The fun and beauty of the Met's "Die Meistersinger"

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.

The book is sitting on the piano.

I think I will go right now and look.

Hans Sachs in quarantine

After watching and loving "Meistersinger" free from the Met's archives, I took a break to Google the singers. And I found that Michael Volle, our Hans Sachs, was in quarantine.

He does not have Coronavirus, or the Wuhan flu, or Covid-19, or whatever its name is. However he has been in quarantine because he was singing at La Scala and someone there had it. He discusses it here.

Opera singers in the spotlight! That is as it should be. Volle addresses us from a laptop. It is a funny feeling hearing him talking about this now having just finished having watched him as Hans Sachs in this magnificent performance. It is kind of intimate because in his performance, you really get to know Sachs. You feel this character exists somewhere. His portrayal is that vivid. It is really touching, too. I will explain more about that tomorrow, but it gets to you. Someone online wrote somewhere -- I have to find it -- "You want to hug him."

I am still listening to Volle talking about his quarantine. He is giving us the news! He says the latest update is that all cultural events are canceled in Italy until April 3. Volle actually was giving this report back on March 9. He is speaking in English.

I am sorry he has had to go through this but he seems to be dealing with OK. Just as Hans Sachs would.

Stay well, Hans Sachs.

I mean Maestro Volle!

Just now I am listening to President Trump saying our guidelines are being extended until April 30. That means a lot more opera coming our way.

We're going through this together -- literally!

The Met's "Die Meistersinger"

Tonight the Met's Nightly Opera Stream is "Die Meistersinger" and I am tuned in.

It is kind of emotional watching these Met broadcasts because of the current situation, I mean with this virus. Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" shores me up and gives me courage. Last fall when I had my first art show, I was playing "Meistersinger" as I framed up my pictures and got them ready to show. This music got me through it.

What I have seen so far ... and I am not through the first act ... this production looks fine. Not like "Goetterdaemmerung" yesterday, I have to say that. I had to stop watching "Goetterdaemmerung" because the production was just so Goetterdaemmerung awful.

Just get out of Wagner's way, you know?

Just stage the darned opera!

That guy, whoever did "Goetterdaemmerung," he had how much money to work with? I am guessing a lot. I am also guessing that I could have done a better job. The costumes were a mess. The mechanics ... you never lost sight of that you were seeing machines. Maybe it looked different from the seats but I doubt it. Everything was a mess. And Siegfried looked like a slug. I could not stand it.

OK, you cannot look a gift horse in the mouth so, whatever. On to this one.

I do not often take the opportunity to watch the entire "Meistersinger" and whenever I do, new things jump out at me. The way in the first act David, Sachs' apprentice, has such a prominent part. All his musings about music, and what he is learning from Sachs. Wagner must have enjoyed that.

The Master Singers ... I still cannot get over that one of them is named Kunz. I love that! I watch for Kunz Vogelgesang. He is a tenor. The one in this production looks young and he throws himself into the part -- I mean, he establishes a character for Kunz. I like that. They have little name plates in front of their seats and I love that. Kunz Vogelgesang.

In high school one of my best friends was Anne Conrad and she pointed out to me that my name meant hers. Kunz is short for Konrad.

There is a Konrad also among the Master Singers.

And there is also Erich Kunz, the late great Viennese baritone, who was the ultimate Beckmesser. I mean Sixtus Beckmesser, the baddie in "Die Meistersinger."

At left is a signed photo of Erich Kunz as Beckmesser in the Bayreuth production of 1943. I love what a ham he was. From other pictures I have seen he was actually a very good-looking man. Very Viennese, very urbane. You have to admire a guy who sacrifices good looks to look the part he is playing. Erich Kunz, God love him, he did that!

The picture is for sale on eBay only unfortunately I am too cheap to buy it. It is $90! I am glad a photo of my Uncle Erich is commanding so high a price but still.

Well, just looking at the picture makes me proud.

My name is all about "Meistersinger"!

Now I have to go ahead and watch the rest of the opera.

I will report!

My 'Onegin' experience

The duel in "Eugene Onegin" as imagined in 1901 by the great Russian painter Ilya Repin.

My relationship with the Met and its free opera streaming continues rocky. Like an opera itself, it is!

It is complicated. The opera streams until a certain time the next day, but at some point you lose the subtitles, is my experirence. That is why Howard and I had to watch a different "La Boheme."

And I watched "Eugene Onegin" half and half. Half was the Met production, and half was another.

"Eugene Onegin" took me by surprise. I had not actually intended to watch it. But when they aired it I peeked at it, and then to my surprise something happened. I could not look away.

Howard was laughing at me because I was toting my tablet around and he found me in the bathroom brushing my teeth and watching it!

Then I had to put it away for a bit. I may be in lockdown but I am still busy. I work from home anyway and I have a ton of work to do. When I went back to it later, it pulled the subtitle thing on me, and then it froze up completely.

