Strauss - Elektra (2006) - Eva Johansson -- Review
Here'south Elina Garanca equally Sesto in the upcoming Jürgen Flimm production of Mozart's La Clemenza that opens at the Wiener Staatsoper on May 17. Louis Langrée conducts Michael Schade equally Tito, Juliane Banse as Vitellia and Chen Reiss every bit Servilia. Nosotros'd swap tickets of Clemenza's Roman bonfires (when you've seen Graham Vick's slick-haired Tito-every bit-Mussolini transported to Facist Italy, yous're tapped out) for the os-spooky biblical teen lust of Salome with Lise Lindstrom killing it (with Dame Gwynnie Jones) in Boleslaw Barlog's production, ending on May 18.
(Credit: Monika Rittenshaus)
Opera Chic took in the opening night of Claus Guth's Teatro alla Scala premiere of Strauss' Dice Frau Ohne Schatten and was blown away by its powerful ensemble (starring Emily Magee, Michaela Schuster and Falk Struckmann), nuanced conducting (Marc Albrecht) and Guth's symbol-heavy (simply at times too heavy) product. Read the review here, in Italian.
Camilla Nylund as Salome and Siegfried Jerusalem as Herodes Narraboth during a dress rehearsal of Salome, conducted by Zubin Mehta, at the Palau de Les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia. The opera will open the Festival del Mediterrani on Thursday.
(ph. EPA/Bruque)
(Above: Irène Friedli, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Sen Guo, Liuba Chuchrova. Photo: Hans Jörg Michel.)
The New Music Director of the Zurich Opernhaus, Daniele Gatti, led the premiere of Strauss'due south Elektra in Martin Kusej's 2003 reprised production which opened last dark.
The Milanese Maestro held firm the poduim, conducting the Orchester der Oper Zürich in the insanely taxing, expressionist work concluding heard at the Opernhaus Zurich seven years ago in the same production (with Christoph von Dohnányi conducting his Yamamotos off).
Eva Johansson sings the pb. Greek mezzo and former big playa in Herbie von Karajan'due south scarily crawly circumvolve of singers, Agnes Baltsa, sings Klytämnestra. Sassy American soprano Emily Magee rounds-out the cast as Chrysothemis.
We're happy to hand Gatti his Elektra victory past his adoring Swiss fans, which is just made sweeter by last night's massacre at San Siro where Internationale FC handed Milan AC their collective a$$es on a platter in a 2-0 triumph. Although Gatti may phone call Zurich his new abode, he'll never end cheering for gli azzurri.
(Higher up: Eva Johansson. Photo: Hans Jörg Michel.)
(Above: Emily Magee. Photo: Hans Jörg Michel.)
You'll have to click the link below to meet photos of the fabled Ms. Agnes Baltsa. Are you fix?
Proceed reading "Daniele Gatti Makes Elektra Electrifiying for Zurich Opera (And a Cameo past Agnes Baltsa Isn't and then Bad Either!)" »
Bolzano's Teatro Comunale merely put on their first Elektra ever! If you lot happen to find yourself in Italy's Trentino/Alto Adige/Südtirol Northern hauls... the theater'due south "event of the season" -- Strauss'due south schlocky revenge extravaganza, the greatest opera Roger Corman never directed. In Bolzano, instead (it later tours Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara), it'due south been conducted by Gustav Kuhn and directed by Manfred Schweigkofler. The lead is being shared between Anna Katharina Behnke and Elena Popovskaya.
Speaking of sharing things, O.C. doesn't hide her penchant for bewbs which you can find on super-zoom after the cutting (along with a couple more than shots).
Continue reading "Bolzano Bewbs Make Elektra Consummate" »
Teatro Comunale di Bologna is poised to open their new flavor on Saturday, January 16 with Salome. Opera Chichi was there for terminal year'due south inauguration with Daniela Dessì's first ever Norma, and rogue jail cell phones bated, information technology rawked.
This year, Italian Maestro (and San Francisco Opera Doctor) Nicola Luisotti will be on the podium to lead a talented cast, although we're sorry to see that High german soprano Nadja Michael, who was supposed to open the flavour flaunting her minx-like Salome (OC saw her at La Scala in 2007 as the rebellious teen and she was perfection) has been replaced by Swedish-American soprano Erika Sunnegårdh.
