of today's best actors. Mr. Minguella was once again in the limelight when he directed a production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for the English National Opera. That same production opened Peter Gelb's tenure as general manager of The Metropolitan Opera in 2006. Mr. Minguella was only 54 years old.

Many young people today unfortunately do not know Paul Scofield. One of the great stage actors of the 20th century, he created the role of Antonio Salieri in the play Amadeus, as well as the role of Sir Thomas Moore in the play A Man for all Seasons, a role he would reprise on film, and for which he would win the Academy Award. An extremely private man, Mr. Scofield disappeared from public life for many years, carefully selecting very few acting projects, and then only on the London stage.

The photographs of war journalist Philip Jones Griffiths made Americans painfully aware that the Vietnam war was riddled with atrocities, and that the United States's involvement in that conflict had to stop. The publication of his landmark photography book Vietnam, Inc. helped turn public opinion against the war. Mr. Jones Griffiths, a pacifist born in Wales, never blamed the American soldiers, whom he often described as confused young men, but the American government that had sent them to kill.

The accomplishments of these four men will always be remembered.

Wooden Sheds and Peter Grimes

Random bit of news before my review: I sat down next to the puppet handlers and the fellow who plays Martin Luther King from the upcoming production of Satyagraha. They are here from London rehearsing the production at the MET and decided to spend an evening attending an opera after spending the whole day rehearsing for another opera. They were surprise to be sitting down next to someone that had seen their production in London last April at the English National Opera. We talked about Glass and Britten. It was fun! They are nice people: go see Satyagraha when it opens here!

Now on to Peter Grimes:

Many of us in New York City know this seminal 20th century masterpiece by Benjamin Britten from the great production conceived and directed by Tyrone Guthrie. It was a superb staging made complete by the titanic performance of Jon Vickers, who was simply unforgettable in this role.

John Doyle, who has directed unusual stagings of Sweeney Todd and Company for Broadway, has turned this opera inside out. Instead of using the sea as the work's focal point, as the composer intended, his interest is in showing us the craggy facades of wooden sheds in an English fishing town. Here, villagers do not open the doors and windows to let the sunlight and fresh sea air in, but instead spy on each other, and stand in judgment of the village oddball, Peter Grimes. Needless to say, the results are rustic and monotonous, and the audience easily tires of the same drab look throughout the entire evening. When in the last scene the set parts to reveal a radiant sky, the effect is only predictably marvelous (what do you expect after spending an entire evening looking at wooden sheds?) Perhaps this was Mr. Doyle's intention: to lead the audience towards visual salvation by guiding them through a journey of suffering. This being Holy Week, I can totally understand and appreciate Mr. Doyle's trajectory, but I think here it is a bit much.

And what about the Sea Interludes -- the beating heart of this marvelous score -- do you stage them or not? I am sure that every director agonizes over this decision. Here. Mr. Doyle opted not to stage them, and instead treats us to long views of the same drab wooden sheds.

Of course, the director and his design team will argue that the audience need not see the sea, or even feel that we are close to the seashore because Benjamin Britten's music evokes it better than they could ever achieve. I'll go along with that, but I am sure that Mr. Britten wouldn't have minded a little scenic color in this production to go along with his marvelous tone color in his amazing score.

Anthony Dean Griffey sang the title role with style and passion. His lyric tenor offers a total contrast to the great men of the past who made this role legendary: Peter Pears, for whom the part was written, and Jon Vickers, who for many years was the MET's house Grimes. But Mr. Griffey is a fine singing actor, and he will grow in this part, and as the years pass and his voice deepens, if he continues to sing this role, his interpretation will gain even more gravitas.

Wonderful in this cast were Anthony Michaels Moore as a younger than usual Balstrode, and John Del Carlo as a giant sized Swallow. Patricia Racette sang a memorable Ellen Orford, Grimes's lady friend, and his only hope, if they marry, for one day to be accepted by the villagers.

Donald Runnicles and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra were one. His reading was clear, detailed and powerful. During the last scene I vividly heard and saw the waves breaking during the last measures of the last scene. Of course, the sea was there all the time, but the waters were hidden somewhere behind the wooden sheds. With them out of the way, Benjamin Britten's imagery came through loud and clear.

