Dorothea Röschmann returns (Wigmore Hall, 10 September 2018)
Judging by the recent interest in certain older posts, I see you’re dying to find out if I attended to DR show at Wiggy this past Monday. I did! No schedule is too busy or September too cold1 when specific singers are in town.
It’s been almost two years since DR’s last Wiggy date. In the meantime her biggest engagement in London has been second cast Desdemona at ROH, which I read was very fine although I didn’t attend because late Verdi.
Surprisingly, this time she was the most relaxed and perhaps even happy2 that I’ve seen her. Wisely she stayed close to the middle of her voice for most of the show, though, DR being DR, she had to spread her wings on a few occasions, especially after the interval. She can still hit the heights, though it by no means feels particularly easy – or clean sounding, for that matter. But the middle is as full and as attractive as always and the lows have gained a commanding gravitas.
Her pianissimos were all beautiful and deftly executed and the pathos was of course there, as it has this funny tendency of clinging to her. I enjoyed the piano singing so much that I wanted her to continue like that for the next couple of days (or years) đ Yes, the time has come to visit with DR for the soft singing. Who’s complaining? Not me.
Dorothea Röschmann soprano
Malcolm Martineau piano
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart Op. 135
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
Mörike Lieder
An eine Ăolsharfe
Das verlassene MĂ€gdlein
Erstes Liebeslied eines MĂ€dchens
Begegnung
Denk’ es, o Seele!
Auf ein altes Bild
Verborgenheit
Interval
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Alte Liebe Op. 72 No. 1
Auf dem Kirchhofe Op. 105 No. 4
Der Tod, das ist die kĂŒhle Nacht Op. 96 No. 1
Unbewegte laue Luft Op. 57 No. 8
Liebestreu Op. 3 No. 1
Meine Liebe ist grĂŒn Op. 63 No. 5
Wir wandelten Op. 96 No. 2
Nachtigall Op. 97 No. 1
Von ewiger Liebe Op. 43 No. 1
Encore:
Die Lotosblume (Schumann)
Es muss ein Wunderbares sein (Liszt)
It was a low key thing but rather relaxed low key than super intense. I really liked Die Lotosblume, she gave it a gentle delicacy that plucked at my sometimes not easily pluckable heartstrings.
In related news: Mitsuko Uchida casually attended the show (it’s always good to have another top accompanist on hand, lest your audience makes complicated travel arrangements and the show gets cancelled due to accompanist issues; just sayin’…3) and Wiggy has refurbished its toilets for the Autumn Season! Let me assure you Salzburg has nothing on Wiggy anymore, the toilets are a sight to behold đ if half your audience disappears after the interval you know where to find them (the restaurant is cool, too).
- yes, gentle reader, it’s that time of the year again – the time to start complaining about how cold London gets without being actually cold. We’ve had a great summer, yay! – but it’s over, oh, so over. ↩
- she’s always struck me as a very private and even shy person so even when she’s happy it may be difficult to read it as that. But this time she smiled on a good few occasions. I’m not sure I’ve seen her smile a real smile before, although she’s regaled us with her share of silly songs. ↩
- it’s the second mezzo this year who’s done the two strikes and I’m not shelling out for tickets anymore jig. ↩
El Tito de Villazon (DG, 2018)
In which we (ie, I) return to Tito after a very long break and find new (to “us”) voices, pleasantly re-acquaint ourselves with older finds and get a few surprises, some good, some not so good.
Tito: Rolando Villazon
Vitellia: Marina Rebeka
Sesto: Joyce DiDonato
Annio: Tara Erraught
Servilia:Â Regina MĂŒhlemann
Publio: Adam Plachetka
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin | Chamber Orchestra of Europe and RIAS Kammerchor
Overture:Â notable for its pregnant pauses, though less pregnant than Currentzis’. Those ones are preganant with sixtuplets.
