Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

  

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is by no means what its unwieldy title promises to be. It is most definitely not a slasher, gorefest flick, but rather a deep, thoughtful examination of a genre that is often financially lucrative but socially complicated. It approaches the horror franchise (think about the legion of Friday the 13^th slashers, and you’ll be on the right track) as part artistic homage, and especially as queer deconstruction of the inherent misogynous and anti LGBTQ+ makeup present in most of these low-budget films. Director Jane Shoenbrun, who is queer and transgender, concocts a story where queer film director Kriss Williams (Hannah Einbinder) proposes to reboot a comatose horror intellectual property, not as just another silly addition to the many movies in the franchise, but as an intellectual examination of the previous films. She sets on a wintery, snowy journey to find Billy Presley, the lead female actor of the original slasher, now a recluse, and played deliciously, in Norma Desmond mode, by Gillian Anderson. Kriss’ goal is to convince Billy to come back as the star of her new film. Their encounter at Billy’s house, in the abandoned campground where she lives, and where the original slasher was filmed, takes place over a dinner consisting of buckets of KFC. Leave it to director Shoenbrun to transform fried chicken smothered in dipping sauce look creepy and sensuous.

Before we know it, we realize that the film Kriss wants to make is very much the film that we are watching. But to call Camp Miasma meta is just an easy way to pigeonhole the film into a stereotypical classification of a current trend in filmmaking. As Kriss and Billy sit down next to each other to watch the film, in Billy’s own 16mm version, and the projector light outlines their bodies we are in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd. land; this time a feminine version of it and still filled with the same repressed sexuality present when young screenwriter Joe Gillis falls trapped inside the spiderweb of Norma Desmond’s alluring mystique.

Watching the film I could not stop thinking of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, his 1865 opera which traces an illicit love affair through music which fails to achieve a resolution until a final overwhelming climax. The lovers in the opera were brought together by a magic elixir, but in this film Kriss and Billy are brought together by the elixir of film. When their union is finally consummated in what can only be described as a bloody Liebestod (Love-Death) it is brought about by the appearance of the slashing monster in the original film. A creature dressed in white with a square metal air conditioning vent for a head who carries a massive spear -- more like a phallic harpoon. In the film within a film the slasher is drowned by his homophobic fellow campers because of his gender fluidity. Now, as an avenging monster, his name is Little Death. 

We know that in many horror films characters are often brutally murdered when they are in the middle of having sex. It is one of the basic tropes of the horror slasher genre, Here, Shoenbrun plays with this conceit in original ways. By naming the villain Little Death we are reminded of the French term for an orgasm (la petite mort). Equating the heights of sexuality with the violent act of a slasher is this film's supreme achievement in originality. Kriss and Billy welcome the sexual culmination brought about by Little Death, and as the film concludes we are assured that they will welcome him again and again.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Superheroes are the loneliest creatures on Earth. They occupy a kind of double life, one in which the mask is not merely a disguise but a home base. They can always return to their private selves, shed the cape, blink away the persona. Yet in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Peter Parker, memorably played by Tom Holland, has slipped into something bleaker. After a night spent chasing criminals across the city, he returns to his New York attic apartment, where he lives like a hermit, surrounded by computer screens, symbolically the glow of unresolved thoughts. His present existence dares you to feel sorry for him: a Jekyll-and-Hyde case where one half has overtaken the other.

Directed with adrenaline and feeling, though sometimes short on pacing, by Destin Daniel Cretton, and written by returning screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the film leans successfully into the humanity of its hero, and his specific vulnerability that has always been Spider-Man’s richest resource. It’s angst, yes, but it is also craft: the kind that insists that the character’s pain is not incidental, but an essential aspect of him.

If you remember Spider-Man: No Way Home, released in 2021, you’ll recall that a nasty spell has erased Peter Parker from everyone’s memory. I hope the spell did not work viewers, and you have some memory of this! The result is that people remember being saved by Spider-Man, but those closest to Peter, especially his best friend, Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his girl, MJ (Zendaya) are unable to recall his secret identity, or their shared history. Add the death of  Peter’s beloved Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), and the story’s central fact becomes devastatingly simple and heartbreaking: Peter Parker is alone. He compensates for his depression by devoting his entire existence to embodying Spider-Man, 24/7, as if his crime fighting endurance could ever substitute for companionship.

And despite these past events, the new film feels, strangely, like a fresh start. The title of the film truly says it all. It offers something more grounded, more mature, clearly an unmistakable pivot away from the earlier movies. In doing so, it also reaffirms Spider-Man’s status as arguably the character that casts the longest shadow in the Marvel universe, which goes a long way toward explaining the franchise’s enduring appeal. McKenna and Sommers have gotten into the skin of Peter/Spidey and, if this successful new installment is any indication, and they follow this new approach towards the main character, there will be no shortage of stories still to come.

What the filmmakers appear to be molding is a character with quasi-Shakespearean weight: not merely a hero in trouble, but a tragic hero, changed by forces he cannot fully control. The movie’s tone is markedly different from the previous film. Whereas that chapter of the story felt like a crowded spectacle, this installment aims to honor Spider-Man’s legacy while quietly redirecting the series onto a new plane. It wants to carry the character to even higher ground, provided, of course, that his web holds. For now, the Tom Holland era is firmly in place, and against expectations, it continues to get better.        

The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan

I walked into an early morning showing of Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey convinced that it is an impossible task to successfully adapt Homer’s poem into a coherent film. Ulysses, James Joyce’s modernist novel, compresses the travels of Odysseus into one day in Dublin, June 16, 1904, and it works wonderfully. When it comes to film, the epic poem morphs beautifully to adaptation. Apocalypse, Now and O Brother Where Art Thou? are successful transfers to another time and space. For me, these transformations feel more akin to the Homeric spirit than an attempt at transferring to the screen the actual poem. Certainly, the Italian film Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano doesn’t do it for me. Try compressing a heroic poem of more than twelve thousand lines into a two-hour movie and see what you get. You get the prototype of a 1950’s “sword and sandal” movie. At least Nolan gives himself more time, almost three hours. Even though this gigantic length is not enough to pack in everything the original has to offer, it is an exciting three hours. Still, I maintain that for The Odyssey to truly work it has to be read. It’s the only way it is going to come to life. And if you want a reading for our times, pick up the Emily Wilson translation, and I can assure you Homer will live once more.