By that time I was totally hooked. I knew more or less how things worked out because I did see the opera live once.. But I think when I saw it some years ago my mind was addled up over something or other and I could not give Tchaikovsky the attention he deserved. I had to see this drama play out. So I found a different one on YouTube, from Glyndebourne.



I missed Dmitri Hvorovstovsky who had been starring in the Met production. He is so handsome and icy! But this new Onegin grew on me. He is a Polish singer and I cannot begin to spell his name (I can however spell Hvorovstovsky off the top of my head). Let me cut and paste: Wojtek Drabowicz. He is very good too -- he projects the look of a misfit, a definite plus in this situation.

The duel scene got to me. Lensky in the Glyndebourne production is a beautiful man and you just cannot stand it. I actually had not recalled the duel even happening. This seems a good time to admit, I do not like prepping for operas by reading the synopsis. I like being surprised. Before you know it, you will know the opera inside out, and there is a different joy to that. But the first couple times you see an opera, I do not see any reason to read up on it. Enjoy the suspense!

That gets me to one more point: Everyone thinks opera is an acquired taste and they cannot possibly appreciate it. Just sit down and watch "Onegin." Find one with subtitles and sit down with it. Easy.

Anyway.

Tatiana in the Glyndebourne production is not as human as Renee Fleming, who can be wrenching as no one else can. That scene where Tatiana is scorned, Fleming just breaks your heart. She is very bold when it comes to this kind of thing, I mean putting herself into a part.

Tchaikovsky has a kind of Wagnerian thing going on in "Onegin," at least from where I sit, in that the opera is about you. I identify strongly with Tatiana. I was very naive and romantic and sheltered the way she is. So the famous letter scene gets me and so does that terrible scene where Onegin scorns her and lectures her. "I had to listen meekly to your sermon," she tells him later.

That scene later is very satisfying to me, coming from where I am coming from. Tatiana has married a handsome older man, a military hero, and she is a princess. And she has the mental fortitude to stick with her husband. To tell Onegin no.

I found myself talking to the screen. "Tell him to get lost." "Walk away."

Hahahahahaha!

When the opera was over I found myself dipping into different productions of "Onegin." Such as this excellent one, in German, starring Hermann Prey. Prey is terrific in this part, which is high praise. He is handsome and has that bedeviled look and that intensity. Speaking of intensity, a young Brigitte Fassbaender is Olga. And ... get this ... Fritz Wunderlich is Lensky.

Let me say that again: Fritz Wunderlich!!


 

Interesting thing about this production, the ending is different. After Onegin exits in anguish, Tatiana has a bittersweet interlude to herself. She pulls out the letter she wrote to Onegin, and she reflects on what has happened.

All this has been a great learning experience for me. On the minus side, I have not gotten around to much of the Wagner. Here I was looking forward to the Met's Wagner week and all I have watched is the first act of "Tristan und Isolde" which, now it is too late to finish that. I do have some comments but they can wait.

This Coronavirus lockdown different-opera-every-night thing is great but it is like traveling on a whirlwind tour -- you know, 10 cities in 10 days.

Sometimes it is better to spend a week in a city and get to know it! That is my situation with "Eugene Onegin." I fell behind. I could not help it.  I do know the Wagner operas much better but this was new territory for me, and I had to linger a little longer.

Plus, "Tristan," I just could not clear the time in my life. These Wagner operas mean a lot to me and you cannot watch them just anytime. You have to have time when you can concentrate, when you can give them space and attention. You have to treat them with respect.

It is like when you turn on the car radio as you are running errands and they are playing Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony or Beethoven's Ninth, you have to change the station. Masterpieces need space and attention.

I am glad I did right by "Eugene Onegin."

It is a masterpiece!

Our Wagnerian quarantine

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):

Monday: Tristan
Tuesday: Rheingold
Wednesday: Walkure
Thursday: Siegfried
Friday: Gotterdaemmerung
Saturday: Meistersinger
Sunday: Tannhauser

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.

I think I will!

5 operas with English subtitles you can watch free on YouTube

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.




This looks like a pretty decent "La Boheme," and it has subtitles as well. Just from the couple of minutes I have watched the voices sound wonderful.

Here is a hipster "La Boheme," also with subtitles.



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.

So many operas.

So little time.

Arthur Rackham's "Ring"

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.

And one should!

Countdown to "Die Walkure"

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.

As my husband, Howard, likes to say...

Don't make any plans!

A trip to Alt Nurnberg

Today is the Feast of St. John the Baptist and I always think of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger," which takes place on this day -- Johannestag, in Germany. Being close to the longest day of the year it is a magical day and it is celebrated with bonfires and general craziness. And "Die Meistersinger" takes place all in the course of this one long single day.

Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," which Nickel City Opera is performing this weekend, also takes place in one long day. It is not specified to be the Feast of St. John the Baptist but it could very well be!

"Die Meistersinger" begins with a chorale in honor of St. John the Baptist which I was unsuccessful in locating on YouTube. So I settled for the wonderful overture. The video below is a heated performance conducted by Rafael Kubelik. It has a beautiful slideshow of Nuremberg.