Act I
Ma che…: pianoforte a bit loose in the joints; nice tone from Rebeka, actually. Never heard her before, but she can do recit quite excitingly. JDD is a less nervous Sesto than when I last heard her; more authoritative than you usually hear him, with a touch of introversion. Good balance between the voices though I wouldn’t say any sexual obsession is conveyed. Surprisingly, Sesto falls like a souffle in the end. It’s the longer version of the recit.
Come ti piace: Sesto rocks the rubato. Sounds a lot like N-S lets JDD lead. Rebeka comes in guns blazing and she can hold that with the best of them but it’s nothing new as far as Vitellia is concerned. The ending is beautifully executed but again, nothing overly exciting.
Annio shows up: he’s no-nonsense, Tito is waiting! Vitellia mocks him. He doesn’t care. O virtu…! comes off… I’m not sure how, sort of like Sesto is reading about Tito. Annio and Vitellia sound more alive than him.
Deh, se piacer mi vuoi: maybe not the sexiest inflections on the market but Rebeka has a very good looking tone and an impressive range.
pre-Prendi recit: The continuo is a bit gentile for my taste. Annio and Sesto are cute together.
Deh, prendi: go Annio! one feels the Romeo and the Octavian in Erraught’s enthusiasm.
March/Serbate, dei custodi: a bit funny jumping from Nerone’s court to Tito’s court with 150 musical years in between. Choir sounds rather telephoned.
This version has the long text of the Bring gifts to Tito! bit. Villazon starts well but he does soon sound like he’s ready to take flight rather than saying words. Or maybe I’m still mentally with Poppea and 150 years later recits are naturally a lot more stylised.
March reprise: it’s there and I always like to hear it but that’s it.
Annio : Sesto : Tito: Annio is eager, Sesto very timid. Tito still taking flight, especially on oggi mia sposa sara la tua germana!, which sounds as if he’s reciting and ode. Annio is the most natural and effective here. Wait, seriously: Erraught sang Sesto in Munich, why is she Annio here? Reason why things shouldn’t be planned too far in advance.
Del piu sublime soglio: Villazon starts it alone, which is not necessary a good idea, as he inflates sublime in a strange manner. His tone is actually not bad but he doesn’t sound dramatically involved enough – or in a manner that works for me. Maybe someone needs to pair him up with Garanca, then we’ll have two people singing it whilst thinking about how to make every note beautifully follow the other.
Non ci pentiam: Annio is trying to make the most of his predicament. He’s upset but heroic. I like Erraught’s way of going about the recit. Why is she not singing more Mozart? Servilia is also ready to fix things; these two always (ok, most times) bring a smile on.
Deh, perdona: in this case it’s very easy to tell them apart in the duet. Another aria that sounds nice enough but nothing earth shattering from Maestro.
Tito : Publio: Villazon reminds me of someone else but I can’t tell who. His Servilia, Augusta! is pretty nice – more surprised than besotted. Nice delivery from Servilia. She has such a Mozart voice! Sounds like she’s just stepped off Entfuhrung. There is a lot of stuff Tito has to say. It’s definitely the long version of the recits.
Ah, se fosse intorno al trono: it’s a lot better than I expected. Perhaps because it’s naturally more “shouty”, but Villazon has the right reading. Well, I’ll be. If someone told me the most I’d enjoy Villazon would be as Tito I’d have thrown down. Or something. The truth is I wouldn’t mind listening to his ‘Fosse again.
Vitellia : Servilia: Servilia isn’t scared but makes the exchange short, nonetheless.
pre-Parto recit: Rebeka sounds fresh, with just the right amount of sarcasm, JDD not so much (there comes a time to leave Sesto behind). Rebeka needs somebody as fresh as she is for a foil to her voice acting. I quite enjoy listening to her, a very nice find as Vitellia.