(Photo AP: Act Two of Der Rosenkavalier)
The fact that the greatest composer of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss, chose the final trio from Rosenkavalier as the music he wanted played at his funeral -- conducted by the young Georg Solti -- seems to accept created some sort of general impression that the entire opera is owed some taxidermist'south form of respect -- like a funeral march for fresh ideas that at this point sort of polarized most stage directors in two fields -- the organza /tulle /wig fans and the not-so-avantgarde-anymore directors who choose instead to degrade the story into an impressively vulgar brothel anecdote in the name of, you know, throwing away that tired organza. It's also interesting to realize how a lot of conductors have divided themselves into 2 factions, besides -- the ones who listened to a lot of Kleiber's Rosenkavalier (allow's call them Team Watteau) and the ones who endured a lot of Karajan (let's phone call them Squad Rembrandt).
The late Nathaniel Merrill's production of Richard Strauss'south Der Rosenkavalier opened concluding night at the Met (where it had final appeared roughly a decade ago). The Strauss package got unwrapped (although everything is actually wrapped in layers of organza and silk tulle, from the windows to the women) and serves every bit our hyper-real (Frengo would be proud) barracks doux to a generic Maria Theresian Vienna.
Proceed reading "Der Rosenkavalier: Hawt Girl-on-Girl Action on the Met Phase" »
David Lynch on KCRW:
I'm going to go to Richard Strauss. Nosotros're getting into long haired stuff at present. I was in a really swank Mercedes Benz in Germany one night. Blackness, deep blackness and snow flakes the size of silvery dollars coming down. And I'd been left in the machine -- I forget who I was with just they had gone into a building and I had been left in the machine -- and I turned on the radio and I heard this thing. And information technology thrilled my soul. This particular slice of music at that particular time, I saw in my minds heart, my 4 yr old son coming downwardly a flight of stairs and it made me start crying.
Opera Chic's favorite Im Abendrot?
All due respect to Renée'due south choice of Schwarzkopf, just by far Lisa Della Casa'south "Vier Letze Lieder" is the closest to Opera Chic'due south centre. It'southward not on YouTube, only La Jessye is.
And she does thrill your soul, too.
Usher OF THE YEAR
Fabio Luisi
Surprise choice? If you lot think and so, you have never heard him deport. Fabio Luisi is Opera Chichi's Conductor of the Year 2008 because he has a German language brain and an Italian eye. Considering with the Dresden Staatskapelle – "Dresden's gold", wrote the following solar day august Corriere della Sera newspaper -- he appeared at la Scala, in a benefit concert, and showed those of us who were set to listen that Heldenleben (with the original finale, and Konzertmeister Kai Vogler pedagogy how you play the violin) is a masterpiece of subtlety and even irony far different than the usual windbaggy, sappy, irony-free piece we're accustomed to hear (and that includes Herbie, genius every bit he was, photographed with his aeroplane and his Porsche, triumphant over his enemies). Luisi can do Wagner, he can do Italian opera (AND he recorded "Jerusalem", that forgotten Verdi masterpiece). Because he once conducted in a Pink Panther costume (long story). Because his website seriously rules. Because he published his autobiography in Frg and Republic of austria, and he isn't even 50. He went so native that now he fifty-fifty speaks Italian with a faint Teutonic inflection. He has two cute pugs. Luisi downright rawks.
Vocalist OF THE YEAR, Female
Diana Damrau
Because if an alien race of behemothic rabid mutant penguins threatened to invade Earth she'd wear her Queen of the Night costume and she'd stare them into submission even before opening her mouth. Then she'd proceed to bash all their heads with a baseball bat and she'd make herself an conflicting penguin sandwich. On rye. With mayo.
Singer OF THE Yr, Male
Ernesto Palacio
What? He retired years ago? Yes, he did – as a singer, OK. But he manages Juan Diego Florez in a style that he makes us wish he ran the careers of and so many singers of neat talent we see crash and burn down for so many reasons. Maestro Palacio is backside Juan Diego's decision to drop for the fourth dimension being the Duke of Mantua after one preview in Lima and one run in Dresden; Palacio understands that the increased visibility that Verdi gives you lot is not worth damaging your vocalisation; Verdi (except for Fenton, simply you don't really build a career on that role) is too heavy for Juan Diego'south perfectly tuned instrument. Hence, he volition not button his voice to do Verdi. Better to be the king of Rossini and Donizetti, "el mejor tenor libero de la historia" in Placido Domingo's words, than to exist just another tenor who pushed his vocalisation and crashed and burned. Opera Chic knows he'southward decorated simply she'd similar Palacio to exist an adviser for her personal decisions, too – like a life coach. Fish or craven? Enquire Palacio. Seaside or mountains? Ask Palacio. Creme brulee or panettone? Ask Palacio.
