Mary Kunz Goldman was for over 10 years the classical music critic for The Buffalo News, the daily paper of Buffalo, N.Y. She is also the authorized biographer of the great American pianist Leonard Pennario.
I want to go back to watching the MetOpera's opera stream.
Remember, I was going great guns with it back in April, when we were in the depths of the lockdown. I quickly fell behind with it because I got hooked on Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and began watching it over and looking for different versions. Then there was Wagner week and I caught a few of the Wagner operas as I recall. And then .... and then ...
And then I guess what happened to me was like what happened to everyone else as we went through the Coronavirus craziness. The weeks began passing faster and faster and running into each other and now suddenly it is months later and I have not watched one single other Metropolitan Opera opera.
But now I do believe I will start again. I was just looking at what is coming up.
In the next week -- the week beginning August 2 we are talking -- they have two Mozart operas coming up, "The Magic Flute" and "Don Giovanni." There is also a "Madame Butterfly" with Roberto Alagna and a "Parsifal" with Siegfried Jerusalem.
"Parsifal" is a little heavy for me though Leonard Pennario liked it a lot. I might watch it to try to see what he saw.
There is also an interesting essay about "Don Giovanni" which I have been enjoying picking over. There is a trend these days, say I, to see Don Giovanni as not a bad man but as a rather attractive rebel, a man who insists on his own happiness. I am saying it is a trend because when I saw the opera in Toronto a few years ago, they took that tack.
I admire this essay for acknowledging the Catholic background to the opera, and the literal nature of hell. The director, Michael Grandage, suggests that literal interpretation is something quaint, something the public in general might have trouble understanding. I do not have that trouble, I will tell you that. I believe hell exists. But Grandage has a point, I do not think a lot of people would agree with me. It is nice that he would even explore this topic because Mozart's Catholicism informs so much of his work and few musicologists acknowledge that.
What else is on tap this week? Handel's "Agrippina." They keep giving us this Handel in modern dress and pointing out political parallels to modern times ....
... I don't know, not to use the language of Don Giovanni but are people seduced by this? Have these operas drawn audiences and gained fans? They seem to me tough to swallow.
But anyway ....
A lot to look forward to this week, if I get back into the opera saddle!
Son of a sea cook, I never did get around to posting my report on "Die Meistersinger," the production the Met aired free last week.
Or whenever it was. Everyone says that in our Coronavirus homebound social distancing, the days are running together. It is true!
Anyway, about "Meistersinger." I loved it. I love this opera and they did a beautiful job with it.
This "Meistersinger" was staged about six years ago. The staging is magnificent, just the way I like it, a beautiful medieval street scene.
Hans Sachs is Michael Volle and one thing that hit me was, his portrayal made it clear that Sachs has real feelings for Eva. I always kind of figured that was the case but in this production there was no missing it.
Six years was a while ago and it is sad that Johan Botha, who sang Walther von Stolzing, is no longer with us. He died young. Botha's portrayal of Walther, like Volle's of Sachs, also gave me new things to think about. His bearing is so knightly, I had never really thought about how Walther is a knight, a nobleman, thrust into the world of tradespeople, of common people. He not only has to make his way among them, he has to submit to them. He has to compete for Eva's hand. He has to deal with Beckmesser. He is lectured by Sachs, a shoemaker, and is grateful for it.
This world is Lutheran but you have to wonder about Walther whose hero is the Roman Catholic medieval singer Walther von der Vogelweide. Well, I will not get into the weeds about this.
It was touching to see Walther von Stolzing with his finery and his girth, standing in the humble cobbler's shop, enjoying this unexpected episode in his life. He had to get his bearings in this humble new world. Earlier in the opera you saw his impatience -- he kept drawing his sword, he wanted to get Eva out of there.
Eva -- Annette Dasch -- was so beautiful and I got such a kick out of when Walther showed up in his knightly finery ...
...and she was just staring at him with stars in her eyes. This huge guy. so graceful! And you never forgot he was a knight. He projected that. You could see what she saw in him.