It's Official: Robert Dean Smith will sing Tristan

The Metropolitan Opera confirmed that Kansas-born tenor Robert Dean Smith will sing the broadcast and HD telecast of Tristan und Isolde this Saturday afternoon. I first heard of this artist when he was chosen by Wolfgang Wagner to sing the new Bayreuth production of this work in the summer of 2005. The first year of this production was not a success. The international press immediately called it the "Ship of Fools" production, being that the entire action takes place on what seems to be a cruise liner which has seen better days. The critics universally disliked conductor Eiji Oue's reading of the score, and the Kurwenal of Andreas Schmidt was attacked by a roar of boos during the run of the production. They were both replaced the following year. Nina Stemme's performance as Isolde, on the other hand, was deemed a triumph. Ms. Stemme was the Isolde in the Plácido Domingo recording of Tristan that came out that same year.

I personally did not like the sound that Robert Dean Smith produced during the first and second years of this production. I found him straining by the time that Act III arrived (it's really hard not to, considering the tessitura Wagner wrote), although he sang a very beautiful first two acts. Critic Larry Lash at Andante was very impressed by Mr. Smith's performance:

"Neither warnings nor punishment need be meted out to Robert Dean Smith. His is a well-thought-out career based around a sizable Heldentenor of uncommon sweetness, inherent lyricism, and a fresh, metallic quality. Smith's Tristan was beautifully paced, and that alone is no small feat. By the time he reached Tristan's "mad scene," he shifted gears into a white-hot intensity, nailing not only the delirium of the scene, but every note smack on pitch (something even Jon Vickers could rarely achieve). I wished this, the longest solo sequence in the opera, could have gone on longer."

When Anthony Tommasini visited Bayreuth in 2006, he wrote the following about Mr. Smith's performance:

"Mr. Smith looks the part of a tall, hardy and wholesome Kansan, and in the best sense, he brought those qualities to his Tristan. His voice is not huge, but it carries well. His sound can be grainy, but the overall vigor and richness of his singing are appealing. In the daunting scene early in Act III when the wounded Tristan erupts with delirious outbursts as he keeps expecting his beloved Isolde to return, Mr. Smith showed awesome stamina and dramatic commitment."

Robert Dean Smith will repeat the role of Tristan five times this summer at the Bayreuth festival. This Saturday, we will hear a preview of these performances. However, if you would like to listen to excerpts of Mr. Smith's Tristan, download my podcast of the 2005 production.

Saturday's Tristan (???)

This season's MET revival of Tristan und Isolde has not only been filled with drama, but it has made us all painfully aware of the dearth of capable heldentenors in our time who can successfully tackle Wagnerian roles. Once Ben Heppner made the decision not to sing due to his failing health, the MET had to scramble to fill the role. It was reported to me that his cover, John Mac Master, lost his voice during the March 10 performance. It was further made known to me that at the next performance another tenor, Gary Lehman, was the replacement and managed to sing well, but Deborah Voigt suffered some kind of stomach problem and had to be replaced.

Then last night the unthinkable happened: Gary Lehman, who was back and apparenly singing well, suffered an accident onstage. At the start of Act III, during the English horn prelude, the contraption that slowly carries the tenor downward from upstage snapped, and Lehman slid down, like a toboggan, head first, into the prompter's box. Pandemonium! Levine stopped the orchestra, people rushed onstage to help him up. Minutes later, Peter Gelb came out to say that Mr. Lehman was all right, and that he would continue the performance after a few minutes, and a chance to drink some water. The rest of the performance continued without any further technical problems, although, vocally, the performance was not one for the ages.

Who's going to sing the role of Tristan on Saturday? It's not only the radio broadcast of the opera, but also the HD telecast to theaters around the world. This is the biggest danger an opera company faces when it decides to broadcast and telecast almost everything in the repertory. Yes, you show the world your greatest achievements, but you also open yourself to showing the world the lowpoints of the season. The question remains, who is going to sing the role of Tristan on Saturday?