Parto: hm, there is a weird energy in how JDD phrases her initial double parto, reminiscent of how Villazon did his Ah, se fosse. Interesting in a way – a sort of going forward and breaking at the same time, but also not quite fetching. What I notice is JDD’s foray lower then she is known for (though not on that potentially super sexy belta; ok, everyone should have their trademark way of doing Parto). Her coloratura is as strong as ever yet she sounds heavier or darker otherwise. My conclusion is this is far from her most exciting take on Parto.
Vedrai, Tito, vedrai…!: very seductive mix of threat and self satisfaction from Vitellia, I like it. Publio and Annio are rather chummy.
Vengo! Apetatte… Sesto!: of course attending live shows is exiting (sometimes deliriously so), but there is a downside: you’re really spoiled for spontaneity. I find it very hard to get in the right mood for studio recordings, where everything sounds so obviously polished. It’s a very good version of Vengo! but I’m really dying for something to go slightly awry or at least not to feel like there’s a team of engineers trying to fix whatever vocal/techinical limitations might come up and in the process, smother the life out of it all. [earth to dehggi: this is apparently live. Dehggi: is it?! No, really: is it?!]
Again and again the feeling returns that this is all (the recording in general) very competent but no much beyond that (except Rebeka’s tone and enthusiasm for the recits – she’s been robbed of a better (really live) environment for a recording of this role).
Act I finale
Hey, JDD woke up! As we know, this is the moment when Sesto can be rescued from mediocrity if things (in this case, the drama) hadn’t gone anywhere fast up to this point. I can’t shake the feeling that, in spite of JDD’s experience and long list of qualities, she’s just not Sesto at this point in her career. She can phrase and she can dose her energy for this mad scene but the emotion feels generalised instead of raw. More attention seems put into rolling the Rs than into Sesto feeling overwhelmed by what he’d got into. JDD also doesn’t sound young and scared anymore – or even just scared. Her Sesto seems rather annoyed with himself – I can’t believe I’ve fallen for Vitellia’s trick – again!
By contrast, Annio, Servilia and Publio sound engaged. When everybody gathers together, Maestro speeds proceedings up a little too much, so that the choir’s interventions of ah! sound almost glib. Rebeka comes to the rescue again. Her Tito…? is tentative, as if Vitellia is scared even to call his name as she can tell the news can’t be good. Then taci, forsenatto! has he back in control again. The choir is a bit too resigned-mournful, so the sudden brass “screams” seem overdone and it all fizzles out before you realise.
Act I conclusion: JDD a disappointment, Rebeka a very welcome find, Erraught should’ve been Sesto1, MĂŒhlemann endearingly eager, Maestro not sold on this opera, Plachetka solid and Villazon better than I ever imagined, though far from a Tito for the ages. With so many Tito recordings on the market in recent years I’m not sure why this one ever happened, except the young gen of conductors eager to leave their mark – or at least tick the box – on Mozart. I hate to say it, but I’ll take Currentzis’ exaggerations over NĂ©zet-SĂ©guin’s lack of ideas any day. But maybe I’ll be more engrossed in Act II…
ps: that’s gotta be one of the poorest CD covers I’ve seen in ages. Tito’s back of the head? Seriously? And why is the standard so badly placed within the composition?
Act II
Annio : Sesto: helpful Annio đ Sesto is finally alarmed. Annio doesn’t want to hear whinging, he says: wipe your boogers and focus on the fact that Tito survived!… Wait, you’ve actually done it? DUDE, WTF?… Anyway, nobody can prove anything so STOP whinging!! Sesto dithers some more but Annio shakes him. I’m gonna be the helpful friend whether you like it or not, brov.
Torna di Tito a lato: beautifully, sensitively done – with heroics thrown in.
Partir deggio…?: Sesto continues to poop his finery, Vitellia is dramatically appealing to his fidelity, he raises to the bait, she gets sarcastic. Not bad.
Publio : Sesto: Publio is no-nonsense but not cruel, almost friendly. Sesto has gathered his courage back; seems like he only falls apart with Vitellia. But he’s also quite annoyed with her. I find the harsh dramatic contrasts JDD employs a bit blunt for Mozart.
