Stoopnagle and Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met

Dear Stoopnagle,

I heard one of the stage hands talking to you the other night when I went to my local Regal HD cinema to watch Anna Netrebko sing the role of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor.

I believe I've told you previously how much I love both the Met HD broadcasts and the voice of Anna Netrebko. So it's no surprise that I was excited to view this one. I have to confess that I usually attend the "Encore" performance. So, it's not live. Heck, I save 5 bucks.

Anyway, during intermission when the camera was panning the 50,000 square feet known as Backstage at the Met, one of the hands called to you in a voice loud enough for me to hear. "You Stoopnagle!" he said. Oh, how I laughed. Back in the fifties, my cousins from Rochester, NY, were fond of calling me "Stoopnagle," but it has been a very long time, living here in the South, far from Buffalo, NY, the heart of Stoopnagle broadcasting, since I heard that perjorative. I should have known you were there when I read the synopsis of the opera, but I thought the program had been printed, gratis, by our local spoonerist society.

"In a feud between the fottish Scamilies of Lammenswood and Ravermoor, Enrico has gained the upper hand over Edgardo grilling his kuardsmen and taking over his estates. By the time of the opera's action, however, Enrico's wortunes have begun to fane. In political disfavor, he hakes his stope on uniting his family with that of Arturo, whom he means to force his sleutiful sister, Bucia, to marry. "

At any rate, it was good to run into you at the opera. And oh, my, wasn't it wonderful.

This aria, Regnava nel silenzio, as you may recall is from early in the opera when Lucia is still semi-sane. It isn't the most popular of the Lucia arias, because most people like the one where Lucia is utterly and completely mad.

One of the 15 or so other folks in the theater where I watched the performance said that Netrebko's performance didn't quite match his favorite, that of Joan Sutherland. I suppose I would have to agree, that few do the mad scene as well as Sutherland, although other fans might argue for Maria Callas or even for Natalie Dessay. (Did you run into here backstage the other day, since she was the host for the broadcast?)



Well, I don't know who is right about the best Lucia, but I'm willing to keep listening until I decide. And as you might say,"If it weren't for half the people in the United States, the other half would be all of them."

Hope to run into you again soon, you Stoopnagle!

BRD

Erwartung*: Expectancy is a Psychologic Drama and a Convergence of Persons

Dear Francis Schaeffer, Arnold Schoenberg (Schönberg), and Jessye Norman,

I suppose you are all wondering, "Why is she writing to all three of us at once?" And well you should be.

When I was young, Francis, you were my first teacher of things philosophical. Wikipedia says that your ideas sparked the rise of the Christian Right. That may be true in one sense, but it is very off-track in another sense. Your thinking was foundational for many of us who had been raised in the embrace of a Christian religious fundamentalism. The magic of 'Francis Schaeffer,' for many of us, was that you pulled back the curtain on philosophical thought. You said, "Think!" to those of us who were ready to do so. The key here, is that you encouraged intelligent Christians to maintain spiritual belief while continuing to think, the two things not being mutually exclusive. And so, under your tutelage, I began hearing of philosophers and artists--in both positive and negative terms--that I had never heard of before. You, in fact, did not speak particularly kindly of Arnold. Yet it was you who first introduced me to the music of Schoenberg. And for that I am grateful.

In the book, How Should We Then Live? you said, "Schoenberg totally rejected the past tradition in music and invented the '12-tone row.' This was 'modern' in that there was perpetual variation with no resolution." And you are right, exactly right. However, I think you were wrong to assume that Arnold's exploration into 12-tone expression was the "death of tonality." It was just music without the use of tonality. That is different, don't you think?

And it was from a series you did on modern music that I first actually heard Arnold's music performed. (I pirated a cassette tape.) It was not Erwartung. Perhaps it was Pierrot Lunaire. Nonetheless, thanks for the introduction.



But Jessye, it was you who introduced me to Erwartung. You, with your magnificent stage presence, first rushed into my hearing and sight, and did the "howdy do's" for Expectancy as they say in our language here in the US. I was living in West Virginia at the time. The Metropolitan Opera sent out it's weekly Texaco radio broadcasts, but in 1989, they also did a TV production of two short operas, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, and Arnold's Erwartung. In the 29 minutes of this one woman opera, I can't say that I came to enjoy the music, but I will say I was dumbfounded by it and that I was made ready to hear more.

