René Pape at Bayreuth

René Pape, who is singing the role of King Marke at Bayreuth this summer, stayed at my hotel.  He arrived a few hours before the performance, and stayed overnight.  A private man, he kept to himself, finding a corner where he could have breakfast and interact with his mobile phone.  But not private enough for me to snap a picture of him.  The day of the performance I ran into him and told him that I was looking forward to hearing him as King Marke.  He responded with a cordial nod of the head, and off he went to his car towards the Festspielhaus.

Parsifal at the Festspielhaus

Parsifal, Wagner's last major work for the lyric theater, which premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, was the opera presented for our last night at Bayreuth.  A new production last year by Uwe Eric Laufenberg, this staging replaced the great Stefan Herheim production which I saw here five years ago. It's a tough act to follow.  Whereas the Herheim production has already passed into legend, and is now beginning to be copied (as in this year's Meistersinger), this current production succeeds in its simplicity.

Set in modern times, somewhere in the Middle East, the Grail Knights give the appearance of being a rogue Christian group who bleed Amfortas every day, and drink his blood in a ritualistic manner reminiscent of the faithful taking the blood of Christ.  Amfortas himself, with his crown of thorns and loincloth is the most Christ-like I have ever seen in any production.

Whereas the rest of the characters, Gurnemanz, Kundry, and Parsifal himself are treated in a familiar manner, the character of Klingsor is somewhat intriguing and provocative.  His story is well-known to those who know the plot of this work.  In an effort to join the Knights of the Grail, Klingsor castrates himself, and after this dastardly act is rejected by the Grail Knights.  This causes him to turn to the dark side, and it is he who steals the spear and wounds Amfortas. He becomes a necromancer who rules over Kundry and an enchanted garden.  In this production he wears a skirt (perhaps alluding to his asexuality) but lives in a lair filled with crosses.  As a matter of fact when Parsifal is able to win the spear from him, he breaks it in two, shapes the pieces into a cross.  The destruction of Klingsor's lair is shown by the falling of all the crosses.  I found this turn of events in the production a bit confusing.

Likewise, I found the transformation scene in Act I a bit over-the-top.  A scrim comes down and we go on a space journey, starting a with a Google-Earth aerial look at the terrain where the action takes place and heading far into the farthest reaches of the universe.  Does the universality of this work really have to be shown so literally?  The Good Friday Spell became a torrent of water projected unto a scrim with appearances by the faces of the cast and even Wagner's death mask from Wahnfried awash in the cascading waters of Spring.

After four nights of a lackluster Ring led by Marek Janowsky, it was a pleasure to hear Harmut Haenchen leading the Bayreuth orchestra with such authority.  Like Christian Thielemann, he knows how to get the sound from the pit to every nook and cranny of the auditorium.  Under Janowsky, the chorus overwhelmed the orchestra in Götterdämmerung, but the Parsifal chorus and the orchestra under Haenchen playing fortissimo made one's ears tingle. 

The star of the evening was Georg Zeppenfeld who last year premiered this production with his star turn as Gurnemanz.  Also returning to this production was Ryan McKinny, who was a moderately voiced Amfortas, and Elena Pankratova, whose Kundry was truly heartbreaking. The newcomer to the cast was Andreas Schager who sang a memorable, powerful Parsifal. 

In many ways this was the best way to leave Bayreuth for the 2017 season.  With a strong production of an austere work that is respectful to Wagner's legacy and the traditions established at the Festspielhaus.

Götterdämmerung at the Festspielhaus

During the immolation scene that ends Wagner's great epic The Ring of the Nibelung, the dead body of Siegfried lies burning on a pyre, his wife Brünnhilde rides her horse Grane into the fire as the banks of the Rhine overflow, and the gold that was stolen in Das Rheingold goes back to the Rhinemaidens.  It's the end of the world, but a hopeful elemental end written to some of the most ravishing music in the lyric theater.  Of course, what I just described are the stage directions that Wagner wrote on his score.  No director has followed them for years as more and more theaters experiment with this work.

Frank Castorf's Ring at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus is by far the most experimental of any Ring that I have seen.  At times, it goes beyond just changing the locale of the original setting, it often creates its own running story which pales in comparison to the epic tale that the composer imagined. Often, Castorf's ideas do not work, or are, rather, so strange and alien to the words and music that he seems to be in another world and wants to take his cast with him.