There are many other literary works that resist being adapted, much less being turned into a film. Don Quixote is a perfect example. There have been so many attempts to liberate Miguel de Cervantes’ words from the page. The 1957 film by Grigori Kozintsev faithfully captures a chunk of the narrative, while on Broadway Man of La Mancha makes parallels between Cervantes’ life and thew novel to the tune of a magnificent musical score. There have been film versions made in Spain as well as in Mexico. That country’s legendary comedian Mario “Cantinflas” Moreno played Sancho Panza in a minor comic version. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, perhaps the most interesting of all, is Terry Gilliam’s meta approach to the novel. Back in America, while Orson Welles was desperately trying to fund his version, which remained unfinished at his death, Mr. Magoo (voiced by Jim Backus), triumphed playing the title role in a cute animated short.

Our modern conception of Homer is of a blind itinerant poet who recited the events of the Trojan War and its aftermath, events that happened in the Bronze Age. The Iliad and the Odyssey are catalogued as primitive heroic poetry. Primitive in the sense that they are part of an ancient oral tradition. According to legend, they were first improvised and recited following oral formulas and written down much later in the 7^th or 8^th century BCE. We don’t really know if a wandering bard named Homer really existed.

The original poem exists in two realms: the gods on Mount Olympus and the world of mortal men. Nolan has decided that his adaptation will concentrate largely on the mortals. Unfortunately, this leaves out a lot of the conflict that is essential towards a full understanding of the narrative. The gods are major players here.  After all, let’s face it, it was a divine beauty contest that triggers the Trojan War in the first place, and Odysseus’ return home to Ithaca is largely guided by the whims of the gods. Major deity like Zeus and Poseidon, however, are absent, although they are mentioned. The 1981 film Clash of the Titans, on the other hand, a fantasy based on the myth of Perseus, made it a point to present both worlds. Laurence Olivier, Claire Bloom and Ursula Andress, among others, populated a star-studded Mount Olympus.

A major directorial decision when tackling the works of antiquity is how do we know what these people looked like, what they sounded like, what they wore and the nature of the space through which they roamed. Nolan is after the big budget epic vision – shot and edited in IMAX  -- a process that often neglects historical accuracy and is often influenced by the look and feel of previous epics. What about the language? It feels strange to hear one of the suitors drop the F-bomb at one of the banquets. What about Telemachus (Tom Holland) referring to Odysseus (Matt Damon) as dad? Does that break the Homeric spirit of antiquity for you? On the opposite side of the spectrum, Pier Paolo Pasolini, himself a poet, shooting with a poverty-row budget and a cast made up largely of non-professional actors achieves wonders in his Oedipus Rex and Medea. These films are raw and brutal, but their language is elevated and true to their classic nature. They don’t try to dream up distant worlds that we know very little about, instead they create their own. When it comes to presenting ancient Greece, Pasolini’s film achieves a memorable reality rather than a fleeting artifice.

Episodic by its nature, Nolan’s film has some unforgettable set pieces that will stay with you for a long time. Chief among them is Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops. Played by Bill Erwin, Polyphemus is more to be pitied than censured, even when he is munching away at some of Odysseus’ men. We feel sorry for him – a deformed, lonely creature living alone with sheep in a cave. Where did he get his taste for men? Their encounter with the Laestrygonians ends up being less successful, Nolan choses to portray them as gigantic men in shiny armor. That’s way too medieval-looking for my taste. And what happened to the lotus-eaters chapter? Perhaps Nolan decided that a section about beings who consume a flower and go on a drugged-out trip was way too boring (too bad, it worked so successfully in Apocalypse, Now when Major Willard (Martin Sheen) ends up meeting some GI’s, stoned out of their minds, who are obsessed with blowing up a bridge). Instead, Nolan incorporates the lotus eating to Calypso (Charlize Theron) on the island of Ogygia. She keeps feeding our hero the drug so that he can forget all about his wife and returning home to Ithaca. The sections that take place aboard a ship are incredible, especially the sailing of the straits of Messina when, thanks to the wrath of Poseidon (Polyphemus is his son, you see and he’s mad about Odysseus putting out junior’s only eye), the men encounter the whirlpool Charybdis and the serpent-like Scylla.

The three most memorable set pieces in the film are Odysseus’ visit to the underworld, the flashbacks to the sack of the city of Troy (beware Greeks bearing gifts!), and the concluding slaughter of the suitors. I don’t want to discuss these at any length at the risk of spoiling what ends up being amazing examples of brilliant filmmaking. Let’s just say that each is an amalgamation of great acting, amazing editing and evocative IMAX cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema), and ambitious music (Ludwig Göransson) by two Nolan regulars both of whom won Academy Awards for Oppenheimer.

And of course, there is Odysseus and Penelope (Anne Hathaway), as well as the goddess Athena (Zendaya), Lupita Nyong’o (in a dual role of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra), Robert Pattinson as Antinous, John Leguizamo memorable as Eumaeus, and Elliot Page in a standout performance as Sinon (a character borrowed from Virgil's Aeneid). Unfortunately, Benny Safdie in the role of Agamemnon is weighted down by a costume and a helmet / mask (that looks way too similar to Batman’s) and makes him look like some kind of Homeric superhero from the pages of Marvel comics.

It is Matt Damon that carries this film, and his performance is wonderful. Perhaps, this is his best role in his career, and without a doubt the most arduous. It must have been a ball-breaker of a shoot, and Damon rises to the occasion in every scene. Frankly, I didn’t think he had the gravitas to pull it off, but his earnest approach to the role won me over in a big way. Anne Hathaway’s Penelope is a study in resignation which she manages to portray in all her scenes.

So, yes, Christopher Nolan’s film is a hit. He has been able to follow a huge film about the creation of the atomic bomb with an even bigger explosion of a film, and he has succeeded. I recommend the film highly, and, quite frankly, despite its length, I’m looking forward to a second viewing soon.  The big question is – how do you top this? Will they all be giants from now on, or does he still possess the ability to come up with a Memento or a The Prestige?

Steven Spielberg's DISCLOSURE DAY

  

Thus far, the Donald Trump administration decision to release previously classified information about UFO (or UAP as we are calling them now) sightings have turned up nothing more than black and white footage of fast moving points of light in the sky. It's true that the movements of these objects shatter our laws of physics, and personal, mystified accounts by pilots who have been eyewitness to these events makes us all ponder what the heck is out there. It's no wonder that the eternal question of "are we the only ones" in this vast universe keeps coming back to the forefront. Since these latest "disclosures" have done a pretty bad job of clarifying long-held secrets, and a great job of raising even more questions, it is up to Steven Spielberg to set the record straight. 