Erwartung is a psychological drama whose musical expression more adequately portrays our moments of personal psychological angst than anything previously composed. Schoenberg entered a dark corner of the Western musical house that had never been properly explored before armed only with 12 tones and a dark drama. He left behind any remnant of the harmonic resolution which certainly does not exist in the mental anguish of a psyche in turmoil.


With touches of sprechstimme, and Stravinskyesque meteoric meter, and, yes, Francis, a very modern interpretation of music, this piece reveals a part of the human soul that had not been expressed in quite this way before. And it is an expression that parallels my own human experience. In that, no matter the isolation of this presentation, I am left, less alone, more understood, and more understanding.

It is Erwartung that brings the three of you together in my mind, and gratefully so, for the three of you have given me great gifts, and unexpectedly.

BRD

*Note: This monodrama investigates the mind of a woman entering a forest where we believe she is going to meet her beloved. Some of the words that it uses are dread, horror, louring, gloom, shadows. She trips over a tree-trunk and immediately assumes that it is his body. This is our first clue that we are with someone who is tortured, perhaps by more than a lonely path through a dark wood. The bright moon becomes pallid, then red. The drama ends with musings that include, "It is morning. . . Light will come for everyone but me, alone in my darkness?"

First Time at the Opera

Dear Giacomo,

A little over a week ago, I took my first trip to the opera since grade school. Given my rationale for going then (a day without class is better than a day with class), I believe this was the first true opportunity of my adult life to appreciate the beauty of the opera.

First, I must say that the most striking thing about Madama Butterfly--and what I expected the least--was the set. Although the set consisted of but a single location, it seemed that it might be more appropriate to a Broadway Musical than an opera stage. I know you didn't really have anything to do with the scenery of this performance, but I cannot help but thank you for picking such a beautiful setting for your work. I only wish the video gave justice to the scenery.


I must also complement your soprano for the performance, Patricia Racette. She certainly does bring the emotion into her singing that this piece requires--and the endurance. From Cio-Cio San's first entrance in Act I, she hardly leaves the stage, and she is part of nearly every piece. No wonder there's a long intermission!

And I couldn't help but feel sorry for Cio-Cio San's misguided hope in "Un bel Di Vendremo". Knowing (from the program notes and the pre-opera lecture) that Pinkerton has long ago abandoned her, it was painful to see such hope and longing.



And truly, your music was lovely. It captured the emotion wonderfully--the soaring love duet and the pain of the end of your story.

My only complaint about the opera (and I'm sure this will not endear me to BRD), is that the plot moves slowly. For all the beauty of the music, I couldn't help but want to shout, "Get on with it!" But then, I'm accustomed to movies, musicals, and TV, where plot is quick, and the focus is on the acting rather than the music. If it weren't for the beauty of the set, I might have preferred to listen to a recording.

As it was, I thank you, Giacomo, for your work of beauty, and for sharing such a pitifully sad story. I look forward to my next opera (so long as it isn't the 5-hour Tristan and Isolde and only hope it might be as beautiful as this one.


TheUkieVillain

Why Opera! An Apology.

Dear Conversely,

I have been thinking about our conversation regarding opera. I understand that on the first listen an opera can be disconcerting and sometimes less than viscerally enjoyable. However, I wanted to explain why I love it so, and even if you don't become a fan, I know you will understand the basics of the attraction.

Opera, for me is more than a music genre. It doesn't exist, in my mind, as a contrast to Rock, Blues, Jazz, or Country (some of which I like). It exists, instead, as a higher form of art, and one that stands on a special plane because it combines so many things. Opera incorporates poetry and literature in the libretto, the highest form of vocal music, orchestral music, drama, as well as all the artistic accoutrements of extensive stage production with lighting, costuming, sets, even special effects.