There is no thematic unity to this Ring.  We start in a motel in Texas, and we end up on Wall Street, with some side trips to Baku and an Alexanderplatz filled with hungry alligators.  What does it all mean?  Why is there a comic character (we called him Squiggy!) who continually stops the action with "shtick" that makes no sense?  This is the first immolation scene that features no fire whatsoever, although Brünnhilde does spread some kerosene on the stage.  Nothing ignites.  Perhaps this is the best way to describe Castorf's staging: Nothing ignites.

This is the final time that this Ring will be presented at Bayreuth.  May it rest uneasily forever.

Tristan und Isolde at the Festspielhaus

The new production of Tristan und Isolde by Katharina Wagner premiered last year to great acclaim.  It is a production that has been out in DVD/Blu-Ray for a while, and it has been familiar to many who follow the going-ons at the Green Hill.  This year Bayreuth is offering a rare treat with René Pape singing the role of King Marke.

The look of the production with its use of darkness and light harks back to 1951 and the reopening of the Festspielhaus with the now classic, austere, and controversial productions of Wieland Wagner. It is apt that this year, in particular, the role that Wieland played in Bayreuth is remembered.  This is the 100th anniversary of his birth, and here in Bayreuth he is being remembered through a special exhibit on the grounds of Wahnfried, and through a newly published picture book by Till Haberfeld and Oswald G. Bauer.

Last night's production ended up being a compromised evening. Petra Lang was ill and unable to sing the role of Isolde.  However, she stepped into the stage and "lip-synched" the words to Ricarda Merbeth who sang the role standing on the apron, stage left, in front of a music stand, and following the score.  Frankly, I was shocked to see that the Festival did not have somebody prepared to take on the role in case the principal is ill.  I'm aware that it is difficult to readily get Wagner singers, but Bayreuth is a theater, and no theater should be in business unless there is an understudy ready to take on the role.  The show must go on, Bayreuth!

The rest of the cast was solid. Stephen Gould was a stentorian Tristan who was able to sing the part successfully having a silent partner next to him, and hearing Isolde's vocal line yards away, and outside the main stage area.  Not easy!  Iain Paterson, who sang Wotan in Das Rheingold was an able Kurwenal, and Christa Mayer was a big-voiced Brangäne.  René Pape once again proved that these days he owns the role of King Marke. As always, he was heartbreaking in this role.

Despite all the problems, the performance ended up being truly memorable due to the amazing conducting of Christian Thielemann.  After so many years spending his summers here, he knows that orchestra, and knows how to get the best sound out of that fabled pit.  Not everybody has learned how to do it.    Marek Janowski's reading of the Ring, thus far, for instance, lacks power. Thielemann knows that the pit can swallow sound, and he knows how to rescue it and get it out to the house.  As a result what we had last night was an evening awash with wondrous sonority, but finely tuned, and always tasteful.  This was not just big sound for the sake of making an unforgettable expression.  It was, rather, the kind of sound that can only be achieved when a conductor knows the score intimately and the orchestra is able to respond to his choices.  Thus far, Mr. Thielemann has been the star of this festival, something that he has proven, over and over again, throughout his years at The Green Hill.

Siegfried at the Festspielhaus

Of the four operas in Frank Castorf's The Ring of the Nibelung, it's Siegfried that has drawn the anger of the audience the most.  It might be the elaborate Communist Mount Rushmore pictured above which is part of the elaborate unit set for this show that gets the audience going.  Although, what has really brought upon the boos is Castorf's decision to have Siegfried kill Fafner with a machine gun, and not with the traditional sword Nothung. Originally the prop weapon was so loud that the original conductor of this production, Kirill Petrenko, asked Castorf to get another weapon that made less noise..  Eventually, Castorf agreed after many complains.

Since its premiere, the first performance of this opera has brought the wrath of the audience after the end of the second act. But it is the last act that tonight really got me upset.  This is the first production where Brünnhilde is put to sleep in one place and gets awaken by Siegfried in another: why?  Further, why does the set revolve from a Communist Mount Rushmore to a recreation of the Alexanderplatz?  And the biggest, and most stupid aspect of the evening: why is the Alexanderplatz overrun by a bunch of alligators that end up swallowing the Forest Bird?  It was an evening of "whys" and Frank Castorf offered no answers to his directorial choices.  There are no thematic ideas here that unify this production, but rather strange decisions that alienate the audience.

If all he wanted was to provoke, then he has succeeded.  Alex Ross in The New Yorker wrote brilliantly about directors who aim to provoke when he wrote his great review of Christoph Schlingensief's Bayreuth Parsifal.  You can read that review here.  Many of the conclusions that he reached can be applied to this production.