Listen, you unbelievers: Yes, there are beings out there who have visited the Earth! And yes, even some have crashed landed (despite their supposed superior aeronautics); and yes, the United States government has recuperated the bodies of extraterrestrials in Roswell in 1947; and YES, the government has also done a whopper of a job denying it all. In essence, this is the premise of Steven Spielberg's latest film Disclosure Day, a rollicking adventure chase thriller that explores the mythology of UAPs. What makes the movie irresistible is that this time around he never lifts the foot off the gas pedal. Luckily, the latest governmental releases may have incidentally drummed up business for the film. Trust me, it didn't need it. When Spielberg makes a movie about aliens you run to the theater to see it on the big screen. You don't wait for it to stream at home.

At the risk of giving away too much of the plot, the movie opens with Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor), a kind of whistle blower who has in his possession video drives of many UAP sightings and actual evidence of aliens. He is being chased by Noah Scanlon (a bearded, memorable Colin Firth -- looking a bit like an older Orson Welles) who heads the Wardex Corporation. He and his men are all dressed in black. That's all you need to know. They are, undeniably, the bad guys. 

When it comes to exploring the flying saucer mythology Spielberg, throughout his career, places its visual landscape right along Catholic iconography. You see it in the Sacred Heart of Jesus transformed into the glowing chest of the lovable alien in E.T. The Extraterrestrial, and in the welcoming spread arms of an alien in Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- a kind of redemptive crucifixion. In this film he continues this theological imagery through the character of Daniel's girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) who is, not only a former nun, but during a memorable interrogation scene by Noah, she takes off her crucifix necklace and holds it so tightly that it cuts into the palm of her hand giving herself a stigmata worthy of St. Catherine of Siena or St. Francis of Assisi.

 At the heart of the story we find further religious allusions through the character of Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a Kansas City TV weather announcer who one morning, after a Northern cardinal flies inside her apartment window, she begins talking in tongues (Russian? Ukrainian?).  In Catholic theology this red bird represents the blood of Christ, and is traditionally thought of as a messenger from heaven and a bridge between the earthly and spiritual realms. When she suddenly begins talking in an unknown language on live TV like Christ's apostles did on the Day of Pentecost, she becomes a wanted person by Noah, and thus ignites her run for her life.

But don't get the wrong idea: Disclosure Day is by no means a mere treatise on the mystical aspect of extraterrestrials. It is an exciting pre-summer movie in which Spielberg uses his mastery of pacing and slow disclosure to guide us through a story that visually contains many throwbacks to his past films, and even includes a train crash as a homage to the one in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, one of Spielberg's childhood favorites as we are led to believe in his autobiographical The Fabelmans.  

What about the aliens? Oh, they are there, but you'll have to wait a while to see them. Everything is explained, especially the mysterious Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), who throughout the movie is seen surrounded by people building what looks like a theatrical set for a suburban middle-class home.

The film concludes with a one word imperative. Maybe it's not the word I would have chosen, but it is clear that the meaning it tries to convey is that we must demand integrity and transparency from our government. Spielberg has always been a believer, and his films have shown just that, and he knows that his audience share in his search for the truth. 

Believe! At the risk of sounding like a Christmas advertisement for Macy's, maybe this should have been the last line of this exciting film. 

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE at the MET

Tristan und Isolde might be Richard Wagner's greatest work for the stage. A work inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and his writings about mankind's insatiable striving. Since its creation, it is his most talked-about, most written about, and most dissected creation. The opera was born out of Wagner's ideas about transcendental love beyond death, and an episode of infidelity (Wagner had an affair with Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of his Swiss benefactor). Its pioneering soundscape, so vastly different from the conventional opera of his time, led to countless volumes written about the dissonant chord found in the third measure of the prelude -- the so, called "Tristan Chord," -- a deviation from the traditional harmonic practice of Wagner's day that many scholars argue eventually led the way to the dissonance of 20th century music.

At a time when the Metropolitan Opera is facing a financial crisis, this new production is the kind of event that is actually filling the seats. The matinee performance I attended yesterday seemed to be sold out, and there was an energy in the house which has not been felt in quite a while.The source of that energy is soprano Lise Davidsen, who is singing the role of Isolde for the first time at the MET after taking it "on the road" singing it for the first time at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, a performance I also attended.

American director Yuval Sharon is responsible for the new production which is filled with perhaps too many complex ideas. It attempts to be a visionary look at the work, and oftentimes it succeeds brilliantly, while at other times you question his directorial decisions. One thing is certain, like the best in theater, less is more, and Mr. Sharon's best moments are when he keeps things simple.

 

At the center of his production is a tunnel, a kind of vortex where the main action is played. Aside from the fact that it is aesthetically beautiful and complex in all its permutations, it also serves as a kind of funnel-like speaker which throws the voices back to the house. Not that Ms. Davidsen needs any amplification which this set might give her, but it really helped tenor Michael Spyres in the Act II love duet, and in the difficult music of Act III. The same can be said about Ekaterina Gubanova, who plays Brangäne. Hers was the smallest voice in the entire cast.

At times, the vortex breaks into two parts, separating the main characters from each other -- perhaps foreshadowing the events to come, or maybe it's just an example of the technical wizardry the MET can pull off and Mr. Sharon is showing off.

Throughout the production there is a long table on the stage. Here, silent doppelgängers of the characters silently mimic the action that is being sung inside the vortex. For the most part, I found this multiplication of characters distracting during the first two acts. But in Act III it suddenly worked. On the stage lies the dying Tristan, being attended by Kurwenal (a rather boisterous and vocally strong Tomasz Koniezny), and inside the vortex Mr. Spyres sings his mournful longing phrases for the return of Isolde. These are the inner thoughts of a dying man, and the audience is made witness to his last moments.

The other trick in Mr. Sharon's magic bag are projections which fill the entire proscenium of the house -- and that's a really tall proscenium! I must say that the resolution of these projections are not the greatest. Perhaps in the future the projections of live events can be improved. Although when pictures are projected, the image is quite sharp. Sometimes the pictures can be outright silly. When Isolde and Brangäne discuss potions a projection of an elegant feminine hand holding an alluring vial appears. The image is right out of Coco Chanel or Cristóbal Balenciaga -- you pick your favorite perfume ad! 

But when the projections work dramatically, they are memorable. During the confrontation between Tristan and Isolde in Act I, the characters appear to be walking the razor's edge, a powerful image that brings back the violent back-story of this tale: the slaying of Morold at the hands of Tristan.

It is a production not to be missed, filled with interpretive ideas that makes for a rich evening at the opera. It is also a harbinger of things to come: Ms. Davidsen is slated to sing the role of Brünnhilde in the MET's new Ring production which will also be directed by Mr. Sharon. Let's just hope that the MET gets its finances in order so that these wonderful future events can happen. 

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER - “¡Viva la revolución!”