The last scene was stunning. I always get tears in my eyes, just seeing the sheer number of people on stage, all of them gathering before dawn. The trumpet calls, the pageantry. For some reason I noticed the children's chorus and just now I found this charming blog post written by a woman apparently studying singing who was in a production of "Die Meistersinger" at the Met. Imagine that! It was funny to find it right when I had been thinking about that. I loved her account of what it was like.
The picture up at the top of the post shows the famous Quintet. It is rare to have something classical like that in Wagner and the beauty of it made me wonder if he was thinking of Mozart. I know, I always wonder that. But then I think I am usually right!
Granted, not everybody hears what I hear. Once reviewing a performance of the Verdi Requiem for The Buffalo News I wrote about how I was sure Verdi was thinking about Mozart and ways in which the music reflected that. One woman got really mad and wrote me a nasty letter!
Ha, ha! I will have to go back and review my arguments. They were on deadline and off the cuff. But I bet I was right. I bet he was thinking of Mozart. And I do not think he would have minded me saying so. It is high praise when you sense, from hearing someone's music, that the composer was thinking of Mozart.
Back to Meistersinger. I could ramble on and on. These great works, you always find something new in them.
Just a few other observations: Sixtus Beckmesser was Johannes Martin Kränzle, a little too handsome for the part but a ton of fun. Beckmesser must be a great part to play because you know at the end you will get the biggest hand. Another Wagner role like that is Hunding. I was thinking that the other day watching "Die Walkure." Hunding is a great thug. "Bring us men our meat." "Sacred is my hearth." There are a million ways a guy can take that part, starting for when he just walks onto the stage. The Hundings and the Beckmessers, they rule the world. Got to love them.
Since I watched "Meistersinger," the themes have taken up residence in my head. Along with the scene from "Die Walkure" between Brunnhilde and Siegmund, but that will have to wait.
I was thinking, as long as I'm home all the time, I might learn one of Liszt's Wagner transcriptions. I think he did one of Meistersinger.
Such dramatic times we are living in! And next week, the Metropolitan Opera is celebrating that. That is all I can think.
It is Wagner week!
There are different Wagner operas being streamed every night. Or every afternoon, or whenever you feel like watching them. I watched "Carmen" a few days ago mostly in the morning. Opera in the morning, it's weird, but nobody knows what day it is any more, and things like this have less and less relevance. Opera goes with morning coffee as well as it goes with evening wine, as long as you do not have any other commitments that you cannot ignore, cancel, or postpone.
The Wagner schedule is this (click on the link above for more info):
Can you beat that? I had been looking forward to The Flying Dutchman, which unfortunately had to be scrubbed because of the Coronavirus, the Wuhan Virus, the China Virus, COVID-19 ... never has a virus had so many names, you know?
But much as I was looking forward to the Dutchman this little schedule is a dandy consolation prize. I am especially anticipating "Die Meistersinger." That is a picture of it up above, complete with a hefty Walther von Stolzing. If Walther does not look like a biker something is wrong!
I wonder if anyone is planning on watching every single Wagner opera next week. Including the "Ring" cycle, right in the middle.
Opera in the time of Coronavirus! I love that the Metropolitan Opera has its free stream going on, a different opera every night. Imagine if you watched all of them. I just might.
I respect the Met for the idea, which I share, that we cannot get through a crisis like this without opera. We need it as much as we need hand sanitizer and toilet paper. We require it.
All this being said, my initial attempts to access "Carmen," the opera promised to start off the series, were unsuccessful. I was having trouble accessing the site. Opera fans across the country must be mobbing it. With which, as a public service, I thought I would list a few operas you can watch free on YouTube, operas that have English subtitles.
Here is the "Carmen" the Met promised us but the video keeps stopping. I will look for another one. But I am not going to forget about this one. The Carmen is Elina Garanca who seems to me to strike just the right tone. She looks perfect, too. There she is in the picture up above.