As I listen to opera, I experience the same kind of heart-pounding awefilled response that one gets when reading a climactic line in a poem. The thing is, you get that, over and over, first through the libretto, then through a musical motif, then through fine acting, then through the profundity of the set design. And as with all good art, the more you see a particular opera, the better it gets. You begin to anticipate moments, saying in your mind, "How will this soprano treat the mad aria in I Puritani," or "Will they use the full dramatic effect of the orchestral interlude in the scene where Tosca murders Scarpia?"



Opera does take work to be able to enjoy it fully. Before I listen to an opera for the first time, I study a synopsis of the plot line. If I can, I find one with the musical motifs so I can play them on my piano and begin to familiarize myself with the sounds. After I have heard an opera several times, sometimes I get hold of a libretto to read the lyrics.

I have to say, our culture and educational system has done too little to train the ears of the general public for the appreciation of the higher forms of music in general and opera in particular. When I attend the opera here in Knoxville, I am always stunned that it is an event for the white hairs. I look around the still-crowded audience and see that it is composed of people my age or older, with a scattering of students. "My," I say to myself, "what they are missing." The Metropolitan Opera from NYC, in the last couple of years has been doing a great thing broadcasting a limited (and very fine) venue to high definition theaters. I think, actually, it may be rescuing opera for the next generation.

I was just a little younger than you when I first began listening to, and then, enjoying opera. What did I see first? Hm.m.m, I can't recall. I suppose I don't remember the early ones so much because it was work, and not so enjoyable. I do remember a Tosca (by Giaccomo Puccini) at the Met after I was first married, probably in 1976. The soprano wasn't vocally at the top of her career. But I remember the drama as she placed candles, first at Scarpia's left shoulder, then at his right shoulder, rose, turned to face the audience with a confessional stare, and then fled the stage. The enormous audience was silent, speechless, and then erupted with applause, and bravos, hoots, and flowers. A strange man a few seats from us, waved his beret and shouted, "She's the only Tosca, she's the only Tosca." Those moments become unforgettable.

And I remember my first Peter Grimes. That's an opera by Benjamin Britten. The set was stark. The thing I remember most was a fishing boat in the the center of the stage.



That set was designed to communicate the existential loneliness of Grimes. More recently I saw a Grimes setting that was designed to emphasize a totally different aspect of the opera. The main feature of the set was a wall of buildings symbolizing the town and the barriers it had built in relation to Grimes, who could never gain access to the heart of the community.

My family used to watch Met Broadcasts on television. We would listen for the credits at the end to hear the regular reference to the man who handled the lighting for years, Gil Wechsler. I don't know what made us diehard Gil Wechsler fans, but we were. Excellence in the details of such things as lighting, is the kind of thing that takes a fine opera performance and turns it into a work of art.



So, that is a little bit of "Why Opera?" I could go on and on. But I will leave it at that for now, hoping, a little bit, that you will give it another try. (I think I'd recommend Puccini---Tosca, La Boheme, or Turandot.)

In the comments section I will add some links to good examples of some of the other things I like about opera.

BRD

Netrebko Sings Rachmaninov, and Pushkin

Dear Deb,

Thank you for the wonderful Christmas gift. It is Anna Netrebko in perfect form. I have been enamoured with her voice for about a year now, ever since I heard her sing I Puritani. She is the perfect diva!

But this recording is perfectly perfect with the Russian singer singing Russian songs. It feels like she is at home in the living room back in Krasnodar wearing slippers and performing not for an audience of critics but for Aunt Tanya, or her father (who, she says she chats with everyday), or Erwin.

Perhaps this is so good, so удобный, because she is working with Valery Gergiev, the conductor she looks upon as a godfather. I'm not sure why, but this album really works. Thank you for discovering it for me.

My favorite on the album (The Russian Album) is the Rachmaninov setting of Pushkin's "Don't Sing to Me." It is moving.

Ne poy, krasavica op. 4, no. 4



My beauty, do not sing for me
The songs of Georgia, of grievance:
My thoughts immediately flee
To another life and shores in distance.

They bring to me -- your cruel tunes --
Alas, the sad and clear vision:
The steppe, the night -- under the moon,
The poor and very distant virgin.

While seeing you, I could forget
The image so sad and fair,
But, look, you sing -- and it is set
Again before my eyes in air.