  Mikhail Bakhtin, the great Russian literary critic, wrote that the novel as a literary genre is a series of carnivalesque episodes; essentially an empty bag where anything can be stuffed in. Of course, he was thinking of François Rabelais, a French writer whose novels cemented the framework for the genre. Gargantua and Pantagruel, Rabelais's great work, brings to life the essence of what a medieval carnival must have been like: loud, dirty and infinitely grotesque.  It is no wonder that Thomas Pynchon's novels are often referred to as carnivalesque and Rabelaisian. If Bakhtin theorized that the novel can subvert social norms and hierarchies through humor and chaos, then Pynchon's novel Vineland, the inspiration for One Battle After Another, is a perfect example of Bakhtin's theory. And Paul Thomas Anderson's film takes the theory a step further and adds politics to the stew in its quest to break down society's standards. Let the revolution begin!

With his incredible flair for telling a story with images that linger in one's mind, Anderson fashions a tale of an underground group of violent radicals vent on a quixotic quest to bring down the government. The story of French 75, the name of the group, (and also the name of everybody's favorite drink at "Rick's Café Américain" in the film Casablanca), has been told in VistaVision, the most celebrated of all the widescreen 35mm formats developed in the 1950's. The Searchers, Vertigo and The Ten Commandments are just three of the many films shot in this process -- a quixotic quest to bring families back to the theaters instead of sitting at home watching Milton Berle on that new invention: television. Mr. Anderson's choice to use VistaVision is also a rallying plea for people to get their ass off their streaming-den couches and come back to the place where movies are meant to be seen.

The focus of the story is the love between Bob Ferguson, in an amazingly satisfying performance by Leonardo DiCaprio and Perfidia Beverly Hills, a powerhouse of a performance by Teyana Taylor. They live in their scrappy revolutionary echo chamber, and they are very much in love. Their nemesis comes in the form of Colonel Steven J Lockjaw (an outlandish and utterly remarkable Sean Penn) who is seduced by Perfidia during a raid on a migrant detention center. As Manohla Dargis wrote in her review of the film in the New York Times "Lockjaw will spend the rest of the film trying to reassert his supremacy."

Years pass and Bob is living with his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). He has let go of the rebellion and is now a burnout watching TV and smoking weed all day. That is until Col. Lockjaw invades his house in a quest to find Willa and discover who her real father is. This puts Bob on the run once again, this time aided by Sensei Sergio St Carlos (Benicio Del Toro), Willa's martial arts instructor and an underground migrant leader.

Meanwhile Lockjaw has been invited to join the Christmas Adventurers Club (talk about carnivalesque!) a white supremacist organization. During his interview with them he lies about having had sexual relations with a black woman. This lie will result in disastrous consequences for the colonel.

That Bahktin empty bag has been overfilled with so much Pynchon, Vineland and Anderson that a whole lot of intelligent, calculated cinematic explosions will follow!

 A friend reacted to the release of this film by saying "finally a movie worth seeing." I agree, and I'll add that it is worth seeing multiple times. And perhaps in multiple formats, especially if it is playing in VistaVision near you. It is by far the best film of 2025, and it has Oscar potential written all over it. I would not be surprised if we see DiCaprio winning his second Oscar, and Sean Penn his third. Both give fantastic performances.

And for Chrissake, finally give P T Anderson an Oscar!  He so deserves it for this film.

Twenty-two Wagner Years Ago

I can't believe that WagnerOperas.com is twenty-two years old. Not to sound cliché about it, but it only seems like yesterday when I decided to put together a website after I heard the new Parsifal production from the stage of the Bayreuth Festival that was causing a furor. If you've been following my website, or if you are a lover of Wagner you will certainly remember the Christoph Schlingensief staging that transferred the setting of the opera to Africa and replaced the Grail with a decaying rabbit. There was no live video in those days, only audio and some published photographs. Not really being able to see what audiences were violently booing at the Green Hill made the production even more mysterious. In an outrageous kind of way, it was the kind of event that inspired one to go out and put a website together. 

 The production was so creative and outrageous at the same time, and director Schlingensief had taken such a plunge into an unknown world (he had never directed a Wagner opera before) that in my mind I must have said in my own small way I can also go to the edge and produce something that will either delight or upset people. Well, I'm sure my website did neither. The aim of the site was not to entertain, but to instruct, and to serve as a repository of all things Wagner. And, by the way, for those of you who remember, and it may not be many, WagnerOperas looked like this when it appeared on the Internet for the first time on 2004:

 I always had a fondness for that layout, if you want to know the truth. There was something pleasing to the layout. But as things changed in the online world, so did the site. Hopefully, its present look reflects the current visual tastes when it comes to an online presence. My further hope is that it is as pleasing to the eye as the original was.

Perhaps one day there will be a radical change to the look of WagnerOperas. And why not! The site should always reflect the current tastes of the opera world.

A New and Improved Wagnerians Page

 I spent this weekend updating the Wagnerians page of the Wagneroperas site. Click here to go to the page, and take a listen to the new added audio that now accompanies each of the artists featured.

Bayreuth: The New Meistersinger Misses the Mark

 

I imagine that after a notorious Meistersinger production by Katharina Wagner that brought to mind the dark days of National Socialism; and the production that followed it, by Barrie Kosky, that explored the anti-Semitic undercurrents of the work, it was time to free this opera of its sociopolitical trappings and remind us all that it is a comedy. That is the impression that this new staging by Matthias Davids seems to want to put forth. However, if the aim was to remove the corset and let it all hang out, then that was partially achieved arguably by the last scene, which brought to mind a kind of Germanic hoedown, complete with bails of hay, lederhosen and an inflatable cow hovering overhead. Beckmesser unplugs the damn cow in retaliation for being ridiculed in front of the entire Nuremberg, but the cow gets inflated at the end to show that everything is fine in the dear old city.

But it is not! After Walther wins Eva in the song contest, they both storm out of the city hand in hand. Yes, they listened to Hans Sachs's speech about securing holy German art, but they're not buying it. They turn their backs on the old guard, and leave behind Sachs and Beckmesser upstage, both confused, asking each other what went wrong.

You can check out more pictures from the production by going to wagneroperas.com and checking out my 2025 Bayreuth page.

But what about the rest of the production? The first scene of Act I is dominated by a gigantic staircase that leads to a very tiny white church teetering at its zenith. The faithful descend after the service is over. All dressed in costumes that bring to mind the late 1800's. These elegant church goers find Walther wearing modern, contemporary clothing, but wait, is that a chain mail hoodie under his jacket to remind us that he is a knight? Throughout, the costumes seem to be divided in two worlds. David wears a t-shirt and oxblood color Doc Martens, but the Meistersingers dress in ceremonial robes of another time when they gather for a meeting. And what about that visually stunning staircase, the first visual treat we see when the curtain opens? It just goes away never to return. Why have it there in the first place?