Onward, damn the torpedoes! Here is an old survivor, a '60s production of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" starring Wolfgang Windgassen and conducted by Thomas Schippers. Unfortunately it is only Act III, Scene 1, which is all that exists. But... better than nothing! And... it has subtitles!!
Here is Wagner's "Lohengrin" with subtitles. From Bayreuth. This looks like a must-watch to me.
Karajan conducts Wagner's "Das Rheingold"! This fine vintage cast includes Thomas Stewart as Wotan. He is a terrific actor as well as a great singer.
Here is Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier starring Renee Fleming.
I have already watched this in its entirety a couple of times. It is
from Baden Baden in Germany. My father's family came from Baden Baden. Watch this one if you watch nothing else. It can occupy you for a few evenings.
Somehow "Walkure" has become one of my sacred cow operas, one of a handful that I am very particular about. I think it began when my sister and I went to Toronto and saw it at the Canadian Opera Company. We had lost our dad not that long before that and we were totally not ready for what Wotan's Farewell was going to do to us. All through that final scene we cried and cried, passing a single soggy Kleenex back and forth. We were still crying as we left the opera house.
Because we were so undone we went for a glass of wine, and we spied Wotan and Brunnhilde a few tables away, quarrel forgotten, eating Buffalo wings. How could you not cheer up, seeing that? Now I think I would go up and say hello, say something. But I was shy then.
Anyway, I come to this opera with a lot of baggage. The good news is, I was drawn into what I saw yesterday. I got a kick out of Greer Grimsley's Wotan. He has a mighty fine voice, and with his looks and his manner, he puts his own spin on the part. An American spin, I want to say, though I know he is from New Orleans, a city I love, and the power of suggestion is strong. He looks like a handsome biker. There is this quick clip from "Rheingold" --
-- that I found today and adore. You can really see his personality there. That rakish smile, irresistible. And a creative take on the part. Jamie Barton, as his wife, is a kick too but maybe too much, a little too funny. You have to watch it. Seeing this gives a new dimension to "Walkure," where these two singers are together again.
In "Walkure" things are less sunny with these two and he is more world weary, as Wotan should be. I loved him, how can you not? But he does not yet have the overwhelming .... can I use that cliche word gravitas? It makes me laugh but maybe I have to ... that Wotan should have, that the big Wotans of history had. The big Wotans of history. They cast a long shadow, terrible to any singer these days. I do not envy present-day Wotans, I will tell you that right now.
You have big powerful supermen like Hans Hotter. He picks Brunnhilde up in his arms as if she is nothing. Just doing what needs to be done.
As does Donald McIntyre, here with the beautiful Gwyneth Jones.
(You do not want to know how long I wasted on YouTube today.)
That last clip, from a Bayreuth production, really got to me. They just took it to the wall. The sweat and tears on Wotan's face, the intensity and drama. The flames and the smoke.
That brings me to a problem I had with the Met production. The staging was too complicated. They had this set of sort of seesaws -- I think they used that word -- that was supposed to stand in for the Valkyries' horses, or something. It did not work, at least from where I sat. Maybe if you were at Lincoln Center the seesaws worked better. To us in the movie theater they just looked like seesaws.
Not only that but at intermission we had to try understanding how they worked. They had stagehands explaining them. If there is one thing I hate it is someone trying to tell me how they stage something, how a movie was made, anything like that. Now when I watch the actual production I am thinking about how they did it. What a pain.
And for what? There was one cool scene that had you looking down on Brunnhilde as if from above. I think that is it at the top of this post, though it is hard to make out. But otherwise the last scene could have been staged a lot better. And as Brunnhilde settled into her resting place, it looked for a moment as if she were pitching backwards. You do not want that.
You want flames and smoke. It is not rocket science. Wagner will do the rest.
Well, at least this production was not horrible like this other one I wrote about this other time. Let us hash over the other singers. Brunnhilde (Christine Goerke) was too cartoon-ish for me at the start but I warmed up to her. There is this haunting scene when she appears to Siegmund as a portent of his death. The music grows trance-like as she tells him who she is and what her appearance means. There is a moment when he meets her eyes, sealing his fate. Goerke was lovely in that scene, just devastating.