Bayreuth is not a toy for opera directors.  It is a place of tradition, and the keeper of the flame of Wagner and Wagnerism.  Thus, there should be some kind of respect when it comes to presenting the composer's operas.  Wagner was a great, tasteful artist.  I hope that this production goes away soon, and I hope Katharina Wagner hires someone who wants to expand the horizons of Wagner staging without mocking the works of the Master.

Johannes Martin Kränzle and me

While walking around Bayreuth I ran into opera singer Johannes Martin Kränzle who plays Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger: the first opera I saw on Monday.

Die Walküre at the Festspielhaus

After subjecting us to his low-down, white trash film noir with music by Richard Wagner which Frank Castorf calls his Das Rheingold, the director takes us to day one of the trilogy with a Die Walküre in Baku, Azerbaijan.  By setting the prologue in Texas, and following it up with a scene in the oil fields of the largest city in the Caspian Sea, Castorf is on to his main idea of turning the Wagnerian epic from 19th century gold to 20th century and beyond oil.  A clever idea, but one which in the past years of this production has not been followed through to the last two works.  Let us see if Castorf has done any revisions this year as the Ring continues this week.

Tonight's performance was very strong for many different reasons.  First the transparent handling of the great Bayreuth orchestra by Marek Janowski really stood out.  He never overpowered the singers, but also knew well when to whip the players into rapturous sound.  The extended orchestra sections in Wotan's farewell being a perfect example of Janowski's vigorous and expert handling of the orchestra and singers.

This season the Ring will have three different Wotans.  John Lundgren played him tonight with much power and nobility, and although at times the tessitura of the role made him strain and shout, he got through the performance with flying colors.  Likewise, tenor Christopher Ventris and bass Georg Zeppenfeld as Sigmund, and Hunding, respectively offered strong characterizations and solid singing.

It was a night for the ladies, though, starting with the beautiful sound of Camila Nylund as Sieglinde, and Catherine Foster as a powerhouse  Brünnhilde.  Both paced themselves well throughout the night, and the results were beautiful singing from start to finish.

The production continues to be puzzling, although tonight was miles ahead of Das Rheingold.  Once again, Castorf chose a unit revolving set, and although used less, he continued his obtrusive, unnecessary use of video cameras capturing selected moments from the drama, and projected on white sheets There was also  a fake Soviet silent film a la Eisenstein or Dovshenko which only proved to be cryptic and distracting.  ithout the vido element this production would be much stronger.

Of course, pretty soon this whole production will be eliminated, and probably remembered as one of the weakest Rings in recent years.

Das Rheingold at the Festspielhaus

After three years of listening to the boos overpower the cheers, together with a list of controversial reviews and awful word of mouth, I got a chance this afternoon to begin the Frank Castorf experience with a performance of Das Rheingold.  This production was to have been directed by cinema's  Wim Wenders, but he pulled out, and Frank Castorf came to the so-called rescue.  Castorf, an East German director, is best known for his unusual stagings of classic works.  This Ring is a  production that premiered in 2013 to celebrate the bicentennial of the composer's birth.  No longer a story of dwarfs, gods and heroes, Castorf sets the mythic story in the heartland of America, Baku, and even Wall Street's Stock Exchange and Berlin's Alexanderplatz in order to tell a tale of today's gold: oil.

The first installment takes place in a run down motel on Route 66.  The gods have been turned into figures from American films, and to underscore this, the production is totally filmed and shown on a giant videotron.  Some scenes actually have to be seen on the screen since they happen in rooms in the motel that we cannot see from the audience.  It's all pretty silly, and totally non-essential.   Whenever Castorf runs out of ideas he goes back to Wagner.  For instance when Donner swings his hammer to blow away the clouds and reveal the rainbow bridge that will take the gods into Valhalla, all he manages to do in this production is short circuit the electrical power in the hotel.

As usual, the cast was very strong, starting with Iain Paterson as Wotan, and Nadine Weissmann as a memorable Erda.  Two singers from last night's Meistersinger were also in this cast: Daniel Behle as Froh, and the indestructible Günther Groisböck as the giant Fasolt.

Getting back to Donner, played as a cowboy dressed in black by Markus Eiche, obviously after his hammer blow no rainbow bridge showed up.  There was a rainbow flag, but it looked out of place in a very "straight" production.  However, as we came out of the Festspielhaus after the performance we learned that it had rained on the Green Hill, and overhead there was a lovely rainbow: the rainbow we never got in this God-awful staging.