The second scene of Act I presents the meeting place of the Meistersingers, and whadda ya know, it looks like a copy of the Festspielhaus auditorium, complete with wooden seats. Many patrons of the Bayreuth Festival complain about the un-cushioned seats, especially those that experience the Festspielhaus for the first time. There must be more complaints about the seats than about the heat in a theater that is not air conditioned. Was this the way to humor the audience? Was the audience at Bayreuth subconsciously supposed to feel good about the fact that the artists were just as uncomfortable, if not more, than they were. There must be a streak of Schadenfreude in Mr. Davids a mile long. 

 The best reaction to this production that I have heard since the premiere on July is that while Davids is busy at work trying to put the yucks back in Wagner's only comic opera, down in the hidden pit Daniele Gatti is trying to find the work's profundity. Perhaps this is the eternal question when it comes to staging  Meistersinger. Despite the humorous situations one might find in the narrative, the story does contain undercurrents of Antisemitism and the glorification of German art, which is called holy. Sachs demands that is be respected and defended, but Walther and Eva give their backs to it. 

Without a doubt, this is the most interesting part of this production, and it should not be. There is more to Meistersinger than just what Mr. Davids has been able to come up with. He's only skimmed the top of the surface, and perhaps has been advised not to seek further inner meaning -- the previous productions had done that already. It was time to allow hilarity to come back to the Green Hill. But in actuality there is very little that is genuinely comical here except for what Wagner has written. Davids just misses the mark.

A note about the cast: Michael Spyres, with his wonderful baritenor voice stole the show. A beautifully crafted performance that was vocally secured at every turn, especially in the difficult third act where he has to perform the "Prize song" three times. It was wonderful each time. Christina Nilsson proved to be a very pretty Eva with. secured top nd a sunny disposition. In Act III she is place inside what looks like a life-sized flower vase reminiscent of Ari Aster's film Midsommar. When I saw this, I asked myself "is this production going to go that way? Thankfully, it did not. George Zeppenfeld was George Zeppenfeld, a little too stern, too philosophical -- not my idea of a warm cobbler. Michael Nagy played Beckmesser, not as a caricature of a Jew, but as a lovesick guy who wants to court and win Eva with a heart-shaped neon musical instrument.

As the seasons come and go at Bayreuth, I am sure that Mr. Davids will change many things in this half-baked attempt to stage Meistersinger. It is not as easy one to pull off. My recommendation is to stay as close to Wagner's original intention, and you will have a successful revival of this dear, beloved work. 

Sunset Blvd. The Musical on Broadway

 In Jamie Lloyd's minimal staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Blvd., based on Billy Wilder's film noir, so much is left to the audience's imagination that if you have not seen the original film, you might be confused by the action onstage. Why is that man, who we eventually find out is named Joe Gillis, (Tom Francis) coming out of a black body bag? Yes, he is dead, and soon we realize that he's going to tell us his story from beyond the grave, a common film noir approach to story telling. For those of us who know the film, we miss the incredible cinematic image of Joe Gillis's body floating dead in a pool. 

If Mr. Lloyd's numerous tattoos represent a maximalist approach to his personal body art (he recently got the number "10086" tattooed under his ear -- Norma Desmond's address), his professional directorial art depends on having very little onstage. A dark empty arena with actors wearing black and white clothing is enough to bring to life the year 1949. To remind us that the source material is a classic film, videographers with Steadicam rigs project black-and-white images of the actor's faces on a gigantic screen, while also giving us opening and closing credits. This revival of Sunset Blvd. is both a stage and film adaptation of a movie that had already been turned into a musical back in 1993.

The not so-secret weapon of this production is Nicole Scherzinger, a powerhouse performer who embodies the aging silent film star Norma Desmond barefooted and, following the style of this production, wearing only a black negligee. On London's West End she won the Laurence Olivier Award, and last week she won the Tony for her performance. It is a not-to-be-missed star turn (her Broadway debut!) that might demand more than one viewing to fully absorb its layers of brilliance. Last night, the crowd at the St. James Theatre went crazy when she just appeared onstage without singing a note. After she sang "With One Look," the beautiful anthem to the joys of the silent era, something happened that I have never seen before on Broadway: a standing ovation in the middle of the performance. And more of those followed during the evening. This is the kind of idolization reserved for rock and pop stars (Scherzinger was, after all, the lead singer of the group the Pussycat Dolls). By the end of the show, where Broadway seems to give every production a standing ovation, the act of standing up to applaud felt quite anti-climactic.

 There are amazing moments in this production, the most impressive of all is when the production goes outside to 44th street with Tom Francis leading the cast walking to Shubert Alley and back to the theater (you have to see it to believe it), and it is all captured by those ubiquitous Steadicam rigs. The moment has the same gravitas found in those long shots in classic films everyone talks about (the opening shots of Touch of Evil and The Player, and the Copacabana shot in Goodfellas) where every element has to be there at the right time otherwise the magic is lost.  And this is done live, eight shows a week, rain or shine! It is a coup-de-téâtre that you will not soon forget.

The run has been extended to late July. Do not miss this great production and the amazing performance of Nicole Scherzinger. 

A New AIDA at the MET

 At a time when the popular sentiment seems to be to return plundered antiquities to the country from which they came; and as more and more people agree that the Parthenon sculptures at the British Museum, once upon a time labeled as the "Elgin Marbles," should be returned to Greece, the Metropolitan Opera's new staging of Verdi's AIDA seems to contradict the current vox populi. In a staging which can best be described as Indiana Jones meets Italian opera, 21st century archeologists rummage through ancient ruins filled with decrepit stones carved with hieroglyphics. However, when they get out of the way and the action reverts back to ancient Egypt the stones come alive thanks to the lighting scheme of Kevin Adams, and the carvings suddenly acquire their original colors. The play of light is possibly the best aspect of Michael Mayer's concept. The modern intruders, however, just clutter up the stage; their wordless comings and goings reminiscent of tourists who do not recognize the importance of a famous place. When they leave the stage and the ancient characters of Verdi's opera are given room to move about that's when the opera breathes once more. If perhaps the two worlds would have interacted with one another in some way it would have given this production a greater gravitas. At the moment it just feels like another gimmicky approach to one of opera's best known works.