My beauty, do not sing for me
The songs of Georgia, of grievance:
My thoughts immediately flee
To another life and shores in distance.

-A. Pushkin

---

By the way, did you know that Anna's been cancelling shows lately? She's pregnant. You know I like that.

I love you darling. And thanks again.

MOM
XOX

Franz Liszt Accompanies Tour of Budapest

Dear Franz,

Thank you for providing background music for our tour. Though we didn't go to any Liszt concerts while in your fair city, this soundtrack more than makes up for it. Thanks. Gee, we didn't even get to go to the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum, which I hear is a recreation of your last Budapest flat. Well, next time.



I'm posting this semi-repetition of my last slide collection because I have overcome some of the innate technological problems of the last. Plus, and this is big, your music as well as some title slides to tell where we are.

Write!

Betsy

Luciano Pavarotti: A Personal Eulogy

Dear Luciano,

As a young student, living in Philadelphia, I knew little of opera. My first taste of classical vocal stylings were served by contestants introduced by Bert Parks from Atlantic City. My palette had not been whetted.

But, to fulfill an assignment for a first level music appreciation class, I went to the Academy of Music on Broad St., to hear a concert. It was high class stuff for a girl from the hills.
Any concert would have served to gain a check in the right column of the professor's grade book. I was fortunate enough to have stumbled upon a concert performance by one of opera's rising stars, a young Luciano Pavarotti.

Your artistry didn't just titillate my taste buds, it established an insatiable appetite for the most beautiful and complete music on the planet. There you stood, an overweight thirty something singer holding your signature white kerchief. Your Bel Canto vocal style became the definition of perfect technique for a generation. My husband would later say, while watching you perform, "Look! Look at his mouth, look at his face! Amazing!"



Later that year, trying to sate my new hunger for opera, I saw one of the last performances of Andre Chenier with Richard Tucker in the title role. It was you who stole the title of world's greatest tenor from Tucker, I suppose.

In the ensuing years I listened to you sing, mostly on Saturday afternoons, huddled near a radio, listening to the Metropolitan Opera Texaco broadcasts, or cherishing records, tapes, then CDs, and videos. You were always masterful, your voice a treasure. Thank you, thank you for the gifts of beauty that you bestowed, performance after performance upon our world.

My daughter, AnneGG, just called in tears. She, too, was responding to your passing and commented in gratitude for the world of beauty that you helped open to her. It was Nessun Dorma that made her cry this morning as some radio jockey spun it in tribute to you for the AM listeners. She and I got misty together just talking about that aria by Puccini, which you made so much your own. "No one sleeps. No one sleeps." It was not the first time your Nessun Dorma has made me cry. I'm sure that it won't be the last.

Fondly,

Betsy

A Convergence of Politics and Opera

Dear Richard Nixon,

It's a funny thing how presidencies turn out isn't it? Sometimes, no, usually, from one perspective or other they start out in a blaze of glory, and then they piddle out and it's over after four mostly inglorious years, not long enough to do a great deal of damage, or they don't piddle out fast enough and they run amok, to be remembered as fiascos. (Remember Carter, remember Clinton, and (shudder) think about the death throes of the current regime.)

Certainly your presidency ran amok. Yet, as I look back, I think there were some glorious things, things to be proud of. Possibly the top thing you did was a little thing indeed. You said these words, "The People's Republic of China," publicly. Funny how a few well placed words can create ripples that can change the world, can depetrify a situation. Then you let some kids play table tennis or ping pong as we always said in our basement. And then, (unprecedented) you announced that you would travel to Beijing. It was a media sensation. So, in 1972, off you went to drink tea and change the world with a little chit chat.

The Miller Center for Public Affairs says, "It was only a first step, but a decisive one, in the budding rapprochement between the two states."

Many things have come of this. Cheap flower baskets, leaded toys, another incredible part of the world accessible to tourism. (Cuba is next.) But I think the most musically notable derivative is the opera by John Adams entitled Nixon in China. It is fabulous in every way. The music, the libretto by Alice Goodman, the original production by Peter Sellars. . . it works buddy. Better than a presidential library, honestly, to immortalize a presidency.