The rumor is that Robert Dean Smith will take over the role. Mr. Smith sang Tristan in the latest production of this work at Bayreuth in 2005 alongside Nina Stemme, who received great ovations for her work. The production, which seemed to take place on a dilapidated cruise liner, was universally hated, and Mr. Smith received mixed reviews.

You can hear a preview of Robert Dean Smith's Tristan on my podcast of the 2005 Bayreuth production. It can be downloaded by clicking here.

I can't wait to see what happens on Saturday!

The Official Demise of the Juilliard Choral Union

Last week, the members of The Juilliard Choral Union received an e-mail in the form of a .pdf file from Joseph W. Polisi, president of The Juilliard School. In the e-mail he details the reasons why the ensemble is not in the school's future plans. It is the end of an era, and I am very happy that I was a part of it. Below you will find the text of President Polisi's letter. The bold print is my own.

March 4, 2008

To the Members of the Juilliard Choral Union:

When I advised you last June that the activities of the Juilliard Choral Union would be suspended during the 2007–2008 academic year, I also indicated that my colleagues and I would evaluate the future course of action regarding choral activities at the School.

We have now concluded our review of this issue, and it has been our decision to discontinue permanently the activities of the Choral Union. I am sure that this decision is a disappointment to some of you. However, logistical, financial, and artistic considerations pointed strongly in favor of this decision.

The discontinuance of the Juilliard Choral Union does not, of course, diminish the extraordinary artistic accomplishments that you have achieved in the past under the direction of Judith Clurman.

Please accept my gratitude for your dedicated artistry. I wish you the very best in your future musical endeavors.

Sincerely,
Joseph W. Polisi
President

The Runnicles touch at the MET

When I bought tickets to Richard Wagner's Die Walküre months ago, urged on by the announcement that Lorin Maazel would be returning to The Metropolitan Opera to conduct, I didn't realize that the performance that I selected (the last time the work was presented on February 9) was instead going to be conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles, the energetic Scottish Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, and newly appointed General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin. What a great surprise this was! Sir Donald is one of our great Wagnerians, and I have relished his conducting and wanted to see him performed since I heard a live recording of the controversial production of Parsifal from the Vienna State Opera, featuring Johan Botha in the title role and Thomas Quasthoff as Amfortas. You might want to see the CD cover that I created for this recording by clicking here. I found out that Mr. Runnicles was conducting my performance of Walküre while I was attending a dress rehearsal of Verdi's Otello a day earlier at the MET. Interestingly, the title role of Verdi's great opera was sung by Johan Botha.

Now, about the Walküre performance: Runnicles led with a sure hand right from the Act I downbeat. As a matter of fact, the first act was perfect, with all three singers in terrific voice. Siegmund was sung by Simon O'Neill, a wonderful tenor from New Zealand who faced the challenges of the role with true bravado and a huge, focused voice to match. Deborah Voigt's Sieglinde is a well-known commodity by now. She has been the house Sieglinde for many years and rightly so, although lately her voice has gotten a bit more strident than usual. Mikhail Petrenko sang an ominous Hunding whose presence spelled future dread.

This performance would have been ideal had it been a one-act opera. Then came Act II and many things did not come together. Lisa Gasteen sang a weak Brünnhilde, barely approximating the correct top notes of her treacherous Hojotoho entrance. James Morris performed a noble rendition of Wotan. Although his voice is getting drier each year, his performance was graced by the kind of experience that made Hans Hotter's last performances unique even when vocally they had lost the luster of youth.

Through it all, it was Sir Donald that kept things together, and the one performer who ultimately took the loudest ovations at the house. Personally, I was so glad that I did not read the MET's roster too carefully before ordering my tickets.

The Title is "Cloverfield"

Cloverfield aims to be a really scary movie and it succeeds rather affectively. Critics who have labeled it "Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project" are right on the money. It's more like a demented game of Doom where the monsters go mostly unseen, making the stakes even more critical since you really don't have any adequate weapons to protect yourself with.