The most interesting moment of this production is also partly the most objectionable, and partly the most thoughtful. During the triumphal scene, specifically while the well-known march plays, instead of the usual parade of Ethiopian riches that the Egyptian army has plundered we get another view of plundering: this time a parade of archeologists carrying away the riches of ancient Egypt. A meditation on the historical looting that has gone on between nations -- yes, but does it have to be shown to the tune of triumph? There's nothing triumphant about one nation stealing the riches of another. One can only wonder if this intercontinental robbery was the intended subtext in the original concept of Antonio Ghislanzoni, Verdi's librettist. Something tells me it was not.

This production premiered on New Year's Eve, but Saturday night was filled with illness and cancellations. It was clear on December 31st that tenor Piotr Beczała, who struggled through "Celeste Aida," his Act I aria, was very sick. Last night tenor SeokJong Baek came to the rescue. The young Korean is making a name for himself all over the world, with debuts at Covent Garden, San Carlo in Naples and Deutsche Oper Berlin. He possesses the kind of strong, stentorian voice that MET audiences adore. He is loud, and yes, my ears were ringing. It's great to experience that, but I wish he would trust the house's acoustics and realize that not every note has to be sung forte. Lise Davidsen has learned that over the years. Morris Robinson filling in for Dmitry Belosselskiy as Ramfis was cavernous, making mostly unpleasant bass sounds, and from the rear of the orchestra boos were heard. Harold Wilson was excellent as the King, the role that Mr. Robinson was supposed to have sung. Quinn Kelsey was strong as Amonasro, his heavy baritone lending a bellicose air to his character.

Judit Kutasi was a reliable Amneris, but her acting belongs in the silent film era. As the New York Times reported she "has a loud, wavering voice and a campy gift for staggering around the stage in despair, clutching her head." Arguably the night belonged to Angel Blue, who warmed up to the title role as the evening progressed. If she was a bit unsure in "Ritorna Vincitor" in Act I, by the time "O Patria Mia" came around she had comfortably settled into the role, and for the rest of the evening she delivered beautiful, elegant phrases filled with longing and honest emotion, her voice secure throughout her range.

What if you take away the modern explorers? I kept asking myself. What you'll have left over is a very conservative, old-fashioned production; the costumes, for instance, are right out of a Hollywood biblical film of the 1950's. Let's face it, what MET audiences relish is a production that rings true to the original intention of the work's creators. I'm sure that many a patron last night was thinking "get those silly Indiana Jones clones out of the way, and let old-man Verdi get through."

Verdi's La Forza del Destino at the MET

 

 

The last time the Metropolitan Opera presented Giuseppe Verdi's titanic opera La Forza del Destino it was the 1970's: a decade that saw some of the reigning voices of the MET take their last bows (Leontyne Price, Robert Merrill, Franco Corelli) and give way to the new kids on the block (Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Renata Scotto).  It was the decade when voices ruled, and productions were carefully overseen by the MET's general director Joseph Volpe, an administrator who believed in spending millions on a new staging because it was his belief that a production must last at least twenty years. In those days productions were lush, detailed and faithful to the libretto. The last time I saw Forza at the MET Leontyne Price and the young Domingo sang a memorable performance, dressed in the cloak-and-dagger finery of eighteenth century Spain.

Peter Gelb is no Joseph Volpe. Since he assumed the general management of the MET he has tried to bring the institution into the 21st century, meaning, replacing the old tried-and-true stagings with "Regietheatre" productions (which some call Eurotrash) where the voices become secondary and the director is the star of the show. 2024 was the year for Verdi's grim melodrama to get the Gelb treatment. There were rumors that he sought out Calixto Bieito, the iconoclastic Catalan director, but Mr. Bieito's plans for the opera, coupled with his track record of avant-garde productions around the world, proved to be too much for the MET's board of directors. Finally, Gelb settled on Mariusz Treliński, the artistic director of the Grand Theatre of Warsaw. 

 

Mr. Treliński gives us a modern staging devoid of any certain locale. It could be Eastern Europe or even a banana republic. Given the fact that the last act takes place in a decrepit New York subway station gives us the clue that we are in The United States of America after the killing of an important official has thrown the country into the chaos of a second Civil War.  All references to Spain in the Francesco Maria Piave libretto have been eliminated. For instance, in the recitative to the poignant "Oh, tu che in seno agli angeli" Don Alvaro sings "Seviglia..." reminiscent of his homeland. The English translation of this reads "happier days."  This translation change of the libretto's original words is not something new. During the MET run of the "Las Vegas Rigoletto," the libretto's words were updated into a "Rat-Pack" argot worthy of Frank Sinatra and Joey Bishop.

If the production is dark and grim, gray and steely, the singing was luminous from the superb cast headed by superstar Lise Davidsen who is on a roll these days. As the NY times wrote she has "become the rare singer you want to hear in everything." Perhaps her voice does not have the inherent sweetness of a Price or a Renata Tebaldi (and the jury is still out whether or not Ms. Davidsen is a true Verdi soprano), but with the MET absence of Anna Netrebko, Ms. Davidsen is the best we've got, and that is a great thing.  I'm looking forward to the day when Ms. Davidsen gleefully faces her father Wotan and greets him with a fiery "Hojotoho."  It's coming!

The rest of the cast was very strong, especially Igor Golovatenko as Don Carlo di Vargas.  He has a wonderfully pleasant baritone with a clear attractive top. Tenor Brian Jagde as Leonora's beloved Don Alvaro, has a stentorian dark voice with ringing high notes. The roles of the Marquis of Calatrava and Padre Guardiano were played by bass Soloman Howard: a strange choice, but one that almost worked except when the ghost of the dead Marquis kept popping up at melodramatic instances (way too many times!). Fra Melitone was sung with dour perfection by Patrick Carfizzi. He was the rudest religious friar I've ever seen. Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin led an exciting reading of this memorable score, and the orchestra sounded strong and together.

I found the performance last night powerfully cathartic, like a Greek play that dares to show unbelievable tragedy and somehow purifies the audience. Perhaps a curious output from such a melodramatic piece, but it worked, strangely enough, in that respect. The production had something to do with it, but in the final analysis it is Verdi's music that has the power to elevate your soul into a different realm; and in that respect, having one of the world's greatest soprano stop the show with the incredible "Pace, Pace mio Dio" doesn't hurt either.

Killers of the Flower Moon: a new Scorsese film

When the Osage people find oil in their newly acquired land, hungry, greedy wolves come prowling in the guise of white cattle barons: white men courting and marrying Osage woman only to kill them in order to get their new-found wealth. This is the bare bones plot of Martin Scorsese's new film Killers of the Flower Moon, an epic film clocking in at just under four hours. The film is an examination of American greed and the relationship between the native nations of America, and the settlers that hungered for their land. Scorsese has made a film that is part western, part murder mystery, and court-room drama with shades of the conclusion of Goodfellas. The film premiered out of competition at the 76th Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and it was curiously absent from the film festival circuit. With a budget reported to be over $200 million, the film avoided the film festival circuit in order to make money, but with such a massive running time, which means fewer daily showings, the film is going to have a hard time making its money back in its initial theatrical run.  As of today, the film has grossed $23 million in the United States and Canada, and $11 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of only $44 million.