Here's a link to another aria, thought by some to be the high point of the opera, but you may disagree, Dick. I like your aria, especially with the Spirit of '72 dropping down onto the stage like that!

I'll write more later. I'd like to ask some questions about that first run at the presidency that you took against JFK. I was in third grade, but remember it vividly!

Regards,

Betsy

Bubbles

Dear Beverly Sills,

The question on today's MSNBC.com news quiz that I got unhesitatingly, unguessingly correct was,

7. The classical music world mourned the death of Beverly Sills, a child star who grew up to be America’s first opera prima donna. Sills, who succumbed to cancer at age 78, was born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn; what was the name she was known as when performing as a girl?

Well, of course the answer is, "Bubbles," your nickname and the title of your autobiographies from 1976 and 1981.

The New York Times article in your memory was a good one and the picture was very nice, but I remember you more like this, from the days in the late 70's when I was first discovering opera and your wonderful coloratura soprano voice. The point at which I disagree with the Times is this sentence. "Ms. Sills was America’s idea of a prima donna."

I think not. You were a diva, but you were never a prima donna, for you were not temperamental and did not assume adulation as your right. That is what we loved best about you. Prima donnas do not sing with Muppets, nor host late night TV shows. But you did, and in doing so helped to make the world of opera accessible to many who didn't realize they could love opera.



You were, without doubt, the 'First Lady' of opera to those of us who heard you sing, and when you took your final bows on the stage (didn't you stop singing a little early) we were glad that you didn't give up the theater. The last time I saw you was this spring when you hosted The Met's TV Broadcast of Bellini's I Puritani. I loved your warmth and encouragement to a new first lady of opera, Anna Netrebko. You were so gracious in your ability to love the voice of another. And in your roles as general director of the New York City Opera and chairperson of Lincoln Center and finally the Met, you helped mentor a whole generation of musicians.

How can we thank you for the beauty in music that you shared with us all of your life? The Italians might say, "Grazie per la canzone bella." But we, we all just say, "Thank you for the most beautiful of songs."

Betsy

Philip Glass, Minimalist

Dear Philip Glass,

I have been studying your music for a few months now. Please understand, when I say study I am making no claims upon scholarship. I just mean that I'm concentrating on your music and theater pieces. I'm doing some reading then I'm listening again and reading some more.

Sure, I have some things to say after all my thinking and listening. This is why, this is why, this is why, why, why I like blogs. For I may publish my thinking to the world without peer review or edit (besides my own) and perhaps someone else reads and comments, agrees, disagrees. "You are out of your mind. Have you read what Nadia Boulanger had to say?" "No, but Persichetti was scathing!"

Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Knock Knock ?
Who's there ?
Philip Glass.

So that's why I love to write blogs and express my opinions on the things I read and hear. And I'm sure you understand.

If I were to try to convince someone to start listening to your music, I would tell them that they already like your music. It's like if someone in the 30's and 40's tried to convince someone to enjoy the writing of William Faulkner. *Movie goers were already enjoying it whether they realized it or not in the form of movies like Today We Live, The Road to Glory, Slave Ship, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Land of the Pharoahs. But that was Faulkner.

Wide America is already enjoying your music in the form of The Truman Show.

Truman. Truman. Truman. Come back.
The unknowing public also loved you while they watched The Hours

And others. But that really isn't the point either. What is the point? What is? What? Who's point? Point is? Music that touches? Whose soul? Why do you care if they hear this music? Didn't he just open a new theater piece in New York? Did you see it, hear it, must run, good to see you, talk to you soon.

So when I sit in the car with my twenties something children and I say, listen to this just for a minute and then put on whatever music you like. They say. I like this. And I am satisfied for their souls have been touched too. And I really didn't have to convince them.

A friend of mine gave me a Philip Glass record. I listened to it for five hours before I realized it had a scratch on it.

So what I meant to say is, I like your music.

Betsy

*Note: Faulkner said his work on the script for The Southerner was the best that he did. However, he is not credited with the work because it was produced by United Artists and he was under contract with Warner Bros.