Se al volto: Sesto’s start is rather good, nice employment of soft trills. Rebeka uses similar strong contrasts as above in her delivery and although I really like the ease with which she transitions from one to another (and her incursions at the top of her voice, which is beautiful and flexible), I still don’t like such rather overblown dramatics. I think I should blame Maestro? Plachetka’s Publio is again solid.
Si grazie si rendano: the choir isn’t bad here. I wish Villazon toned it down a bit, it’s a no-shouting moment. His Tito sounds like he wasn’t even in Rome when the fire happened. Introspection = a very Tito quality.
Publio : Tito: Publio is very hush-hush. I guess this one likes Sesto. Tito doesn’t sound particularly upset by the news but uses the end of the phrase for another shouty-McShout. And yet, he can do pp – if only he thought about it more often and how this should be the basis of characterisation.
Tardi s’avvede: Plachetka’s a very honourable Publio; this is a very civilised court. Along with the hush-hush recit he uses the softest tardis in the repeats. It’s very cool in itself and very dance-y. Diplomatic Publii are a thing.
Tito : Annio : Publio: Tito is confused, Annio barges in (also in a civilised way), Publio gets gutsy, Tito is finally crushed. His Annio, lasciami in pace! is the most heartbroken I’ve heard yet. Villazon gets points for originality. I can work with this stuff.
Tu fosti tradito: Annio for emperor! So heroic đ and yet there are softer moments and Erraught can spin a trill. A bit acidic at the very top but it’s that aria. Easily one of the most involved and effective Annios out there.
Tito = OMG!: finally a moment for Villazon to go all Puccini and not sound funny. It’s ok for Tito to sound on the brink of a meltdown. His delivery is pretty convincing.
Quello di Tito e il volto: this is definitely a Tito + Sesto = friendship (but possibly Publio hearts Sesto) kind of Tito. They are very balanced and dramatically more suited together than with their respective women friends. Maestro uses that rubato at the end almost as if he remembered it at the last moment.
Tito : Sesto: Sesto sounds ready to lose his shit again. Tito sounds very hurt and doesn’t try to hide it. Sesto decides to try for heroism but it doesn’t quite work (not that I think JDD wanted it to). It’s one of those it’s not you, it’s me kind of cringe-y moments. It’s also very long. There is a lot of emotional fretting being thrown about, though… at least they are both on the same page of dramatics. It’s probably more akin to how they did it at the London premiere in 1805.
Deh, per questo instante solo: this is not how I remember JDD’s voice. I don’t know how this voice is. It’s like everything else is there but it’s missing its Mozart shine. Too much belcanto? Too much soprano? It sort of doesn’t sound like a trouser mezzo voice anymore – the genderambiguous charm, the emotional youthfulness2. It’s darker, but soprano-dark. Has the centre of balance changed? Unsurprisingly, the most memorable moment is the trill up at the top of the voice (on questo cor).
Tito ponders: I like the darkly phrased vendetta… otherwise it’s a pretty straight-forward Tito. I like him but what can I do??? thinks Tito. His heartbreak is very much of the heart only. Publio tries to figure out what happened.
Se all’impero: I don’t know if sounding insecure is by design but it actually fits Tito’s reluctant decision.
Publio : Vitellia: it’s a very diplomatic conversation, neither wants to give their hand away.
Vitellia : Annio : Servilia: everybody is alarmed. Annio, as usual, wants things done already. Vitellia is still able to keep up appearances. Servilia isn’t easily fooled.
S’altro che lagrime: not sure if the continuo was needed to segues into S’altro. MĂŒhlemann continues to sound like a very young Mozart heroine, with a beautiful top for the gioveras.
Ecco il punto, Vitellia… : Rebeka begins cold but slowly, slowly, the more she says Sesto’s name, things are starting to fall apart. Somehow she manages to sound distressed without the usual ugliness. It’s still not entirely thawed, in contrast with Sesto and Tito’s emotional wrecks.