Meistersinger at the Festspielhaus

There was no denying that Barrie Kosky's new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg was envisioned in part for the TV screen.  BR-Klassik broadcasted the opening night event to Germany, and the results were magnificent: a handsome, detail-filled production filled with excellent singing actors that know how to act for a theater the size of Bayreuth, but are also experienced enough to know that the camera captures every move and amplifies it.  Less is more, and Michael Volle, to a large extent proved exactly that throughout the broadcast.  His Hans Sachs was a study in subtlety, with very few instances of stand-and-bark delivery of old opera staging.

However, the production at its fullest is really meant to be enjoyed within the precincts of the Festspielhaus bacause, after all, no radio or TV broadcast can ever truly capture the amazing acoustics of Wagner's theatre.  Meistersinger was my first performance in this second trip to Wagner's City, and my first Meistersinger at the Festspielhaus.

The performance was stellar, very much an exact copy of opening night.  Unfortunately Michael Volle was not in good voice, and before the beginning of Act III there was an announcement from the stage asking the audience for their indulgence since Volle wanted to continue singing. He actually did better than I expected.  He is an intelligent singer, and he knows how to pace himself and sing over whatever ailment he was suffering from.

I thought that Klaus Florian Vogt was having vocal problems as well, and this showed up in the Act III Prize song.  He got through it, but his high notes suffered as his throat seemed to be tightening above the staff.  This is a problem that I have observed with this fine singer lately.  It's unfortunate because, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, his voice has an eternally youthful quality.

Anne Schawenwilms improved on her Eva from opening night, and Günther Groissböck as Veit Pogner, and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sixtus Beckmesser offered some of the strongest singing of the evening.

On to The Ring of the Nibelung tomorrow.

A new Meistersinger at Bayreuth

The new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg that kicked off the 2017 Bayreuth Festival is the brainchild of Australian director Barrie Kosky, who describes himself as a "Jewish gay kangaroo."  This Meistersinger is not very Australian or very gay, but it is certainly very Jewish.   Actually, a "Jewish Meistersinger" is not much of a stretch.  The opera contains one character, Beckmesser, that has often been played as a Jewish stereotype since it is based on Eduard Hanslick, a Jewish critic of Wagner's time who was present at an 1862 reading of Meistersinger, and stormed out of the room in protest.  The character of Beckmesser was called Hanslich in early drafts of the libretto.

Mr. Kosky's production begins in the library of Wahnfried, Richard and Cosima's mansion in Bayreuth.  Gathered there are the principals of the comedy: Hans Sachs and Walter von Stolzing; and they are dressed like Richard Wagner himself.  Even the children running around there (Wagner's children?) look like miniature versions of their father (with under-the-chin beards!).  Also present is Eva, but she is not a Wagner clone, instead she is made up like Cosima.  Pogner is a long haired Franz Liszt, and Beckmesser appears as the conductor Hermann Levi, a Jew, whom Wagner pressured to get baptized before conducting the premiere of Parsifal.  Levi did conduct those first performances of Wagner's last work at Bayreuth, but he refused to convert to Christianity.

It is a very playful first scene of the opera.  Here you have Walter wooing Eva as the opera calls for, but what we see is Wagner wooing Cosima, while the "real" Wagner looks on.  During this first scene Hans Sachs as Wagner acts as a kind of overlord guarding the sacred flame of "Holy German Art" that he will once again mention at the end of the opera.  At the same time director Kosky is playing with these "sacred" German myths without shattering them.  

Those familiar with Stefan Herheim's great 2008 production of Parsifal at the Green Hill (which I got to see live in 2012) will remember that the opening scenes of that setting also took place on the grounds of Wahnfried.  Is this Kosky production then, Herheim-lite?  Not at all.  Whereas Herheim was exploring the history of Bayreuth as it intertwined with Germany's own 20th century history, Kosky is interested in surfacing Germany's not so hidden history of antisemitism and the role Bayreuth played during Wagner's own time, and specially during the Third Reich, when the Festspielhaus willingly played host to Adolf Hitler and his cohorts.

In every second act of Meistersinger Beckmesser gets beaten up, but in this production the citizens of Nuremberg go beyond a good thrashing.  They ridicule and mock him by placing a giant puppet head on him, and making him dance.  The head is a caricature of the stereotypical Jew as seen in the propaganda films that UFA studios produced under Josef Goebbels.  Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) from 1940, is perhaps the best known of these films. There is also a tour-de-force moment at the end of the act that is over the top, but I will not spoil it for you in case you are traveling to see this production live.