Tomorrow I will research other singers singing that scene. There go another five hours, you know?
Siegmund and Sieglinde, I liked them both. Sieglinde was just beautiful, I mean she looked the part. Eva-Maria Westbroek, her name is. She was glorious.
And in the all-important role of Hunding, Sieglinde's Neanderthal husband -- a part I love, and that my father loved before me -- was ...let me check ... Gunther Groissboek. I am a complete Gunther Groissboek fan from this moment on. He has this marvelous voice and he knows how to use it, which is often out of a corner of his mouth. A spectacular Hunding, spectacular.
"Badass," I whispered to my friend Nisha, sitting next to me, between me and our friend Meghan. I am privileged to have not one but two friends willing to spend five hours at "Die Walkure."
One touch I loved -- it might be in the script, who knows? -- is how Hunding hangs his Neanderthal furs on Nothung, the magical sword stuck in the tree.
At intermission Grossboek confided that he had been tapped to play Wotan at Bayreuth. Do it. Do it! But at the same time I would also like to see Greer Grimsley tackle the part at Bayreuth. In another year or so he should be ready. He is 62 now but as Wotans go that is young.
I have multiple careers I will be following thanks to this production.
I have been studying up on art and illustration and several artists and illustrators are emerging as my favorites. One is the British illustrator Arthur Rackham.
The name was new to me, I have to admit. But he is a recognized great and has been for a long time.
Talking about "Die Walkure" yesterday I seemed to recall reading that he had illustrated Wagner's "Ring" cycle. And sure enough.
You could fill whole Pinterest boards with this stuff and believe me, I will. But meanwhile ...
This appears to be Brunnhilde pleading with Wotan/
And the Ride of the Valkyries. Zowie!
I would guess this is Brunnhilde doing some soul searching.
Dover Publications has put out a book of Rackham's Wagner illustrations which I just pinned on Pinterest on a brand-new board I have titled Art Books I am Craving.
No wonder artists love Wagner. What images. Anything you want to paint, you can paint! It is all in there somewhere.
I do not know for sure that all visual artists love Wagner. But I have an ongoing list and so far the list has two biggies, both favorites of mine -- Pierre Auguste Renoir and John Singer Sargent.
Renoir painted Wagner's portrait.
If it looks a little funny it was a year before Wagner died and I do not think he was feeling too well. But I love the colors in the background and it does give you a sense of vivid imagination, both on the part of the musician and the artist.
One may while away hours contemplating such matters.
Having gone to see the "Carmen" simulcast a few weeks ago I am psyched for "Die Walkure," coming up on March 30.
That is a picture I found from it up above. Where are the horned helmets??? I do not see any.
I want horned helmets!!!
Well, I am sure they will be in there somewhere. Meanwhile I will have to work out the logistics. I have not made up my mind between the Saturday performance and the Wednesday encore simulcast. Saturdays can be dicey because of prepping for church coffee hour. But perhaps I can swing it. There is ...
.. about seeing the simulcast when it is a simulcast, when the opera is going on in real time at the Met in New York City as you are seeing it.
Plus, I will tell you one thing, I want to enjoy these simulcasts while we have them.
When we went to "Carmen," which I never did report on, the theater was empty. And I do not mean for the opera. For the entire theater!
There was nobody anywhere!
Approaching the Elmwood Regal Cinema, I thought the place was closed. It did not look open. I have not gone to the movies recently, because although I try to keep up with what is showing, there is nothing really I want to see. But it was not that long ago that I was going to movies. I reviewed a lot of them for The Buffalo News. That was only a couple of years ago. The place would be packed.
Kids must not go to movies anymore. And it was not that I was early, either. "Carmen" let out about 10 p.m. and there was nobody there then, either.
How do they keep the theater open?