Non piu di fiori: I guess the descent into temporary madness could be more gradually described but her use of range is the best this side of Erraught. The low G is on pieta and it’s not overly ugly but rather solid. Like with the rest of this recording, all that’s missing is some interesting ideas.
Act II finale
The orchestral sound is a bit thin but the choir is up for grandeur. Tito is more or less calm again. This is the Tito who puts benevolent into benevolent ruler. Vitellia gets low range gutsy – yes, please. La tua bonta is said in such a… casual tone, I guess, it’s surprising but not very dramatic. I mean, has she already got over the fact that Tito is BENEVOLENT? It was a big enough deal in the morning that she wanted to get him killed. Tito is, of course, not that observant, and instead he goes on declaiming about his generosity. Puppy-Sesto says he’s way touched. Tito strokes his head and gives him a kind biscuit. All is good again in the world. The women’s voices do blend very nicely. Eterni dei sounds suitably grand. Villazon suddenly gets a Kermit voice for il ben di Roma and is a bit lost in the general praising of himself. I like more presence from the male side in the big chorus moments (speaking of which, what happened to Publio?! Should we be worried?).
The conclusions from the end of Act I still stand. I was susprised not to hate Villazon, though I think it’s a very superficial reading of Tito with some nice occasional touches. I would recommend this for Rebeka, though, judging by how she started, I was expecting more from her Non piu di fiori. I’m not entirely sure how much is her fault and how much is Maestro’s, who has not impressed me at all. For Erraught I urge everyone to revisit her Munich Sesto.
- if young conductors want to record these things, they should employ the young gen of singers as well (here I have to give props to Currentzis again; don’t worry, we’ll be back to normal soon đ ). You know I like JDD (though she was never a fave Sesto) but really; people like Erraught and Crebassa and Lindsey deserve their mainstream shot at Sesto. ↩
- I had to go back to VK’s Deh, per questo with Welser-Most to try to figure out what the problem is. I think 42 year old VK’s voice has a similar density there but her colours simply sparkle in comparison. Though perhaps I’m wrong and VK solved a lot of density problems by darkening through her career so she could manueuvre colours a lot better. JDD didn’t darken and waited for real density but by then the colours (which were never on level with VK’s) had washed out? Anyway, sounds like JDD is a lot more conventional in her rendition here. The amount of rubato in VK’s version is quite striking in comparison and the use of trills is very (very) different. JDD seems to want her cadenzas at top speed and her trills tossed off with abandon, whereas VK is not afraid to put lots of breaks into the proceedings and add often shorter trills for dramatic effect rather than in that belcanto way JDD likes them. ↩
Happy 227th Tito Day!
You know what I think about Tito, so I thought I’d have some guest opinions this time:
ps:
Hurrah, new Tito recording with Villa… wait, what?
The trailer is all Parto so you almost want to ask: what’s Villi doing there? I do like JDD’s a la Titus hairdo. Nice attention to detail.
Mozart Cycle – I †that. Obviously Mozart worked it all out so it culminates with Tito đ
I don’t need to reiterate how the summer festival season has blinded me to the latest Tito developments but a new CD has dropped this past July (instead of waiting for September like I would’ve).
Known quantities JDD and Marina Rebeka sing our seditious lovers. (Has JDD never recorded Sesto before? I suppose VK saturated that market for about a decade before JDD started singing soprano roles (out of frustration?)).
Then we know who Sesto’s should’ve been, no offence to JDD because we all know what JDD can do. We also know what KL + SY can do (KLSY or, with a little help, SYLK?). So the reason this didn’t happen: DVD =/= CD.
…
Do we think SY can sing Vitellia? I don’t trust my SY objectivity just now. Please alert me when that DVD comes out, I will write on it ASAP. They can bring their Poppea getups along.
ps: as per the comments on the above tumblr post, she was apparently slotted to sing Vitellia on this recording. Saving it for the DVD, I tells ya.