Setting the last scene in a courtroom reminiscent of the one where the Nuremberg trials were conducted was a stroke of genius, but I felt that Krosky could have done more with such a poignant setting.  Perhaps in subsequent years, as he rethinks his production, he might want to add some elements that will make this setting stand out even more.  At the moment, he might as well have set the last scene of the act outside the walls of old Nuremberg as Wagner indicates in his libretto.

What an amazing collection of singers have been brought together for this production! Something that Bayreuth doesn't always achieves these days.  Michael Volle, perhaps the greatest Hans Sachs of our times was in glorious voice, as was Klaus Florian Vogt as Walter von Stolzing.  Vogt has a Dorian Gray thing going with his voice.  The more he ages, the younger he sounds.  His singing was exemplary throughout, and his winning song aria was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Anne Schawenwilms's Eva, who sounded weak and unsteady.  She was the only artist boo'd by the critical, but enthusiastic opening night crowd. Philippe Jordan led the incredible orchestra with competence, preferring stately rhythms and ultimately producing a pleasing, lush sound which at times tended to overpower the singers.

I saw this production live on BR-Klassik over the Internet this morning here in New York, but I will be going to Bayreuth this year, and will catch the August 7th performance of this opera.

Tom Cruise in a reboot of The Mummy

At the beginning of The Mummy a supposed Egyptian proverb appears on the screen asserting that we never die, but assume new forms and keep on living. I'm not sure if I agree with this bit of mumbo-jumbo, but if it were true I would have suggested that Universal track down the current living incarnations of Boris Karloff, Karl Freund, and Jack Pierce (the star, director and make-up artist of the 1932 Universal classic), and perhaps this movie might have had a chance to succeed. Helmed by Alex Kurtzman, written by at least five credited writers, and starring a miscast Tom Cruise, this current reboot is a mess.

Since apparently you can't keep a good mummy buried, in this go-around Karloff's original Imhotep has transgendered into pharaoh's daughter Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), a dangerous girl with mysterious tattoos and a notion that Tom Cruise is her long-lost lover.  In her quest to recapture her rapture, she engineers a number of nasty events including a spectacular airplane crash, perhaps the highlight of the film.  It's all downhill from here as Ahmanet's kiss of death turns a number of mortals into her evil zombie minions. Most of them look sore that they landed in this turkey and not featured in the next season of The Walking Dead.

What really stinks about this reboot is that this film is merely an introduction to a new universe. Does every popular film coming out of Hollywood these days have to be pigeon-holed into an imaginary universe?  Apparently, the answer is yes.  Universal's answer to Marvel and DC is to resurrect their monster intellectual properties from the 1930s and re-vamp them into a milieu called Dark Universe. Hence the unnecessary appearance in this film of Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll and his doppelgänger Mr. Hyde, a monster who, curiously enough, was never a part of the Universal family, and whose greatest appearance was for Paramount Pictures in Fredric March's Oscar winning pre-Code classic.

I will end this review with A.O. Scott's insightful comment about this movie in the New York Times.  "It will be argued that this one was made not for the critics but for the fans. Which is no doubt true. Every con game is played with suckers in mind."

Der Rosenkavalier - New Production at the MET

The Metropolitan Opera is not a European Festival, and yet Peter Gelb continues to treat the New York institution like one. He has convinced himself that audiences, especially young audiences, will flock to Lincoln Center if presented with Regietheatre stagings of some of opera's warhorses. The best example of this thinking is Luc Bondy's 2009 maligned staging of Tosca which replaced the much beloved Franco Zeffirelli production. Next season, this production will be scrapped (after only five years) and a new David McVicar staging will replace it. This new production promises to take the action back to recreations of the original Roman locales, as specified in the libretto, and which the MET is touting in their 2017-2018 subscription brochure as "ravishing," and "rivaling the splendor of Franco Zeffirelli's set and costumes of the Napoleonic era."

Now, as the current season comes to an end, the MET has once again taken a chance with another old, ravishing production from the days when voices ruled the stage and directors actually followed the stage directions. The 1969 Robert O'Hearn production of Der Rosenkavalier has been replaced with a new production by director Robert Carsen. The old production was faithful to Hugo von Hoffmansthal's setting of the opera during the reign of Empress Maria Theresa. This new Carsen production updates the action to 1911, the year in which the opera received its successful Dresden debut, on the eve of the Great War.
Robert Carsen must have been coached by Peter Gelb about New York's tastes, because this staging's Regietheatre sneaks up on you. The first act, with its sumptuous red rich fabrics bring up the years of the Vienna Secession faithfully. Act I was so satisfying, that it left me wondering why the production team was booed a few days ago at the premiere. The rest of the production answered my question. 