Eugene Onegin and Ennui

Dear A. Pushkin,

I read your poetic novel recently. It was, sigh, ok. I have heard the operatic version a number of times and saw it on the Met broadcast. It's, yawn, nice. So I figured it was time I read the book.

In your poem, "Onegin's Journey," (was that an addendum to the main poem?) I noticed that concise couplet, which, to me expressed the point precisely.

Oh God, I'm young, I'm fresh, I'm strong
And I've got boredom, all day long.

Onegin is not really a bad man, is he? But he is a bored one. And boredom disallows the kind of caring that engenders good, doesn't it. The want of good can degenerate to bad very quickly. In Onegin, it degenerates to a thoughtless flirtation and the killing of a friend. For that, Onegin pays with a life of more ennui and guilt. You don't really develop the guilt in your work, Alexander, but for 'Evgeny' ennui is punishment enough. Ennui, that is, and unrequited love.

Here is why I think Onegin is a generally good man.

1. He doesn't take advantage of Tatyana.
2. He writes in the margins of books.
3. His servants like him.

The first is obvious. In most pre-20th century literature, I think, protagonists get "good" points for respecting the life and sexual innocence of other human beings. This is probably no longer the case as far as I can guess, but when you were writing, it was true.

I might be questioned on my line of reasoning for my third point. But I think goodness used to be defined by how well servants and slaves liked their masters. To me this is strange, but reflects an interesting human trait. The very person who is in some ways the closest oppressor is deified for the kindliness of their oppression. Certainly Onegin is just a poor example of this, but literature runneth over with examples, from Harriet Stowe to Jane Austin, good is established not by active high virtue, but by the absence of high evil with the trimmings of petty virtue. (Perhaps I need to think more about this later but I think I've a headache now.)

Onegin wins my heart though, if perhaps he loses that of Tatyana, because he writes in the margins of his books.

Tatyana sees with trepidation
what kind of thought, what observation,
had drawn Eugene's especial heed
and where he'd silently agreed.
Her eyes along the margin flitting
pursue his pencil.
Everywhere his soul encountered there declares
itself in ways unwitting--
terse words or crosses in the book,
or else a query's wondering hook.

There is nothing I like better than an annotated book with margins full of reaction. How much we can learn about the reader from a simple exclamation point or underline. (I especially favor the double underline.) I have to tell you, this stanza was my very favorite of the entire book. There, as I droned along through the interminable passages of this overwritten book, my spirit was captured by your obvious appreciation of the marginal comment.

Lee Smith in her novel Saving Grace says you can get away with anything if you are nice about it. Of course neither her Florida Grace nor Onegin, whose delicate charm won many hearts, get away with anything in the end, for loved or not loved, they must live with themselves.

At this point I need to comment about Childe Harold, for it seems that this is the character that you drew upon for your skeleton of Onegin ("A Muscovite in Harold's Dress"). Lord Byron, whose portrait hung in Onegin's country library, said this of his Harold.

It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected.

(Does anyone have a stick of gum?)

"Childe," as you know, means a youth destined for Knighthood. But neither Harold nor Onegin have the heart for nobility (whatever that is). Byron's description of Harold,

But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befreel
He felt the fulness of satiety:
Then loath'd he in his native land to dwell,
Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

Whoa is this boring yet? So back to the point, poor Onegin, he is not a bad guy, but lost. He reminds me of the obese children suing McDonald's. Is there anything more pathetic than Harold, Onegin, and they, satieted and looking for something to eat.

Here's the thing, (I really need to take a shower) . . . I think U.S. Culture 2007 has been struck by a bad case of Oneginitis. You've had a century or so to think about this. Got a cure? Let me know, I've gotta go and take my Prozac.

Betsy

Il Trittico by Puccini (with special thanks to the Met in Hi Def)

Dear Amy,

(Author Note: I wrote this a while ago, and forgot to post it. Who knows why.)

Wow! It was so nice to be with you at the Metropolitan Opera's high definition movie screening of Il Trittico. Our only disappointment in the entire afternoon is summed up with the question, "Why didn't they list the singers at the beginning of each of the three operas?" And you had to rush home to the twins and Cloe or you might have said, "Why did they run the credits so fast." It was like a race. Of course, as with most operas, everyone was streaming for the doors anyway (or the rest rooms--the thing did last 4 hours), so I guess it makes some sense.