The smaller roles are impeccably cast, with Regina MĂŒhlemann dewdrop-sweet as Servilia, Tara Erraught making much of Annio, and Adam Plachetka as the commander Publio, who sounds rather more secure than his emperor. (from the Guardian’s […]Tito – NĂ©zet-SĂ©guin and VillazĂłn return)
Schwing! Haha.
Of course I feared this moment ever since I saw him as Don Ottavio. Sigh. One day I will have to actually listen – this month, even! Stay tuned.
Tara Erraught making much of Annio
Like, ha. This generation of singers are doing things all backwards. Then again, there is audio evidence of Fassbaender’s Annio.
The main idiosyncrasy is VillazĂłn â and in this opera, where the tenor has the title role, thatâs not easy to gloss over. Some listeners will find his warm, passionate portrayal of the merciful emperor an antidote to the generic, antiseptic style in which Mozart can be played today; others will balk at his expressive tuning, and wonder why he sounds as if he is limbering up for Nessun Dorma. (from same as above)
I can hear it already!
Wait, who these days plays Mozart in an antiseptic way?! I thought the trend was to spritz him up with edgy stuff.
This month, he and Nézet-Séguin will return to Baden-Baden for Die Zauberflöte; Villazón will go full Domingo and sing the baritone role of Papageno. (from same as above)
Haha! This is gold. Hands down my favourite Erica Jeal review, we’re usually at odds.
Those who don’t agree with us… write their own blog posts
Venice will vanish into the sea and Salzburg will slide into Salzach đ until then, enjoy another shot of the festival area, now from the other side.
After a 3 week honeymoon with like-minded thoughts and the work itself, the time has come to read other opinions on Poppea (yes, I know, the world has moved on by I have not. It’s Tito month and I’m still stuck in Rome one generation before that story).
For kicks I also listened to Karajan’s trainwreck in the meanwhile and came out with further thoughts: the chap singing Seneca survived best, mostly because his voice was the most suited to the role and because he either made the most effort to sound Monteverdian or he actually had an idea about what that enticed. A contralto Arnalta is usually not a good idea; neither is a tenor Valletto (same thing with the Enescu Festival Poppea; it’s a Cherubino character, leave it to women; never heard a CT in it but worse comes to worst I’d rather hear one than a tenor).
But back to 2018:
Jan Lauwersâs first opera production may be accounted a significant success: alive to theatre, its possibilities and impossibilities, its illusions and delusions. (from A Highly Successful Production of L’incoronazione di Poppea in Salzburg)
If a spinning marathon = alive to theatre then yes.
I heard a good few objections â nothing wrong with that in itself, of course â which, sadly and revealingly, seemed to boil down to that perennial bugbear of âtoo much going onâ. By definition, âtoo muchâ of something will be a bad thing â although sometimes, perhaps, bad things are required. (from same as above)
When it comes to entertainment too much of boring and illogical isn’t something I want. Bad things can be interesting, not the case here.
Few of the characters in Lâincoronazione di Poppea, even Seneca, a somewhat compromised and therefore all the more credible exception, evince scruples in that or any other respect. Sometimes we, sometimes they too, need to ask why, or at least seem to need to do so. It does not, then, seem entirely unreasonable, nor out of keeping with the spirit of this extraordinary work, to attempt something similar. (from same as above)
I’m in agreement with this (though it’s wooly written, so I cleared it up for the reader). Yet I’m not interested in any production telling me why. That’s for each of us to draw from our own experiences with “horrible people”. I’m interested in a production not making things busy for the hell of it. The author seems to imply that simply busy = making us think. On the contrary.
