Il Travatore at the MET

Jenn and I stumbled upon am unexpected and beautiful Fireworks display at Central Park on our way to see Il Travatore at the Metropolitan Opera.

Giuseppe Verdi 's Il Travatore has one of those confusing opera plots with gypsies and soldiers, love triangles and mysterious family trees.  But all in all it was really fantastic.  The music and singing was alluring and engaging.

Only the sets were a lack luster in my opinion.

But as Diana mentioned while we were grumbling about the sets for Rigoletto (yes, these are a reverse order catching up of Opera Chronicles.  I got in trouble tonight for not being up to date) perhaps everything just pales when we compare it to the Franco Zeffirelli sets for Turandot. 

Oh and while I am catching up I might as well put in a plug for the film Tea with Mussolini  semi-autobiographical tale from the early life of director Franco Zeffirelli.   Very enjoyable, humorous, heartfelt, well acted (other than Cher who is dreadful) and sweet. 

I Musici Venezia

After over a day of commuting, mostly via plan B at every turn, I made it to Venice.

The ticket area for Alilaguan airport (bus)boat has an air of the Boardwalk to it.  Making me feel instantly at home.

Catherine secured oh-so-hard-to-get tickets for La Traviata the night of my arrival.  It was wonderful, if a bit chilly to see an opera in a cavernous palazzo.  The sets were not much of anything, but with a room that grand not much was needed.  The musicians and most of the singers were superb.  Although I Musici Venezia could use the help of the Rush Kids when it comes to costuming.

A magical Venetian midnight walk is the perfect antidote to the exhaustion of 24 hours of travel.

New Year's Eve in Venice

The party was fanstastico!  With a 7-decade age spanning, multi-lingual, cross-cultural crowd which included renown countertenor Russell Oberlin, along with a diplomat, a retired soccer player, someone who swaps language lessons in a tattoo parlor and a host of other fascinating people.  If I had my Hoop, I think I could have started a Venetian Hoop craze.

For hours before and after the sparklers we ripped up the dance floor. 

But back to Russell Oberlin...  He is a dear dear friend of my new friend Deborah King Melina.

On New Years Morning Catherine and I went to Deborah and Berto's beautiful apartmento for Panatone and cafe.  The view is superb and the whole experience was made more magical when Deborah put on a CD of Russell singing.

Meridith McNeal, Venetian Windows, 2011, ink and watercolor on paper, 55x111

It seems strange that the proper and charming man I met the night before could sound so utterly angelic and feminine.  But I suppose that is what a countertenor does!

There are some interesting performance clips and interviews where he talks about his work on youtube.

Wellies and sequins: Rigoletto at the MET

Wellies and sequins were in abundance tonight for Rigoletto.

Diana and I agree with Plotkin that Rigoletto would make for an excellent first opera.

In tonight's performance at the Metropolitan Opera the cast was fantastic. Including the understudy for the Duke of Mantua who was a terrific singer and actor, handsome and amazingly tall for a tenor. I can't tell you his name as I tore that bit of the understudy notice off to throw away my gum.

Gilda (Nino Machaidze) , Rigoletto (Giovanni Meoni) & Sparafucile (Stefan Kocán) were all superb. Maddalena (Kirsten Chávez) while bodacious was not a strong singer.

Many times through out the night I thought the orchestra was not in sync with the singing. That was an odd first for the MET. But my biggest complaint were the dark and grim sets. To give you an idea the picture above was of the brightest of all the sets. At times it was really hard to see the performers. And we were in the fourth row!

I think "La donna è mobile" is so catchy a song must have been the precursor to a solid gold single. Everyone was humming on my walk to the subway.

And because it's the subway after the opera, my ride home was not uneventful. I ended up sitting next to a guy with a ventriloquists dummy who was doing a full routine with multiple voices.

Addio... vivrà immutabile
L'affetto mio per te.

Meridita

Pelleas et Melisande

Last night I saw Pelleas et Melisande at the Met. This 1902 Debussy opera is stiflingly atmospheric, grim and ethereal.

The narrative, about an old prince, his young bride, and her romantic attachment to his brother, has an abstract symbolic quality to it that made it difficult to emotionally connect with.

The music was beautiful and complex, and there were many interesting moments where there were no vocals, just stretches of music where the performers froze in a tableau and the set moved in a circle, hauntingly slow, mesmerizing, aesthetically pleasing, (yet still somehow emotionally alienating).

A few scenes of note: this strange extended moment when Melisande leans awkwardly out a window so that her long, somewhat straggly hair can brush against Palleas and they can each fondle themselves.

Then there was another physically awkward and dramatically tense moment when Melisande's husband has his nine year old son on his shoulders peeking into Melisande's bedroom. The young boy, by the way, had a BEAUTIFUL voice, and his performance was the most captivating and satisfying to me.

Simon Rattle conducted, and Stéphane Degout, Magdalena Kožená, and Gerald Finley sang the leads.

Tosca!

Last night Meridita and I saw Tosca in HD outdoors at Lincoln Center.

It was wonderful! We had sandwiches from 'Snice and delicious wine and cookies.

I enjoyed the story, the intensity of Tosca's emotions, and the beauty of the lead singers' voices. But somehow I didn't feel as emotionally drawn is I wanted to be. Gorgeous and tragic, it left me dry-eyed.

This was a new Met production that premiered last season. The set was actually booed! I'm not sure what the audience's issue was. I didn't have a problem with the stark fortress like structure, although the design choices for the interior of the castle seemed off to me, and I couldn't figure out what era the piece was supposed to be taking place in...

Karita Mattila sang Tosca, Marcelo Alvarez was AMAZING as Cavarodossi, and George Gagnidze sang the villainous Scarpia. Joseph Colaneri was the conductor.

New Yorkers (and Tosca in HD at the MET)

"New Yorkers still pride themselves on being a town of gifted shape-shifters whose natives recognize one another by their ability to adopt a cultivated mien or a mad, mute stare, as the situation requires."
Knickerbocher: The Myth behind New York, Elizabeth Bradley

The day began with an hour-long multi-hoop session with Brece and Seth.  Then off to NeroDoro for the best gazpacho ever.

This New Yorker came in for coffee:
 

Then Diana and I met at the MET for HD screening of Tosca.  All 2,800 seats were filled and there were lots of standing room and lawn chairs along the perimeter.   Marcelo Álvarez as Cavaradoss was my favorite of the production.

The evening blossomed into one of those musical NY nights.

These New Yorkers were playing a very jazzy versions of Summertime:

Then we sat down one the bench to wait for the c train and things really got interesting.  Another New Yorker hauling a laundry cart filled with odities (decorated with a bumper sticker that read "There is no sex in the city.") turned to the woman sitting next to us and said.  "I've just come from my first Opera!"

Around that time the folks down by the jazz band had started to dance.

Then the C rolled in filled with New Yorkers in excellent fashions (silver studded, gold lame, leopard print, purple batik, earrings as large as a hamburger bun), elaborate tattoos, rolling luggage, all accompanied by a sound track of live bongo players.

What a day.  What a town.