The ride's the thing in this movie, and if you can survive the motion sickness that the first person point-of-view camera technique can induce, then you are going to have some good scary fun. Never mind that it is a 9/11 film in disguise, where the Islamist enemy has been turned into a giant hideous mutation harboring sleeper cells that jump out of nowhere and attack without warning. Go with it and don't look back. Also. don't over think this odd transformation. The attacks on September 11 were infused with a religious agenda that would be box-office death. Besides, turning the 9/11 attackers into horror movie monsters feels comforting and it is not that peculiar. America has always been scared of dealing with religion directly. According to art critic and historian Robert Hughes, long ago we pulled Christ down from his cross and transformed him into the Easter bunny just to make that Christian holy day feasible for children as well as adults.

Ultimately, despite its complex inner issues and subtext, the movie ends up being much ado about nothing, and the downbeat ending does little better than provide us with hopeless hope. I looked for hidden symbolism in the film's title, even considering that a song from the band Wolfmother might shed some light on the mystery. As I suspected, I couldn't have been further from the right path. Here, in the words of director Matt Reeves, is the reason why the film is named Cloverfield:

"When we started the project there was going to be an announcement in the trades. In this case, they wanted to keep everything under wraps. So the movie was going to be made under this outside corporation that was basically a property of Paramount. That corporation had a name that I don’t know the name of. I think Clover was the first part of it. Maybe it was Cloverdale. When Drew (Drew Goddard writer of Cloverfield and Lost writer)was putting a name to the project, there was supposed to be a name for the project like there was for The Manhattan Project. So he said, "I am going to use that weird mysterious thing," and he misheard it. He didn’t even understand that it wasn’t Cloverfield, it was Cloverdale. Maybe that was because of the street by J.J.’s (J.J. Abrams: producer of Cloverfield and Lost) old office, but the truth is he just misunderstood it."

Enjoy Cloverfield, and remember: while you're watching it don't think!

Meditating on the Nine Meditations

The most surprising aspect of the life and work of French composer Olivier Messiaen is how such groundbreaking music poured forth from an essentially conservative Catholic man. Messiaen was arguably the most religiously devout composer of our times, and his writing was an intensely personal outpouring of his deep faith. The musical idiom that he fashioned to express his innermost sentiments and beliefs, however, was far from conservative. In the twentieth century he ranks high as one of the most important names in Western music.

This afternoon I heard for the first time Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur, a series of nine meditations on the birth of Christ. At the organ at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue was John Scott, now in his third year as organist and Director of Music at this famous church.

Many thoughts go through the mind while listening to the music of Messiaen, so many that it is hard to put them all into perspective. At first, there is that xenophobic twitch when we enter an undiscovered country. Messiaen's music is not for those who prefer or demand easily digested harmonies. Influenced by Eastern music, by birdsong and by a myriad of styles that basically dispose of traditional Western modes, Messiaen's music is an avant-garde mosaic that rips through any beliefs we might have of what music should be, and forces us to confront our fears, prejudices, and ultimately our own beliefs, secular and otherwise. In performance, at the hands of a virtuoso organist, these meditations have a way of creeping into our inner core because they themselves come from the inner core of a true believer. But make no mistake: Messiaen's music is never dogmatic. The true faith that comes through is his complete belief in the everlasting power of music. In this sense, it is his immense spirituality rather than any rigid adherence to faith that draws us into his difficult compositions. And although the nine meditations are carefully programmed to specific events in the story of the Nativity of Jesus, the general spiritual approach is what the listener takes away from a performance of this work.

Another aspect that impresses us greatly is the sheer difficulty of Messiaen's writing, and the super-human technical virtuosity that an organist must possess in order to play his music. By all accounts, Messiaen himself was a wondrous organist, and this afternoon the composer spoke through John Scott's titanic performance. The mighty sonorities of the church's organ were put to the test time and again. In particular, the last meditation, called "God Among Us" is unusually fiendish, and Mr. Scott sounded secure and inspired as he culminated the work in an exultant resolved E major chord that assured us that the living faith is very much alive this holiday season.

La Scala opens with a new "Tristan und Isolde"

Here is the Associated Press review of Opening Night of La Scala, Milan.

Daniel Barenboim made a triumphant debut Friday night as principal guest conductor at La Scala's gala premiere of "Tristan und Isolde," receiving 20 minutes of applause, a shower of roses and shouts of "bravi."