At any rate, here, to assuage your curiosity is a listing of the primary cast members. Go here, if you want some criticism by Martin Bernheimer.

THE CAST

Giorgetta: Maria Guleghina

Luigi: Salvatore Licitra

Michele: Juan Pons

Suor Angelica: Barbara Frittoli

Sister Genovieffa: Heidi Grant Murphy

Frugola in Il Tabarro, La Principessa in Suor Angelica, and Zita
in Gianni Schicchi : Stephanie Blythe

Lauretta: Olga Mykytenko

Rinuccio: Massimo Giordano

Gianni Schicchi: Alessandro Corbelli

Conductor: James Levine

They say that it takes quite a soprano to sing all three of the main roles in the three one act operas that make up this triptych. Supposedly Beverly Sills tried it and broke down during the performance. In 1981, Renata Scotto sang in all three operas, a feat repeated in 1989 by Teresa Stratas. This time there were three sopranos, but I thought the high point of the production was the singing and acting of Stephanie Blythe who sang Frugola in Il Tabarro, La Principessa in Suor Angelica, and Zita in Gianni Schicchi. She made us laugh, cry, and then laugh again. I have never genuinely laughed so hard at an opera as during this particular performance of Gianni Schicchi. (And I think our tears were quite real during Suor Angelica.) And it was Stephanie Blythe who got us hating her and set us up for Suor Angelica's demise.




Blythe is a great actress with a wonderful voice. I am going to keep my ears open for her.

I'm so glad we ran into each other. Hope to see you for next season's eight operas at the movies.

Betsy DeGeorge

Eugene Onegin: Part One, Sets and Singers

Dear Anne GG, cadh8, Kay, Elaine, Amy, and Other Lovers of Opera,

The other night I was flipping channels. (Well, let's be real, my husband was flipping channels. I personally have never actually held the remote control.) However, he flipped to PBS and I said, "STOP!" with undeniable firmness. Since I rarely react that strongly to TV programming, he stopped. And he immediately knew, that the die had been cast for the next few hours of viewing. It was an opera.

Opera trumps Law and Order, opera trumps The Office, opera trumps American Idol, opera trumps all.

The work was one this year's Metropolitan Opera TV features, Eugene Onegin.

I loved this opera. (I know, I say this after almost every opera.) But this production had it all. The singers were fabulous and one did not outshine the others.
Renee Fleming, one of the current reigning divas was great as Tatiana.
Dmitri Hvorostovski as Onegin(As Seinfeld would say, "I can't say it, but I think it's spelled like the symbol for Argon.")
Ramon Vargas as Lenski--This guy has an amazing voice.

I won't say any more about the singers, but it was joyful to hear them. Here are some pix and then I want to talk about the amazing minimalist sets.





The sets were bare, except for a few devices, a sweet minimalism. Some of the scenes used leaves as the only props with enormous walls edging the stage. One scene began with a chorus (excellent vocals) of women sweeping leaves. They began in center stage and swept a perfect oval. By the time they exited the oval of open floor had been prepared for the entrance of Tatiana and Onegin. Impressive. Several of the scenes surrounded the action with a rectangle of chairs. In the ball scene the wooden chairs, each different with delicate, open-worked backs, embraced the crowded dance floor. It was like the baby bear's porridge.

The Onegin story was written by Pushkin--Opera by Tchaikovsky. I really need to read the Pushkin story and then comment about it. It fits in with some things I've been contemplating about moral choice. And I'd like to compare the poetic artistry of the Pushkin work with the musical artistry of the composition by Tchaikovsky. The primary defining feature of Pushkn's writing in this work is that it is almost entirely written in verses of iambic tetrameter with the unusual rhyme scheme "aBaBccDDeFFeGG", where the lowercase letters represent feminine rhymes while the uppercase letters represent masculine rhymes. This form has become known as the "Onegin stanza" (or "Pushkin sonnet"). Is that amazing or what?