DIRECTOR OF THE Year
Graham Vick
Considering he once again fu#@ed our sh^t up past staging La Clemenza di Tito in Mussolini's Rome (for Teatro Comunale di Torino) and La Rondine in a 1950s sophisticated comedy setting similar a Jean Negulesco film for La Fenice, spoofing in the 2nd act his nemesis Franco Zeffirelli'southward Boheme Cafe Momus scene, and Vick came upwardly with a truly heartbreaking thought for the ending, where dear ends and the heaven – literally – falls. As soon as OC takes over a major opera house in a coup, she's giving Vick accented creative powah.
OPERA PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR
Salomé, with Nicola Beller Carbone, directed by Robert Carsen, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, Teatro Regio di Torino
Salome in a Vegas casino vault? Horrible slimy quondam men stripping down during the trip the light fantastic toe of the seven veils instead of Salome? Salome surviving the end of the opera, in a genius plot twist? Exit it to Carsen to twist the Strauss opera on its ear finding new layers of pregnant in that wonderful way of his. Whenever Carsen is on, he's totally on. Noseda (OC did not hear him acquit when she saw Salome, it was his dark off, but she'south well aware of his work) may be the well-nigh underrated major usher out in that location. And Teatro Regio di Torino does very interesting first course productions without the same massive corporeality of public financing enjoyed for example by la Scala.
COMPOSER OF THE YEAR (100 TIMES SO)
Elliott Carter
His new piece of work sounds so fresh that he must have some seriously weird painting up in his attic getting all erstwhile wrinkly in his place.
NEW Work OF THE Yr
"Elogium Musicum", Hans Werner Henze
On October ii, 2008, Riccardo Chailly conducted in Leipzig Hans Werner Henze's latest work, Elogium Musicum Amatissimi Amici Nunc Remoti, the 25-minutes elegy Henze wrote -- with prominent Classics professor Franco Serpa'south Latin text -- in memory of Henze's companion of more than xl years, Fausto Moroni, who died unexpectedly in Apr 2007. It's the story of two falcons always flight side by side, until one of them disappears from the sky; the music begins as a heartbreakingly cute string quartet, in placidity and serenity that gets increasingly animate -- so the second motion, "Nox", Night, becomes anomalous and cluttered and upsetting, a tempest of sorrow.
It'southward a stunning work by a man who had to endure a crushing blow and nevertheless turned it into art, a piece of work made even more heartbreaking past the fact that, as the music in the finale seems to resign itself to disappear into nothingness, an alto saxophone appears, faintly at commencement, then stronger: information technology's Fausto. And Hans Werner Henze's dark night of the soul ends in the warm light of an Italian dawn.
Well, what to say of a work of such power? In the indifference of the blissfully distracted American media, German opinion immediately understood that we are dealing with a historic work here: Neues Federal republic of germany called the elegy Henze's "Opus summum", the acme of his work. The economy and precision of Henze's writing reminded Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Verdi's Quattro Pezzi Sacri. "History is being fabricated again, finally, in Leipzig", exulted the Leipziger Volkszeitung.
This is just a silly blog of a silly daughter somewhere on the Internet; and our calling Elogium Musicum the new work of the year 2008 is zero. But our admiration is real -- as is the timeless dazzler of that elegy.
DUMBEST Decision OF THE YEAR
La Scala unions' strike for iii nights of Dudamel's Boheme.
The winner, hands downward, is the Scala unions who senselessly -- and masochistically -- chose to sink the first 3 nights of Gustavo Dudamel's "La Bohéme" at la Scala. A hot young usher, an interesting young bandage (amongst them the actually absurd James Valenti) and Franco Zeffirelli's super-famous staging of the work, all at la Scala, made for a really cool event. The cancellation created a flurry of reimbursements for the three sold-out shows, didn't do annihilation to advance the contract drama that was protracted to this month a few hours before la prima and is probably not entirely over yet anyway. What it did, it punished the audience and disrespected a conductor who had already conducted an interesting Don Giovanni at la Scala -- just who won't appear in another opera hither in Milan for a while now. The opera had the eventual greenlight past the unions in the second one-half of July, in the semi-deserted urban center, in the silence of the international media -- despite Dudamel's prominence -- and even hometown paper Corriere della Sera relegated the testify to a small notice. But and then la Scala'southward leadership in shooting themselves in the pes is a well known fact.