The performance dispelled labor tensions that have hung over the famed Milanese opera house, as musicians and management alike sought to keep the melodrama strictly on the stage.

The spare production was directed by Patrice Chereau, whose sparse choreography amid industrial sets of slate walls, gave the tragic love story a realistic background void of overt symbolism.

German mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier, a Wagner veteran who carried the evening, starred as "Isolde" to British tenor Ian Storey's "Tristan."

The production was the realization of Barenboim's long-held and twice-failed desire to stage the opera with Chereau. It was the first time in nearly two decades that Wagner opened the season at the theater better associated with Verdi and the first time in 29 years the orchestra played Tristan.

"I think they played marvelously," Barenboim told reporters after the premiere. "It is not an easy opera and they played like they have been playing it their whole lives. I was confident, I knew they knew everything there was to know."

While Barenboim reckoned he has conducted "Tristan" more than any other opera, he said the collaboration with Chereau "breathed new life" into the production admired even by those who find the German conductor too heavy.

"In Chereau, I found my ideal partner," he said.

After recent walkouts by workers blocked Barenboim twice from conducting Verdi's "Requiem," everyone from the audience to musicians to management sought to focus on the premier and not on the still unresolved labor dispute.

The contract for La Scala's 800 employees expired four years ago and there is still no agreement on a new one. But musicians said they were putting labor issues aside in order to give the performance their fullest.

General manager Stephane Lissner thanked the workers for putting the season-opener, a key cultural event in Milan, ahead of the labor tensions.

"It's an emotional night for me, because we achieved this success after all of the difficulties of the last weeks," Lissner said after the show.

La Scala's traditional Dec. 7 season opening, held on the day honoring Milan's patron saint Ambrose, puts Italy's financial and fashion capital in the international spotlight. Foreign heads of state regularly attend and this year Italian President Giorgio Napolitano was joined by the presidents of Austria, Germany and Greece as well as the emir of Qatar.

Admission runs up to $2,900, while the infamous opera buffs who frequent the upper tiers of La Scala's balconies, the "loggionisti," wait in line to pay $73 for standing-room tickets.

With "Tristan," Barenboim assumes his new role as "Maestro of La Scala," an honorific title created for the Argentine-born conductor after the acrimonious 2005 departure of music director Riccardo Muti.

While no music director has been named per se, Barenboim, who is also music director of the Staatsoper in Berlin, will be chief among guest conductors who also include also Daniele Gatti and Riccardo Chailly.

Disappointing "Norma" at the MET

Lightning has struck so many times repeatedly at The Metropolitan Opera since the arrival of Peter Gelb that when something goes awry you really feel it. A sense of disappointment envelops the house and it doesn't let go. When it happens to an opera that is a well-known standard, then the feeling is even more. Thus it was last night at the current revival of Norma, by Vincenzo Bellini; clearly, the first mishap of what thus far has been a prodigious opera season.

Norma is not an easy opera to produce. In my lifetime, I cannot say that I have experienced a totally fulfilling performance of this work. Historically, Norma has fallen in and out of favor since its composition in the early part of the 19th century, and at the Metropolitan Opera it was first performed in German, and then in Italian as a vehicle for the great Rosa Ponselle. The postwar period went on to prove that powerhouse performers such as Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland can catapult a work into the repertory. Their mesmerizing performances of this work (both live and recorded) taught us firstly that Norma is one of the greatest works in the Italian repertory, and secondly that you need a titanic performer in the title role in order for the work to come alive.

Last night proved that Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian is not a Norma. She managed all the notes fairly well, but everything sounded the same. In such a role (in any role!) it is not enough to sing the notes: one has to create character through the voice. This she did not do. What most people will remember best about her Norma were those wonderful costume changes, and how good she looked in that fiery, blood-red number. And as far as the tenor is concerned, the least said about him the better. Should Franco Farina be singing these roles at a house like the MET? His bio in the playbill warns us that he will be singing Otello (Verdi or Rossini?) at Hamburg this season -- Yikes!