I saw the film today, and it is the best work that Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio have done in quite a while. This is De Niro's tenth collaboration with Scorsese, and he gives a subtle performance as William King Hale, the mastermind of the Osage massacre. It is great to witness such inventive acting from De Niro, even mastering a Midwestern accent to perfection. Mr. DiCaprio is no stranger to Scorsese's films either. In this, his sixth collaboration with the director, he also gives a performance rooted in nuance; and although he seems to progress through the role with a permanent frown on his face, he brings to life the role of Ernest Burkhart, who becomes a pawn in Hale's greedy schemes.

But is is Lily Gladstone, an actress that portrays Mollie, Ernest's Native American wife, who casts the longest shadow in the film. Ms. Gladstone, who is part Native American (and who is related to British Prime Minister William Gladstone), grew up in the Blackfeet Nation reservation, and has only made a handful of films before this one. You will not forget her expressive face and her sorrowful eyes. Many of the members of the Osage Nation also took part in the film behind the scenes, as well as taking important roles in the film.

Mr. Scorsese is in top form as a director, even making an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo appearance in a denouement to the film that I can only describe as inspired. The final shot of the film, as memorable a shot as can be, brings to mind scenes from Scorsese's 1997 Kundun, and it populates the field of flowers of the title with a vibrant homage to the Osage people.

A Mahler Fall

My Mahler fall continues. Let me explain. No sooner did autumn start turning leaves a myriad of seasonal colors, and the weather bid goodbye to summer heat, that Gustav Mahler began to make itself present in my life. In many ways this is not unusual. Mahler has always been one of my favorite composers. Very few composers can reach the heights like he can: those lush melodies, those exciting, ear-splitting crescendi, and best of all his concentrated effort time and again for his music to reach the sublime.

 

In a completely roundabout way, but maybe not, it all started with my introduction to Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto: that popular but strict twelve-tone composition written to honor the death of Manon Gropius, the teenage daughter of Bauhaus giant Walter Gropius and Mahler’s wife, Alma.

 

What strange times those must have been for Viennese society.  The child of the great architect, and the wife of Vienna’s greatest composer dead at a tender age, and Vienna’s other great composer writing what many consider his masterpiece only to die a short time after its completion. Berg never heard his elegy for Manon, and the piece served to be Berg’s own requiem.

 

As autumn progressed, the New York Film Festival came to town, and Tár made its debut. In what arguably is this year‘s most interesting film, Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a virtuoso conductor who is preparing Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic for a live recording. I saw the movie back in October. Today is November 12 and I’m at the Redeye Grill having dinner before going to see The Berlin Philharmonic led by their music director Kirill Petrenko. They will be playing Mahler’s seventh. And, oh yes, how can I forget. In October I also went to Carnegie to hear Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic. I didn’t know what they were going to play, but when I got there I saw the poster outside of Carnegie Hall and to my great surprise they were going to perform Mahler’s First. Perfect!

 

Yesterday I was at the Longacre Theatre. I went to see Leopoldstadt, the great new play by Tom Stoppard. Gustav Mahler’s name was on the lips of those Jewish Viennese characters. Sigmund Freud’s name and his radical theory of dreams was also bandied about, but Mahler was praised: he was their composer, the recipient of rousing L’Chaim. A toast I’ll also take a part in for making this autumn so musically memorable.

NOPE - Don't Look Up!

 On the 19th of June, 1877 British pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge made a series of photographs of the race horse Sallie Gardner, owned by the former governor of California Leland Stanford. The result is well-known to every student of film. When the photographs are shown in sequential succession the horse is seen at full gallop, at one point all four legs off the ground.

 

 

Arguably the beginning of motion pictures, or at least an intermediate stage towards true cinematography. This, and the fact that the jockey riding the horse is an African-American man is the genesis of Jordan Peele's latest film NOPE. But that's just the beginning. The writer/producer/director starts there and his imagination propels him towards not just a rumination of motion pictures, but also its link to the American West, or better yet: the myth of the American West as created by Hollywood, and how this myth continues to survive in our collective unconsciousness. And, oh yeah the film also explores the afterlife of child actors once the limelight has either faded away, or in this case, ripped apart. And, oh yeah, it's also about aliens. Not the ones that cross our American border everyday, but the ones that they say come from many light years away, from another galaxy, and who reach us via flying saucers.

 

In the last few months, the various trailers have revealed some of the cryptic images of the film: a veiled lady with no lips and a horrific smile (shades of Conrad Veidt's character in the silent film The Man Who Laughs), a chimp with bloody hands and mouth, and most mysterious of all those colorful dancing man ballons that dot the western valley prairie, and rise up to the sky. Also we can't ignore the fanboy Internet chatter that the title of the film is an acronym for Not Of Planet Earth. Guess what? All of those images are tied together in what has to be Mr. Peele's most audacious and bewildering reflection on modern American culture. And the meaning of the title? Yeah, there's something to that as well.

And of course there are the stars of the film: OJ, played memorably by Daniel Kaluuya, and his sister Emerald, the incredible Keke Palmer. These siblings own a ranch where they breed and train horses for the Hollywood and TV industry, a business started by their father who early on in the film dies a rather mysterious death. To further make ends meet, OJ sells horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (Stephen Yeun), a former child star who now runs a Western-themed amusement park called Jupiter’s Claim, and who is haunted by a terrible event that happened on the set of his TV show. When strange occurrences begin happening at the ranch they seek the help of an IT guy (Brandon Perea), and later on when things really start getting weird, they bring on an even weirder cinematographer (Michael Wincott) to photograph the event and get "the Oprah shot." Angel, the IT guy installs surveillance cameras at their house, but Antlers, the cinematographer, comes in with a hand-cranked IMAX camera. Even though this is a contemporary story, you'd think all of this this was happening forty years ago: the film is filled with turntables, VHS recorders and all kinds of obsolete technology.

NOPE is an entertaining movie that will produce interesting conversations. It is certainly one of the most thought-provoking films this summer by a filmmaker that specializes in making sure you think. And at the risk of further spoiling the film, let me just say that you will be doing a lot of unpacking when you go to see this movie.