 As the rich red curtain goes up in Faninal's home we are in what looks like an armory with a pair of smoking howitzers and ammunition center stage. Across the wall, a Greek wartime frieze reminds us that Faninal is an arms manufacturer, and would love to get his daughter married to a Baron so he can achieve further aristocratic status. The cannons offers a satisfying phallic symbol for Baron Ochs, but I found this cheap imagery. However, by setting the opera in 1911 Faninal has the potential to become filthy rich when World War I begins. In addition, at the conclusion of the evening, Mr. Carsen continues this militaristic theme by showing us the reality of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire coming to a crashing end. Act III moves the scene from a private room at a country inn to an urban high-class brothel, complete with female nudity and a proprietor in drag.  I don't have a problem with Act III, except that the appearance of the Marschallin at a brothel is really a preposterous notion. It makes the "deus-ex-machina" aspect of her role more obvious than ever. Let's just state that the setting of Act II sparks my curiosity, but really makes no sense, and let's leave it at that.

It is an opera about the passage of time, and there was Renée Fleming in her farewell performance to this role, which she has sung with great acclaim all over the world. I found her voice still beautiful after all these years, although she moved cautiously through the first Act saving herself for the ravishing trio towards the conclusion of Act III. She could not have had a more wonderful Count Octavian than Elīna Garanča's great impersonation of a 17 year old boy in the throes of lust for an older woman. She sang with amazing precision and wealth of voice. I heard that Günther Groissböck's Baron Ochs was also booed opening night. I can see some conservative audience members objecting to his aggressive take on the role. This Baron Ochs is not just a oafish country bumpkin, in the hands of Mr. Groissböck he becomes a sexual predator to be feared and avoided. The rest of the cast sang very well, especially Matthew Polenzani, here made up to be an Enrico Caruso temperamental, womanizing Neopolitan caricature, handing the Marshallin an RCA Victor 78 rpm recording before embarking on his rapturous solo. Great performances were also given by Erin Morley's Sophie and Markus Brück's Faninal.

Sebastian Weigle is becoming the MET's new maestro of the German repertory after giving us a memorable Fidelio and now adding to it a magnificent reading of this work. I would have liked the prelude a little slower, but if this music captures the night of love between Octavian and the Marschallin then that hot, frenetic encounter must have been worthy of a XXX rating.

WAR PAINT -- Sans Patti

 This is happening a lot lately. One of the names above the title is missing, and creating a lot of disappointed audience members.  Yesterday, at the matinee, it was Patti LuPone's turn to be absent from the show. It was her first cancellation since the show started, so I was told by a member of the staff of the Nederlander Theater.  Of course, I had tickets for the matinee.  Her understudy went on, a competent performer by the name of Donna Migliaccio, and the show went on sans Patti. An Italian playing the very Jewish Helena Rubenstein?  Does it work?  Of course it did, but it was missing something. The show went on as usual from this side of the footlights, although I'm sure there were a few tense moments backstage. What the performance lacked was the chemistry. One star, the great Christine Ebersole cannot do it alone. This is the kind of show which is divided evenly between the two stars, sometimes way too evenly, and when one is missing, the whole thing feels like an invalid on crutches. Never underestimate the star power of a veteran, some might even say, one of the immortal stars of Broadway. 

Will I go back to see the show again, with both stars present?  The folks at the Nederlander are encouraging this. They gave out vouchers to exchange our tickets for a later performance, while at the same time asking us to stay and see the show. The bottom line is that no theater likes empty seats, although there were many since some ticket holders opted to exchange tickets or get a refund. For the majority of theater goers it makes no sense to see this kind of show without the joint shine of the two bright stars.

The Met cancels performances

An audience member at the Metropolitan Opera threw a white powdery substance into the orchestra pit on Saturday during an intermission of the afternoon performance of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, officials said, prompting the company to cancel the rest of the show and that night’s performance of L’Italiana in Algeri while the police investigated.

No one was injured during the episode, the Met said, which occurred during the second intermission of the opera. “As a safety precaution, the Met canceled the remainder of the performance to err on the side of appropriate caution,” Sam Neuman, a Met spokesman, said.