The real culprit in all of this was conductor Maurizio Benini who after leading a bubbly reading last year of Bartlett Sher's Il Barbiere di Siviglia decided to put on a serious hat and treat Norma as if it was a lead balloon. The evening crawled to a halt more times than I care to remember. Instead of propelling the music forward, as James Levine succeeded in doing earlier this season with Lucia di Lammermoor and Macbeth, Benini selected tempi that seemed to slow everything down. Now and then there were interesting touches of life from the orchestra, but his conducting turned out to be a heavy-handed affair throughout the evening. This approach can be deadly in a work like Norma. Even the great Dolora Zajick, who vocally was clearly the best performer on that stage, seemed hampered by Benini's lackluster reading.

Maybe one day I will get to hear a great Norma live at the MET. Unfortunately, not this season.

Verdi's "Macbeth" at the MET

Macbeth is a 500 dollar opera written by Giuseppe Verdi at the time when Italian composers were churning out 30 dollar jobs that are now all but forgotten. What's great about this new production at the Metropolitan Opera is that James Levine makes it sound like a million bucks! In his hands it's not just a score that promises the greatness that would come from this composer: it's already great, and he makes us believe it.

Metropolitan Opera audiences discovered this work in 1959, more than 100 years after it was composed, when it was mounted as a vehicle for baritone Leonard Warren and soprano Maria Callas. Callas was fired from the MET, and Leonie Rysanek filled in. The production was hailed as a masterpiece, the opera was deemed a neglected masterwork, and the whole enterprise was recorded by RCA Victor in what many still consider to be the best recording of this work.

Based on Shakespeare's play of the same name, Macbeth is the Bard's shortest tragedy, one of his bloodiest, and throughout its history it has had its share of misfortunes involving fires, illnesses, and deaths attached to its performances. Old actors refer to it as "The Scottish Play" whenever they are in rehearsal inside a theater. This ill luck seems also to have spread to its operatic counterpart. The most recent calamity involved with "The Scottish Opera" was in 1988 when a New York singing coach plunged to his death at the MET in a suicide leap during one of the live Saturday MET radio broadcasts.

Since the debut of this production by Adrian Noble, it has been nothing but successful, which I attribute largely to Levine's respect for the work. He is becoming quite the bel-canto interpreter these days. First there was the MET's opening night of Lucia di Lammermoor and now this early Verdi work; and although you can argue that Macbeth is no longer a bel-canto opera, it has enough of this genre's attributes, to make many conductors flee from the work, fearing that all they will be relegated to do in the pit is beat out tempi, giant metronome style. Levine, on the other hand, understands the work's inherent language, and draws from it all the power and beauty that he can. He ends up imbuing these early Italian work with a driving force which is rarely accented in the hands of others. He makes Macbeth have the gravitas of Don Carlo: no easy feat for any conductor, and if at times the cabalettas do seem to be a bit mechanical, the spirit of the work is indeed rescued from a dull reading.

On stage, Mr. Noble has done a superb job updating the work to modern times. There are jeeps and guns, and green laser effects. The clever unit set is made up of six pillars (which look like the giant pipes of a gigantic Scottish Highland bagpipe) which move about to recreate the different settings.

The witches in this production look either like contemporary frumpy bag ladies complete with disheveled coats and hats, or they look like something out of a 1940's documentary about the London Blitz. They are also accompanied by little girls, who must be on-the job training for membership in the coven. The witches were quite memorable, and danced (yes danced!) and, of course, sang/shrieked their music with just the right sense of supernatural fun.

But it is the staging that over and over again delighted the audience. It was a powerfully sung performance, but it was also an intelligently directed one. A banquet table, its white linen unspotted, appears out of nowhere during Lady Macbeth's brindisi, and it disappears with a swoosh that was so fast and so scary that you immediately knew that this would be no ordinary banquet.

All the principal singers were stellar: what a cast! In the title role Zelijko Lucic was tremendous. A Macbeth who can sound noble, ugly, defiant as well as defeated. What a wonderful performance he gives, and what a marvelous secure voice to accompany this characterization. Maria Guleghina used her powerful instrument to convey the character's strength. Likewise, this was the best singing I have ever heard from John Relyea, who in one scene can sing a noble interpretation of the character, and who can turn it around and play a silent ghost of himself in the next scene.

I hope that you have a chance to see this new production of Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera. It is one of the best of the season.