Below, Dudamel's triumph in Berlin with the aforementioned opera.
(above: Salome's Dance of the 7 Veils @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva)
ok, there are 2 versions of Salome: the kewl i (Carsen) adn the boring 1 (every1 elses) and we must unite teh 2 salomes and then there can exist a final showdown of level bosses with Carsen 4 the win! OC was treated to the kewl one on Sunday afternoon in Torino, where manager Robert Carsen wowed the audience similar immigration 4x4x4x4x4x Tetris rows with Korobeiniki blasting on the stereo.
The drape rose on Herod'due south palace, which was meticulously visualized as a sterile and commanding Las Vegas casino vault, excellently realized via floor to ceiling rubber deposit boxes, and a gigantic, thick circular vault door on the right wall. Imposing walls covered in a filigree of safes, and polished marble slabs covered the floor like a Manhattan mecha office lobby. On the left was a floor-to-ceiling escalator bank (but sadly, non-mechanized stairs). In front of the escalator was a security station, which consisted of a brushed metal banquette with nine plasma screens broadcasting eye-in-the-sky transmissions from around Herod'southward casino. Equally Narraboth (sang by an excellent, light, and emotive Jörg Dürmüller) waxed poetic on the beauty and paleness of the princess, he simultaneously stared at her visage reclining on a lounge, unbeknownst to the security camera that was transmitting her every activity to the plasma screen display.
Soldiers were updated as security personnel. Extras disguised as lounge waitresses were in 70s disco Egyptian garb, golden wedge sandals and short sparkling Cleopatra skirts wrapped effectually their hips, while the men went topless in Roman battle costume and the occasional helmet.
(to a higher place: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino'due south Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva)
Enter Salome, sung by German soprano Nicola Beller Carbone, who again, was physically and vocally on point, but was lacking an overall charisma. Dressed in black Reeboks, blackness spandex capris, and a long blackness tank, she appeared to take just cruised in from a low-intensity workout at the gym. She was the perfect bored teen -- stormy, emo, and petulant, lounging carelessly on the security banquette.
It was when Marking S. Doss's plastic Jochanaan was summoned from the depths of the depository financial institution vault (via the vault door) that conductor of the evening, Roberto Fores Veses, actually p00ped his frac, and his weakness was virtually offensive. There was no attention paid to the leitmotifs or respective orchestral cues. In that location was no suspense, terror, or burn down. Only large noise via the exaggerated gestures of a young conductor who flung his artillery for a wall of audio. No shape, no dynamic, and forte to piano was managed by pure circumstance rather than technique. Overall the timbre of the orchestra was overbearing and effectively drowned-out all dash of singing. The only goose bumps of the night were powered by Carsen's spot-on direction and vision.
After Jochanaan retreated back into his hidey-hole, Carsen's Jews appear in the guise of Herod & Herodias' guests, dressed in cocktail political party mode...rich silk dresses on the trophy wives and tuxedos on the retired lawyers and bankers. It was so refreshing not to take the stereotypical rabbinical Jews rushing effectually in circles mashing their spiny fingers together, tallit and payis flying about.
We met Herod, sleazy nouveaux riches and casino owner, who orders refreshments served by topless waitresses. Herodias was a washed-up Las Vegas showgirl, sporting an auburn wig, a gold sheath dress, and gilded stiletto heels, while Herod was a slumlord dressed in a gaudy gray salesman arrange and pink shirt.
(higher up: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva)
Tanz für mich was the apex of luminescence. We will e'er have a love/hate human relationship with Robert Carsen. He is bursting full with such original ideas and revolutionary concepts, but sometimes goes astray in a heavy-handed, rebellious approach, slamming down genius with such forceful hammyfists that information technology becomes derivative, centre rolling drama...similar a sullen teen who thrives on negative attention. We saw information technology in his Scala Candide terminal yr as a prime example, and he went astray again in his Vienna Manon Lescaut (nosotros did nevertheless love his Scala Kát'a Kabanová, but we saw that before we started blogging sucks iv u!).
When obstinate, moody Salome finally agreed to dance her famous "Dance of the Seven Veils", she strutted out on stage dressed equally a xerox copy of her washed-upwards, attention-whore mother (sung past a screeching, trashy, only fantabulous Dagmar Pecková) in the same cherry wig, gold cocktail dress, and also-high heels, looking just every bit ill fit and age-inappropriate as her mother.