Tenor Johan Botha is dead

It is sad to report that tenor Johan Botha, the South African superstar that thrilled audiences around the world with his performances of Richard Wagner's toughest roles, died today at the age of 51. Mr. Botha was a mainstay of the great opera houses around the world. I was fortunate to see him perform the major Wagner roles as well as the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's Otello: one of the hardest roles in the Italian repertory.

Mr. Botha started his career in the chorus of the Bayreuth Festival. Twenty years later he would be acclaimed in the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre at that same theater.

Here he is in the role of Walther von Stolzing singing "Morgenlich leuchtend" from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.


I last saw him at the Metropolitan Opera singing the title role in Tannhäuser, a performance that the New York Times described as that of a man who "bristled with the desperate intensity of a man who’d been to hell and back — and lived to tell the tale."

Welcome to the Thunderdome!

When the US Open moved from the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills to Flushing meadows it shed whatever vestige it had of manicured lawns and country clubbers. Aided by players like Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King tennis became the people's sport. Not only was the tournament not ever like Wimbledon, it didn't even try. After the move to Flushing, the permanent adoption of hard courts, the change to yellow tennis balls, and a loose code when it came to player's dress, the US Open became the most dynamic sports event in New York City, and also its most profitable.

When it opened in 1997, the behemoth Arthur Ashe Stadium (the biggest tennis stadium in the world) made strangers of us all. Alienation came to tennis. The players didn't even know we were up there, and we could hardly see them in the distance (never mind being able to judge line calls with any degree of certainty), so there was no reason to maintain the accustomed silence during points. The upper promenade of the stadium featured a constant flow of humanity in search of their seats (and more often occupying other people's seats to try to get a closer view), and constant conversation that seemed to just float up to the nearby clouds and escape to the heavens.

But in the last three years the USTA decided that a roof had to be built so that play could continue during the unstable New York weather that often plagues the fortnight. The acoustics of the place have changed forever. Now that the roof is in place, the thousands of random conversations that take place among the fans (especially during the night sessions) has no place to escape. They bounce around the stadium starting like a background buzz and ending up like a foreground clatter. The other night, in the middle of an ESPN match telecast, John McEnroe complained about the noise, mentioning that it felt like he was in Yankee Stadium.

But the USTA has no one else to blame but themselves. They have built the US Open as the hippest of events where loud and brash is in, After all, it is New York City! To this end, there are videos played on giant jumbotrons during changeovers, together with loud rock music while the players take their break. Often a roving camera travels the stadium giving us a free of charge fifteen seconds of fame.

Allow me a classical music anecdote (after all, it is primarily a music blog):

When Sir Georg Solti brought the Paris Opera to the MET for a series of performances of Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro, he knew he would have to fill the cavernous Metropolitan Opera, an auditorium much bigger than any European house. What he did was the opposite: he asked the orchestra to play quietly, and he begged the singers not to shout. The little, precious sound that they created managed to fill the house. Those that were fortunate to be present during those fabled performances were all on the edge of their seats, bending an ear, trying to absorb it all. These were probably the most engaged audiences in the history of Lincoln Center.

Back to tennis:

Now that the stadium roof is here to stay, perhaps the powers-that-be should re-think how it packages the US Open. They don't have to create excitement. The real excitement occurs inside that rectangular blue and green court ruled by white lines.

Gene Wilder is dead at 83

Gene Wilder died today at the age of 83. How sad when a comedian dies: a person who brings happiness and joy to so many. Young Frankenstein? Blazing Saddles? What was your favorite Gene Wilder role. What about The Producers? During the 1970s Mel Brooks found his muse, star, and co-author in Gene. However, if you never saw him in his breakout role in Bonnie and Clyde, a decade earlier, then you are missing a comedy moment that solidified his career at an early moment.

For many he is and will always be the one and only Willy Wonka, and nobody else should attempt to usurp the chocolate factory. He was perfection in that role. Sheer genius and pure imagination.

Juan Gabriel dead at 66

Juan Gabriel, the legendary Mexican singer, known as "el Divo de Juárez" died in Santa Monica after giving a concert on Friday in Inglewood. The cause of his death was a heart attack. Beloved by millions of Spanish-speaking fans, Juan Gabriel (born Alberto Aguilera Valadez) was Mexico's top selling artist with sales of more than 100 million albums.

Below is a video of his song "La mujer que yo amo" dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico's beloved icon.