My friend Meghan and I were just about the only people in the place!
Anyway. To go to "Walkure" you have to be something of a major opera fan because it is quite the commitment. I am lucky to have a few friends who want to go. Not that it would be a problem going on my own. I have gone to many movies on my own in the line of work and I could easily do it again.
But I feel blessed to know people as whacked as I am -- that is, whacked enough to commit to four hours or whatever. Here is the sked from the Met website.
House opens.
Act I, 65 Minutes.
Intermission, 39 minutes.
Act II, 90 minutes.
Intermission, 35 minutes.
Act III, 66 minutes.
Opera ends.
How about that? It adds up to four hours 55 minutes.
Five minutes short of five hours!! I guess when I invite extra people along I should warn them.
Alex Ross over at the New Yorker is working on a book about Wagner and his effect on culture, and he wrote something very cool about Pope Francis and his knowledge of Wagner opera.
Mr. Ross put a link on Twitter which, it is great when something good comes out of Twitter, you know?
He writes in his story that His Holiness especially liked the conductors Wilhelm Furtwangler and Hans Knappertsbusch. Fu and Kna -- remember?
"He mentions the Furtwängler La Scala Ring and the 1962 Knappertsbusch Parsifal as prized recordings. He is known to be a Furtwängler enthusiast; earlier this year, Angela Merkel presented him with a Furtwängler box set. But he also makes a broader point about intellectual rigidification and self-deception, using Wagner's works as points of reference: “When does a formulation of thought cease to be valid? When it loses sight of the human or even when it is afraid of the human or deluded about itself. The deceived thought can be depicted as Ulysses encountering the song of the Siren, or as Tannhäuser in an orgy surrounded by satyrs and bacchantes, or as Parsifal, in the second act of Wagner’s opera, in the palace of Klingsor. The thinking of the church must recover genius and better understand how human beings understand themselves today, in order to develop and deepen the church’s teaching.”
Pope Francis, talking about Parsifal in the palace of Klingsor! And he has favorite Wagner conductors!
This is Francis we are talking about, not my man Benedict XVI!
They are the same generation though. Gentlemen of that era knew about music and the finer things.
Saturday afternoon, and I am listening to "Tannhauser" on the radio from Bayreuth, and getting work done in the kitchen, as my father used to before me. My dad always used to listen to the Saturday afternoon opera and bake cookies, even before he was married and my brothers and sisters and I came along.
Anyway, I am enjoying "Tannhauser." And then the first act ends, and the announcer comes on. They talk about how this production, by Sebastian Baumgarten, is in its fourth and final go-round at Bayreuth. The announcer goes: "It ever really jelled with the public, set as it is in a bio gas factory."
In a bio gas factory??
I guess this is better heard than seen!
Because as I am listening I am seeing the production pictured above (as I did, once, in San Diego).
Kind of funny, come to think of it, making the Wartburg a corporation. That seems to be what they are doing, anyway.
But you get the idea you have seen all this before. Everyone wants to do something to be different, you know? A lot of the time with Wagner this seems to me like a mistake. Wagner meant these operas, such as "Tannhauser," in a medieval context. Take them out of the Middle Ages and you waste them.
Above is Pauline in Richard Strauss' now obscure early opera "Guntram." They met when she played this role, which was Freihild. This opera sounds like a Wagner knockoff. We will have to explore it.
It would be nice to find a picture that gave her a less severe look at her face. Oh, man. Look at this. Richard and Pauline, around the time that they met! Look at that baby face on Strauss. It gives you a whole new image of his personality.
This came from this Web log Interlude. It has an interesting account with the byline of Georg Predota of the romance between the Strausses. The author writes: "When Richard composed his autobiographical tone poem “Ein Heldenleben”, the Hero’s companion is clearly modeled after Pauline. Strauss writes, “It’s my wife I wanted to portray. She is very complex, very much a woman, a little depraved, something of a flirt, never twice alike, every minute different to what she was the minute before."
By all accounts they really did love each other, you know?