Manfred Voss's innovative lighting killed the stage floods and bathed the entire scene in gorgeous glittering gold, warm and sensuous, a pulsating, dynamic backdrop for the sickest Dot7Vs that OC ever saw. Salome strutted over and confronted her shocked mother doppleganger, jauntily mocking her and threatening her with overt sexuality.
(above: mantle telephone call, the party guests)
Salome began dancing a cabaret-style seduction, plucking the retirees from the audience of her parent's party guests and grinding against them, pulling away the cashmere scarves of onetime men and leaving them stunned and breathless on the floor. Herod and Herodias were seated apart, stage front, and while her mother looked away uncomfortably, Herod was gleefully tantalized. Salome began a chair dance, and the retirees got up and danced around her, their apparel beginning to molt off their gyrating bodies. They took their handkerchiefs from their pockets and placed them over their faces, twirling around the oversexed Salome in anonymous frenzy. The whole trip the light fantastic toe built to a literally climatic finish, and Herod followed his stepdaughter's every erotic thrust with a big video camera, simultaneously broadcasting the action on the ix plasma screens at the security desk. wtf? Taking incest to a whole new level, this generation to be broadcast on YouTube or released for profit.
(above: curtain phone call, Jochanaan)
The dance is so unforgiving, so sexual -- she mimes fellatio on one of the men (old plenty to be her grandfather), mimes sodomy from another, and even fellates her gold stiletto when her secksual appetite cannot be sated past the men. Salome dropped her dress to her ankles and finished the seduction in a cream silk slip. The men were literally rolling around on the floor at her anxiety in pure secksal ecstacy, air humping and pulling off their layers as quickly equally their feverish hands could manage.
The end scene, and the men have shed all their wearing apparel, all writhing around stark naked on the phase, white old man butts polarized as the gilded lighting faded away and became an intense, harsh wash of white light. The plasma screens recorded all the action, close-ups of Salome'due south thrill of seduction, interplayed with x-rated shots of a women'due south naked bits. At the end, she attacked her female parent, grinding her lips against hers in a victorious struggle for matriarchal power. The Trip the light fantastic toe of the Seven Veils never gets me hawt, like not fifty-fifty close *yawn yawn* but this 1 was insanely suffused with raw eroticism and over stimulated incestuous taboo between begetter and daughter. It was off the higgety. ok pls dont start the rapture before i lose my virginity yae gawds.
(in a higher place: curtain call, Nicola Beller Carbone)
Every bit the audition settled downward and everyone tried to imagine garbage men on the toilet, nuns baking cookies, and homeless men playing chess, the scene segued into Ich verlange von dir den Kopf des Jochanaan, Salome turned haughty and absolutely unyielding, a girl suddenly aware of the powerful wield of blooming sexuality, and the manipulation over her begetter. Herod, notwithstanding holding the video recorder, zoomed in on her confront when she asked for Jochanaan's head. When he offered to ransom her with jewels, he plucked safety deposit keys from a ring, which his shallow party guests snatched and rushed off to capitalize on. Gold sand and glitter spontaneously poured from half a dozen of the uppermost boxes, raining down the background for a glorious effect.
(above: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino'south Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva)
As the head of Jochanaan is brought to Salome via the revelers who entered the vault door, information technology was brought to her bloodless and rubbery. Before the terminal osculation, the revelers, unable to feign pity or reverberate on the severity of the beheaded saint, play a round of kickball with the rubber head. As Salome slinked off into the vault wall that broke apart to reveal a desert landscape, with the head of the prophet raised over her shoulders in outstretched artillery, Herod instead called for his wife Herodias to be killed, to which the bloodthirsty revelers gleefully and instantly agreed.
Lights slammed shut, and this was the all-time management of Salome OC could ever imagine. For the offset time, OC can visualize why the 20th century opera was banned and criticized at its inception. The juxtaposition of the Dot7Vs and Herod'due south final arraign raised the soapbox to a conceptual level that worked in so many ways. I'g gonna go start a facebook grouping for this...brb.