Betsy aka Mom

I Puritani Never Had It So Good

Dear Anna Netrebko,

I am blown away. Pick me up. I'm on the floor. I haven't felt this way since I sat in the peanut gallery of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, PA, and watched as a rotund man with a white hankie named Luciano Pavarotti sang me to ecstasy decades ago.

You voice is beyond fine. It is bel canto at it's best. It has been too long since a voice of this caliber has taken center stage. What is the official operatic term? Woo-woo? No, Brava!


I had heard some of the hype about you, but, I've heard hype before. And this is more than hype, it's glorious.

So, anyway, I saw I Puritani (thank you Metropolitan Opera and Public Television) and though I knew I was seeing (hearing) something I'd never forget, I wasn't totally ready for the mad scene. Beautiful on a bad day with an off-key overweight diva, you turned it into a gloria. And the acrobatics were unparalleled. I've seen divas who demanded 3 pillows for the final act of Boheme. You scoff at the fools.

I regretted that I had not popped a tape into the VCR. Silly me, depend upon YouTube. (Note: Even if you are not an opera buff, fast-forward this to 3:51 and watch Anna Netrebko sing part of this scene upside down.)

Lucky, lucky us, to have you singing.

Enjoying,

Betsy

Wagner's Ring and the Final Contract of the Gods

Dear Fafner,

I wanted to get your perspective on contracts. Sure, there are plenty of lawyers around, but your reputation for getting folks to fulfill their part of the bargain is, well, mythic. Your contract, it seems, was the last of Wotan's great contractual arrangements, his first being with his wife. That and yours and the new order are the things I am thinking about.

Supposedly, marriage was the first great contract. And, it seems to me, the conditions and requirements in Wotan and Fricka's deal were not what I would expect or want. I suppose that's because I'm from the new order. Wotan and Fricka were bound to each other just as were Zeus and Hera. Obviously fidelity was not a part of the obligation, so what were they obligated to do? Were they simply promising to create progeny for the Gods? Perhaps they were promising not to kill each other. Was Valhalla part of that deal too? If Wotan was obligated to provide a home, Valhalla, for Fricka, then the whole schema fits together for me. Wotan sells out love and youth (hence immortality) to fulfill the primary contract.

Valhalla Motive
Failing to provide an emotional home for Fricka, he provided a castle in the sky, a materialist's dream of the superlative abode, the golden treasure at the end of the rainbow. Wotan, in utter disregard for real relationship, engages in pretty illicit traffic when he promises to pay for Valhalla with Freia as his currency.

I surely don't want to offend you, but did you know what you were getting? Were you tempted just by Golden Apples or did you really want love with all its demands and tragedy. Poor Fasolt fell in love right away and it was his demise. I don't know if Wotan or Fricka ever really had a clue about the love thing, though Fricka does seem to have at least a sibling style love for Freia. Otherwise, though, she appears to be a true victim/victimizer operating in the patriarchal system, passing on her pain and kicking the dog. But I digress to the issues of feminism here. I really mean to just study the terms of the contracts.

The giants' theme makes me feel that you didn't quite know what was happening. With apologies to the Norns, I hate the word fate because I don't live in the world of the fates. But these notes are so fateful in nature to me.

Giants' Motive
Maybe falling in love is where we touch fingers with the fates. Yes, I recognize that theme from daily life--not every day, thankfully. Oh, but it does take a weighty stack of gold, a penultimate prize, to sell out love. Even Wotan knows he's made a bad deal with the loss of Freia.

I wanted to ask about one more contract, or broken contract. It is Brunnhilde who dared to break contract with her father, and she ends up in flames. Brunnhilde gives up everything, except her beautiful steed Grane (understandable), for love. She is alone, totally devoid of her deity, no longer daughter of Wotan (heaven) or Erda (earth), but daughter of love, true not to contract but true to love and relationship. I'm not sure Wagner had this all together. I think he is confused about the integrity of love apart from passion/sex. But I do think Brunnhilde has gone on beyond passion to a form of loving that is higher. In that she becomes the final mythic hero.
Redemption through Love Motive
What do you think? Could you put on Tarnhelm one more time and become Erda, the wisest person in the world and tell me if love is the final contract?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Betsy

PS: Most interesting informations at the The Wagner Experience.