I’m adding a nighttime picture of Salzburg just to make you think (about the smoothness of my new camera)
It is, at any rate, likely to prove more enlightening than simply complaining that âtoo much is going onâ. âHave you ever seen a Frank Castorf production?â I was tempted to ask. (from same as above)
What’s that got to do with anything? I have seen this production and it messed with my head for no discernable reason. (Visual) art should speak for itself, not need booklets explaining it1. (Incidentally that Castorf production looks a lot more coherent but I didn’t see it so I won’t be commenting)
The next paragraph is bad writing on the subject of whether or not there is any parallel between Busenello’s libretto and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, psychology (or lack thereof) and whether whatever Accademia deli Incogniti stood for had any bearing on the apparently amoral tone of the libretto. None of it has anything to do with this production so I’ll skip it.
Like staging itself, sometimes they [the dancers] mirror the action, but more often they offer related, alternative paths: a âwhyâ, a âwhat ifâŠâ, (from same as above)
They do, I guess, but always as a not particularly original or coherent afterthought. First draft?
Throughout history, what has been more pornographic, in any number of senses, than the desire not only to watch but also to write such âstoriesâ? Is that not part of what Poppea is? All the while, even whilst we are caught up in its detail, in enjoyment thereof, we, like the selected dancer-in-rotation as focal wheel of fate (Fortuna), know how things will turn out â even if we have forgotten. (from same as above)
Yes to the first part – and I certainly would’ve traded the incessant spinning for more of the reality TV backstage stuff being projected – but can we for once live in the now instead of always thinking about how things turn out? Isn’t that why we indulge in entertainment?
If you’ve ever wondered what’s behind that cliff I kept yapping about.
- I’m aware that’s usually what is going on in contemporary art museumes these days but I don’t consider it a good thing. ↩
Drop the bass
How cool – the ETO blog isn’t half bad. Check out their entry about ground bass in Monteverdi, before and thereafter. For those (like me) non-musically trained I’m not going to explain the term because the blog does it really well and gives cool examples.
Interesting things ETO does this Autumn around the UK:
Dido and Aeneas + more (Purcell, Carissimi and Gesualdo)
and others.
Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: A reappraisal
nothing to do with the volume, I just like the sentiment
Progress! A new volume has appeared on Tito this past May, the third part of Stockholm Studies in Culture and Aesthetics series of monographs and edited volumes. Though the opera has moved into the mainstream, not much (of note?) has been written since Emanuele Senici’s 1997 Adapted to the Modern Stage: La clemenza di Tito in London and certainly nothing as important as Rice’s 1991 monography. You can download it here, because
Stockholm University Press (SUP)Â is an open access publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. We aim to make journals and books affordable, and to give them the widest possible dissemination, so that researchers around the world can find and access the information they need without barriers.
Feeling alienated? Stab Carmen.
I know this is oooold news, but it’s just now that I’ve made time to think about Tcherniakov’s Aix Carmen (2017) and it’s holiday downtime.
Baranello’s (of Likely Impossibities) review is very evocative for those who have not seen this production for themselves. I feel both intrigued and a bit disoriented. It sounds like a cool idea for a production but somehow also rather fanciful. Usually I bitch about productions being underdeveloped but in this case it might be too well thought out, to the point where it leaves opera as musical entertainment in the dust and turns into a film that uses a very popular opera libretto as pop psychology prop (narrowly before MeToo).
It’s an unusual feeling, maybe somewhat similar to the recent Martina Franca extended-play Rinaldo (just found out Armida = Cher1). I want the action on stage to keep my attention focused by being novel and interesting but I also want to retain the feeling that I’m at the opera rather than in a play in play in play.
If it were a film I think I’d really enjoy it2 – I’m already in the frame of mind where the opera is called Don Jose, Incel extraordinaire.
ps:
The clinicâs staff is too excited to notice that the treatment didnât work: The man they think they have cured is still locked in his own head, seemingly unable even to hear their praise, still believing he killed Carmen. (from the above mentioned review)
Don’t directors always like the trope of the self satisfied psychiatric staff? Heh.