Gay Jewish Kangaroo in Bayreuth

Barrie Kosky, an Australian theater and opera director from Melbourne who labels himself as a "Gay Jewish Kangaroo" has been invited by Katharina Wagner to direct the new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Bayreuth for the summer of 2017. The Bayreuth Festival has been trying to face up to its troubled past, which included the infamous patron-ship of Adolf Hitler who forged a friendship with the Wagner family and made the Green Hill a showplace for Third Reich politics, which of course included the banning of all homosexual and Jewish artists. In 2012, the year I visited Bayreuth an exhibition named "Verstummte Stimme" (Silenced Voices) chronicled the racial cleansing of the festival during the 1930s.

Mr. Kosky's new production will replace Katharina Wagner's own staging of her great-grandfather's work, a concept that brought ridicule and boos during its performances. Her take on Wagner's most nationalistic operas was downright irreverent including nudity, masturbating puppets of Germany's great intellectuals, and rethinking the character of Walter as an "Action-Künstler" in the vain of the late Christoph Schlingensief.

Here is a taste of her departing Meistersinger:
 

 It will be interesting to see what Mr. Kosky comes up with. Nuremberg, with its infamous anti-Semitic past will surely fire the imagination of the director. Perhaps a Meistersinger that takes place in the shtetl filled with deeply rooted Yiddishkeit? Why not! When the director was asked about the leading positions held by Jews in the Berlin cultural institutions, Kosky responded : "the more Jews the better... bring it on!"

Faust: Clowning Around in Salzburg

At the center of the first and the last scenes of Charles Gounod's opera Faust. as seen through the wacky lens of director and set designer Reinhard von der Thannen, a sign of the French word "Rien," meaning nothing, descends lazily from the rafters. And after watching the telecast from the Salzburg Festival of this new production I wonder if ultimately "nothing" is what the director wants his audience to take away with them.

One stays with this production out of curiosity to see what von der Thannen is going to come up with next. As soon as the curtain goes up we get a clown Faust, and in the next scene a clown chorus, establishing, perhaps, a carnival atmosphere. But in the second act the picaresque ambience is broken by a gigantic skeleton hovering over the Soldier's chorus (obviously an anti war statement), and gigantic black balls (the kind that King Kong might use in a bowling game) are rolled around the stage during Margerithe's most poignant moments. What does it all mean?

 We must remember that Mr. von der Thannen was also the set and costume designer for the infamous Hans Neuenfels rat infested production of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin at Bayreuth. There are similarities between the two productions. Both feature sleek, white-walled sets reminiscent of a laboratory, and both stagings are supported by choruses weirdly costumed in unexpected ways and richly directed in a manner that integrates the ensemble with the dramatic setting. Lastly, a sparseness pervades Mr. von der Thannen's settings, which he is quick to populate with colorful intellectual incongruities, like little houses on wheels and gigantic lilies. This is the kind of Regietheatre that does not offend, but which titillates the viewer's fancy, and causes smiles, not growls. It can become highly popular and habit forming. Unlike the audiences at Bayreuth, who at times behave like carnivores waiting to devour a director's new production, this premiere received no audible boos during the curtain calls.

 Perhaps the first rate cast assembled had a lot to do with this reception. As is usually the case during the summers at Salzburg, all the performers were quite excellent. In the title role, the young Polish tenor Piotr Beczala was in marvelous voice, his ringing high C in "Salut! demeure chaste et pure" thrilling and secure.  Italian soprano Maria Agresta superbly conveyed the extremes that her role demands:  young innocence and shattering tragedy. Ildar Abdrazokov's Méphistophélès was a dashing figure who commanded the stage at all times.  Perhaps not the basso profundo voice that we are accustomed to hearing in this role, he was lyrical and ample of voice. Alexey Markov as Valentin seemed at times overwhelmed by the production, although he sang firmly throughout most of the performance.

What can one say about the Vienna Philharmonic that has not been stated so many times before. They played with the kind of expert musicianship that makes them one of the world's great ensembles. The young Argentinian conductor Alejo Pérez led them in a passionate reading of a score that many times can sound overly familiar and trite.

Despite its idiosyncrasies this is a production that needs to be seen live to be fully appreciated. That was certainly the case with the Bayreuth Lohengrin for which Mr. von der Thannen designed sets and costumes. I first experienced it through photographs, then on Blu-ray; but the concept did not hit home until I saw it live at Bayreuth in 2012. I hope that other opera houses pick up this staging after its initial Salzburg run.