(above: Teatro Regio Torino)
(in a higher place: exterior of Teatro Regio Torino)
(in a higher place: exterior front of Teatro Regio Torino)
(above: Downtown Torino)
(above: interior of Teatro Regio Torino)
(Above: Trip the light fantastic of the Seven Veils from Robert Carsen's Salome @ Teatro Regio di Torino, photo credit Ramella & Giannese/Piva. )
*~*OC*~* passed this foggy, clouded Sunday afternoon in the borders of Torino, 1.5 hours northwest of Milan by automobile (depending on your respect for speed limits and your car's HP powah), to catch the last showing of director Robert Carsen's Salome at Teatro Regio. Lots of pictures and a review coming tomorrow (although we already previewed it here and here), but for now reports that Carsen was omg sick! Totally on signal, his interpretation of Salome was insane, erotic, and merciless. His direction was then intense that even my seat broke out in a sweat of pure genius. The magic day has arrived and I'k carving "Carsen" into my arm with a raz0r.
As weird as it looked on preview photos, and equally afraid as we were that boy genius Carsen had made some other big mistake (such as his very lame modern-costume Manon Lescaut @ Rodeo Drive we endured last year in Vienna), we have to say this Salome's insane parts, when put together, worked like clockwork, like a super secksay Vacheron. A small preview before the full review: the daughter gets abroad with murder -- the "kill that woman" order is meant to have her mother, not Salome, killed. And Herodias bites the dust equally Salome disappears in the desert clutching her fellow'due south head as lovingly as OC holds her LV Speedy bag.
We'll just proper name check very quickly the great (Carsen's direction, Manfred Voss'south genius lighting that ricocheted in priceless ways and with laser precision all over the stainless-steel walls of the vault where the one-deed opera takes place -- honorary mention to the idea of bathing in a creepy, milky golden lite the pelting of gold dust from the highest safety eolith boxes), the really practiced (Dagmar Peckova's washed-upwardly jealous monster of a Herodias -- with leZbian incestuous kiss bonus), the good (Nicola Beller Carbone'due south vocally correct if overall uninspiring, but dramatically and physically perfect Salome), the bad (Mark. S. Doss's uncharismatic, wooden, vocally uninteresting Jochanaan -- when his character reappears equally a decapitated rubber head, the charisma factor remains basically the same), the atrociously bad conducting (Roberto Fores Veses, picking up Gianandrea Noseda'southward billy for the last two performances, offered a flat, heavy, tin-eared reading of the score without layers, without shaping, drowning out -- to add the proverbial insult to injury -- the poor singer'due south voices for most of the testify nether a deluge of harsh flattened strings and heavy-metal sounding brass; it is frankly a reading unbecoming a major international production in an important, if second-tier, opera house. This may very well have been the worst operation from a usher OC has witnessed in a professional venue then far).
While your waiting for the immediate account, German soprano Nicola Beller Carbone, who sang the pb and seduced the theater, had a modest write-up in a contempo edition of Io Donna. The Carsen/Teatro Regio run of Salome marked her first time on the Italian stage, but she has been singing the troubled teen since 2003, where she premiered the role in Federal republic of germany. Since Carsen had her kissing the decapitated saint's head set in a Las Vegas casino'southward pristine, sterile vault, the just kewl matter she said was that he copied well-nigh exactly a famous Las Vegas casino vault, but doesn't name names. wtf? Ted Binion'southward? Who hangs out in Las Vegas vaults? Carsen's been watching likewise much Ocean's Eleven, just this time his muse paid off.
Moah images from Robert Carsen's Salome in Turin.
Also, below, the dance of the seven veils -- she stays dressed while the rich h0rny dirty quondam men (a classic Carsen touch, with the usual subtle political undertones) who warship her, literally lose their pants.
Robert Carsen, nowhere to be seen these days around Milan since his problematic Candide last flavor (the i with George W. Bush-league, Silvio Berlusconi and other world leaders dancing in their underwares that underwent a bit of a rewrite earlier it was introduced to la Scala audience'south frail sensibilities), is about to introduce his Salome (his second, actually, since he already did one in the early 1990s with Kent Nagano using the French language libretto) to audiences in Turin.
I week from at present the Teatro Regio di Torino volition be turned, Body of water'south 11 fashion, into a luxury casino'southward vault, complete with large screens with the "alive" footage of security cameras effectually the casino's floor, for Carsen's Salome.
Among Carsen'southward ideas, besides the Ocean'due south 11 casino thing, the fact that Salome won't go n4ked simply a bunch of lewd onlookers volition -- Nicola Beller Carbone will stay clothed, random erstwhile fat maen will drop trou. Grammy winner Mark S. Doss, as Jokanaan, in a rare concession to orthodoxy, will indeed lose his head.