FUNNY GIRL back on Broadway

For Sarah Bernhardt, the great actress of the turn of the century, playwright Victorien Sardou wrote the melodrama La Tosca in 1887.  From then on Bernhardt owned this role until Giacomo Puccini turned Sardou's work into one of the seminal operas of the Verismo period, and Maria Callas came along to usurp the role, albeit in its musical form. As time erased the collective memory of audiences who actually saw Bernhardt on stage, and as video of the second act of the opera surfaced, La Callas became the soprano against who all subsequent performers must measure themselves against. Is it the same with Barbra Streisand and her portrayal of comedienne Fanny Brice in the musical Funny Girl?

The musical is back on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre, starring Beanie Feldstein as Ziegfeld's funny girl. Sarah Bernhardt not only created some of the great stage roles of the 19th and early 20th century, but she was also a film pioneer, and a number of her performances were filmed. Of course, when we watch these early films the first thing we notice is how artificial stage acting of the turn of the century feels to modern audiences. Since Bernhardt's time acting has passed through Stanislavsky and the Method, and Maria Callas on stage, although operatic acting of her time maintained more than an ounce of the histrionics of the past century, feels very modern when compared to Bernhardt's technique. And the camera does not lie. Most people today know Ms. Streisand's girl not through her 1964 breakthrough role in the original Broadway production of Funny Girl, but through the 1968 William Wyler film that earned Ms. Streisand her first Academy Award as Best Actress -- "Hello Gorgeous!" 

So, this is what Ms. Feldstein is up against: the collective memory of a great performance forever preserved in celluloid. In 2016 The Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It's an uphill battle that requires all the help she can get. And many come to the rescue with varying degrees of success. First, there's Harvey Fierstein, whose name alone (and his reworking of the original book) helps box office receipts. Ms. Feldstein is also aided by Ramin Karimloo, as her lover Nick Arnstein. He has the charms and good looks that Sydney Chaplin (the original Nick) and Omar Shariff (The film's Nick) both had. Add to this a pleasant singing voice, and you have a memorable performance. The idea of putting Jane Lynch in the role of Mama Brice might have looked great on paper, but unfortunately she is horribly miscast, possessing little of the proper "Yiddishkeit" needed to bring this character to life. Help or no help, when it comes to Ms. Feldstein, I can't help but think that a star is born with this role. She is a trooper: loads of charm, huge energy, good comic timing, and a beautiful, smooth soprano that makes those Jules Stein/Bob Merrill songs come to life. (and no, you won't find the song "My Man" in this revival, oddly enough.) For a musical that tries to please an audience weened on the film this was a brave directorial decision by Michael Mayer, who otherwise has overproduced most aspects of this musical. A true standout are the beautiful costumes by Susan Hilferty: truly inspired creations that bring to life the period in which this musical takes place.

Is it a good revival? Should you go to see it?  I say yes, go see Ms. Feldstein, it's always exciting to see a star in the making. But be aware that the show tries way too hard to please you. The orchestra at times is a tad sloppy, and it is really loud. I don't remember such a loud, miked show. Performers address the audience directly, throw money in the direction of the first few rows near the stage for no reason at all, and confetti falls upon the orchestra section. Great theater tricks to get the Big Black Giant on your side. Most of the time it works, when the strings don't show. This time they do. But what bothered me most were the lights around the proscenium of the stage. They light up time and time again to give those songs that extra oomph they really don't need. Some of the time in rhythm to the music. Tacky! Already the creative team of this production feels that every song in the score deserves a loud, crescendo fortissimo style. It brings them out of their seats during the curtain-calls, but then again what show these days does not end with a standing ovation? Broadway audiences pay a lot for those seats, and they want to be entertained or talked into the illusion that they are being entertained. If a show doesn't get a standing ovation, it's in trouble.

ELEKTRA at the MET

 

When the 2021-2022 MET season was announced, this revival of Patrice Chéreau's production of Richard Strauss's Elektra immediately became the one to see. And yet, last night there were two empty seats right next to me in the center of the Orchestra section, row K. Was it the persistent April showers that dominated Saturdays weather that caused some people to stay home, or did they have advanced word that Nina Stemme, in the title role, was suffering from seasonal allergies? This was announced to the audience last night, together with the news that she would go on and sing. The announcement was greeted by thunderous applause. I've been noticing this year that pre-curtain announcements have become the norm at the Metropolitan Opera. While the appearance of a MET staff member's appearance before a performance usually brings jitters to an audience, this season is being used more as a friendly reminder to keep those masks covering one's mouth and nose. 

As expected, the pollen that's floating around everywhere did have an effect on Ms. Stemme. She is onstage from beginning to end, and most of the time trying to rise above one of Strauss's wildest, most savage music played by an ensemble of over one hundred musicians. It is one of the composer's largest orchestrations. It mostly affected her lower notes, although during her opening monologue some of the notes leading to the high notes suffered as well. It might not have been one of Ms. Stemme's greatest performances, but it was great that she attempted it and was able to achieve such high standards. I always marvel at how professional singers can sing over a cold or an allergy and still manage to sing such a poignant performance as Ms. Stemme was able to do last night.

Lise Davidsen as Elektra's sister Chrysothemis continues her New York love fest tour with these performances. What a season it has been for her! Also how well calculated it has been, starting slowly with the role of Eva in Die Meistersinger, then increasing the odds with Ariadne aux Naxos. Her Chrysothemis is the culmination of an incredible season of singing. I have been critical of her that she overpowers all the other singers with her enormous voice. Last night was different. She seems to have been holding back (perhaps because she knew that her co-star was not in good voice), and this was good for the entire production. What a contrast in voices we have in these two women. Ms. Stemme's lush but powerful soprano against Ms. Davidsen's loud, strident, bottom heavy voice (she started her career as a mezzo!). This is what we come to see in opera: two amazing singers approaching those notes from different camps and offering a delicious contrast that also speaks volumes about the characters they are playing.

 

Mr. Chéreau's production updates the action to the present, and thus makes a firm statement of the universality of this story. His staging, however, comes close to robbing the work of the purpose of some of the music. For example, Klytemnestra's entrance is some of the most evocative music Strauss ever wrote. It is a wild depiction of an old lady whose guilt over the murder of her husband, Agamemnon, is plaguing her. I always pictured this character, weighed down by amulets, stomping in to this music. Perhaps this approach is way too stereotypical for today's audience. Perhaps it is too much like a silent movie villain entering to the tune of brutal, dissonant chords. Here she just walks in. It can be argued that now Strauss's music, meant to accompany a more melodramatic entrance, now sounds over the top. In the pit, Donald Runnicles offered an intelligent reading of this work in tune with this production. The orchestra sounded incredible under his baton.

If you want to see two of the great singers of our time together on the same stage, then do not miss this revival of Elektra.