Gianandrea Noseda is conducting; he has already introduced his Salome, in concert form, with the Turin bandage, in Manchester. Audio of the performance is still here, for some other 48 hours courtesy of the BBC
In the rehearsal room a part can be so dissimilar. Before you sing it on stage yous don't know what it does to your voice or how yous can support it. Success doesn't only autumn out of the heaven, you have to do a huge amount of piece of work on it
Nadja Michael gets set to rok the ROH in David McVicar's Salome
Agnes Baltsa (Klytemnestra) tries to arm wrestle Nadine Secunde (Elektra) in Richard Strauss's Elektra; rehearsals at the Land Opera House in Budapest, premieres Nov. 24. Murder, manifestly, starts in the heart. (ph. EPA)
"I recall a lot about air. Singing in opera you lot wait for safe, something to hang onto. Some singers try to hold onto notes, but you need to permit the air swell and release, not bad and release the manner it does in a bellows, so that the tone can swell that way too."
Our Debbie Voigt talks nigh her forthcoming Ägyptische Helena ("Helen of Egypt", premieres Friday at the Met), Richard Strauss rarely-staged (the last time at the Met, only 79 years ago) opera. The New York Times page holds some .mp3s, also.
It's a shame that Strauss' Helena doesn't seem to become teh honey from opera houses and conductors, because it's then clearly a masterpiece that it isn't even funnay -- just Guntram is more forgotten, among Strauss' works. That funny Clemens Krauss fifty-fifty reported that Strauss himself cosidered his Helena kinda a$$y, simply the reasons for its lack of success in recent years, Opera Chic is agape, lies in the very complicated nature of the orchestration -- and the totally unforgiving vocal parts.
It's a deceptively simple -- and shockingly modern -- work. OC is very happy that Voigt is attacking -- only another Debbie's revenge confronting those st00pid fatty-h8rs. Yay for Voigt!
From last night'southward la prima of Strauss' Salome at Teatro alla Scala, the staging is basically the same as this DVD from a few years agone, which is the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden BBC filming that was conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi, and starred Catherine Malfitano every bit Salome, and Jochanaan as Bryn Terfel. Information technology is also somewhat the same as the Salzburg Festival product from 1992, with a few modifications.
For those who are thinking of going: if you sit anywhere phase right for this product, you lot won't see anything. I mean nothing. Bondy has implemented a very user-unfriendly, deep staging that left a few of OC'south friends from terminal nighttime (who had very expensive palchi) very dissatisfied.
(Image of Bondy-directed Salome from the 15 euro production itemize.)
The scenery resembled an secret utility infinite evocative of the maze-like concrete structures that stretch under many United states of america colleges. Jochanaan's cistern was a clangorous, menacing trench in the basis (heh: he was a cave troll), which was flanked past an angled ramp, where much of the action and flitting of Salome took identify (she took a full ringlet downwards it during the Trip the light fantastic of the Vii Veils, wrapped like a mummy in a silvery scarf, and shedding the layers as she tumbled downwards).
Nadja Michael'southward Salome adhered to her latest quotes and description from La Repubblica. She came across as an young, annoying, spoiled 16-year one-time girl. Her swimmer's class gave her an agile, toned, athletic edge, and she leapt around the stage as lithely equally a gymnast. She commanded a full voice, with deafening passages that somehow even soared above Harding'due south super-thunderous conducting. She rose to the need of the incredibly hard music, and was petit enough to be somatically-convincing of the part (at 30-7 years, she is still petite and fresh-faced enough to pull-off a teenager). La Danza dei Sette Veli was choreographed by a ballerina, and retained that signature. The dance was difficult (and was lauded more for technique/skill rather than interpretation), and had and so many opportunities for the soprano to stumble or falter, only she pulled it off wonderfully.
Jochanaan was Falk Struckmann, with a powerful voice, and a towering presence. The one matter lacking in this Salome was the complete absenteeism of sexy. Information technology merely wasn't there. The combination of cold bluish lighting, with the rawk-hard body of Nadja Michael, and the fact that she remained covered in her diaphanous layers just didn't bring tha passion. She had stated in that La Repubblica article, "La mia danza e' si piena di erotismo..." But I saw more erotic behavior on that C-SPAN Senate hearing on Schoolhouse Food Nutrition.
Harding was fluent, and purveyed a huge, lamentable sound. The loggionisti lost their pewp during his curtain call, but he was well-deserving. Chilling at parts, specially during "Ah! Ich habe deinen Mund gekusst, Jochanann." He proficiently suffused the score with full expression during Salome's delirious moments of joy, and and then turned the sound admittedly chilly during moments of insanity. He was amazingly adept.
And those "few egregious moments" yesterday?: As Herod's Jewish guests arrived in full white beards and tallitot, at that place were a few grumblings from the loggione, mine included. They were clearly arguing theology in an exaggerated fence, i fifty-fifty wielding a scrolled torah. Ok fine. whatevs. But what I don't understand is this: at one point, there were a dozen Hassidim lined-upwardly phase left, two rows deep, pressed against the wall, and praying/davening to mimic the Western Wall. F-wording F, what the hell was that all about?
The worst transgression? Subsequently in action, when Salome demands the head of Jochanaan from Herodes, and he tries to placate her desire with the hidden jewels and riches of her mother, six of the Hassidum come out of the wings, interim in the groundwork. They stand together, rending their hands in greedy desire, jostling each other, pointing insanely at the jewelry, and holding each other back from rushing to steal the tempting pile of jewels that Herodes slowly displays. lol greedy jews omg they want those emeralds so bad. I ordinarily like Bondy, but in this production he came across as an a$$h0le, and I have no thought what would make anyone think different.
Nicely, the gore-factor wasn't there either (OC isn't a large fan), with Jochanaan'due south head wrapped in a sparsely bloody white cloth. At the finale, Salome was squished to expiry by four riot gear cops with full-diddled shields that crowded her. Like she stole a new dvd player in a riot or something and they caught her.
Oh noes. Opera Chic has merely wandered into a wireless blindspo
As Opera Chichi was getting ready for her dark at la Scala -- OMG
the Daniel Harding-conducted Salome premiere OMG!!! -- she opened her copy of la Repubblica and she went all like, dude wtf?????
Because (Former Due east) German soprano Nadja Michael tells the newspaper that manager Luc Bondy -- responsible for many stark, elegant, minimalist opera stagings that Opera Chichi really really liked -- instructed her so:
"Salome is not truly evil. She's a 16 year one-time daughter: egotistical, besides rich, too spoiled, e'er getting what she wants. Think of Paris Hilton: a woman who's almost beautiful (ed: zing!) who says I desire this, I want that, without thinking of the consequences ".
The Bondy goes on to pontificate -- frankly, quite weirdly -- about his ideas for the staging
"centered around the clash between the sacred and the earthly in a changing world, the religious disputes betwixt Judeans and Nazarenes, whom I imagined as hippies form the 1960s, equally pacifist bloom children: it reminds me of the electric current clash between Shias and Sunnis in Iraq (ed: ?)".
The staging had its début in Salzburg, 1992, but since then the sets got damaged, so the ones we'll see at la Scala tonight are spanking (heh) new. Anyway, Opera Chichi will be there, to written report later.
German soprano Nadja Michael talks: today'southward la Repubblica carries a large interview with la Scala'south latest Salome (premiere next tuesday -- information technology'due south the cute if chilly Salzburg staging past Luc "I Am So Minimal I Am About Disappearing" Bondy).
Interesting bits from the (East) High german lady:
"I was a swimmer, since I was a child, for the East Germany squad. Then in the juniores team my coaches began talking about steroids, and my parents pulled me out of the team. Winning was everything for the DDR, it was a political thing".
The 37 twelvemonth old glacial Hitchcock blonde discovered singing at xviii but didn't accept professional person lessons until she was 21. She started equally a mezzo but so switched to soprano ("I had to learn 14 parts for soprano in ii years").
Of class what everybody'south wondering almost is, will she bare information technology all like the Francesca Patané / Maruska Albertazzi team in Rome's Brazilian-waxed Salome?
No such luck.
In closing, Michael tells the story of the worst night of her life, seven years ago: when, during Aida in Berlin, Giuseppe Sinopoli died on the podium.
"I was on phase, right in front of Sinopoli when he roughshod to the ground. It was horrifying. He had such clarity of vision, so many projects. He was and so inspired, and then he left united states of america".
Dang. Nosotros really wanted to brand fun of this Puritanical, all-dressed-upwardly Salome, but now we miss the groovy Maestro Sinopoli so much.
Ciao Maestro and thanks for all the great recordings that you left us.
Source: https://operachic.typepad.com/opera_chic/richard_strauss/
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