Buffalo's Pan-American Exposition of 1901 featured a German beer garden exhibit called Alt Nurnberg, or Old Nuremberg. That is Alt Nurnberg pictured above. My husband Howard's garage sits today where Alt Nurnberg was.

Here is a picture of lunch hour at Alt Nurnberg. It was a popular spot! It cost 25 cents just to get in and then your meal was extra.

Oh, man! I am watching the video of "Die Meistersinger" and it goes into the chorale!! I can't believe it!

Here I was just enjoying the music and the pictures and all of a sudden you see the picture of the church and there it is. The chorale that begins Act 1. The chorale in honor of St. John the Baptist. And in the background you hear hints of the "Prize Song" heard later in the opera. Try to take 15 minutes out of your day and watch this. It is like a mini-vacation.

Wait till you see the shot of the fireworks. They come right at the perfect instant.

Three Flying Dutchmen

Pursuant to the other day's post about the San Francisco Opera's "The Flying Dutchman" I thought I would check out a few "Dutchmen" on YouTube. What a miracle YouTube is! Entire operas are posted there. Some even have subtitles. I also have fun looking around Google for "Flying Dutchman" art. There is a whole galley, I mean gallery, of Flying Dutchman ghost ships.

Meanwhile, the opera. There were several versions that were just plain wacky that I weeded out.

But this Leif Segerstam version looks pretty good. It has some beautiful video effects of water and ghostly ships. I have watched sections of it including the ending and I am going to sit down one of these days and watch the whole thing. There are no subtitles so you might have to haul out your old garage sale Wagner libretto book. But you almost do not need to follow it word for word. You can get the idea what is going on.




This stage production with Jose van Dam is kind of spare but spare is not bad, you know, when it comes to "The Flying Dutchman." It is better to leave a lot to the imagination than to destroy it.

 

I like some things about this Bayreuth production with the great Simon Estes as a very cool Dutchman. He has a great voice and when he sings that he is the Flying Dutchman he is in chains. And they have a kind of cool set with these creepy hands closing around him. Kind of cool! See, I am no prude.



However ... the ending!

They alter the orchestral ending so you do not hear that music of redemption that I described the other day. What in the world? I did not know you were allowed to do that. And in Bayreuth!

At the beginning of the video they sanctimoniously flash the master's signature! He did not write it like this, did he? Did he supply some kind of alternate ending? I never heard that. And it changes the meaning of the opera. It is as if Senta dies for nothing. That tender music at the end is there to tell you what happens and without it, the opera is just a horror story.

Fie on this Bayreuth ship of fools. Fie.

May they wander cursed around the Internet forever, never able to sign off!

Composers and cats

Because of our new cat I am wondering what musicians in history had cats. It is hard to think of any specifically. Richard Wagner had a big Newfoundland dog, at least for a while, named Robber. He had Robber at the time he wrote "The Flying Dutchman." Mozart had a dog and a bird.

Howard says we do not hear about musicians having cats because probably they all did. Cats used to be part of the landscape because they roamed free and you needed them for the mice that were and are around. Everyone had them! That is what we figure anyway.

Now I am looking for more details.

Ah! Alexander Borodin had a lot of cats. And one of them, Ryborov, could go ice fishing. He could fish through holes in the ice.

I bet our cat could do that if we were Russian!

Borodin is on a list of famous cat lovers including Pope Benedict XVI and Edward Lear, two of the greatest gentlemen who ever lived. Edward Lear had a tabby cat and, speaking of music, it was named Foss. I interviewed Lukas Foss once! I wish I could have mentioned that.

You might guess that Maurice Ravel loved cats and you would be right. He had Siamese cats, so says this list. That is Ravel up above with a cat! Here is another picture.

John and Cynthia Lennon had up to 10 cats. No word on how many cats he owned with Yoko.

Pope St. Gregory the Great had only one possession, so says the list, and it was a cat. He would pet the cat while meditating. 

And perhaps while creating his famous Gregorian chant.

An opera that is better heard than seen

Today while I was running dumb but necessary errands I caught the end of the San Francisco Opera's production of Wagner's "The Flying Dutchman."

That last scene!

It made me think of that time I was driving and had to pull over to hear the end of "Die Walkure." I turned off the car in the parking lot of PetSmart and I gave myself over to this last scene. I had not really listened to this opera in years. But I used to love it as a teenager. And I was surprised at how vividly the lines came back to me. I started saying them to myself before the singers sang them.

The Dutchman: "Segal auf!" Calling for the sail, then the anchor.

"Sag Lebewohl zum Ewigkeit den Landen!" I don't know if I have my endings and whatnot right but it is chilling: "Say farewell forever to land!"

And the orchestra, rising and crashing like the waves. Imagine it. Imagine the Flying Dutchman, the ghost ship. Catching bits and pieces of the opera beforehand it was as if I could see it. Imagine being the Norwegian sailors, you have heard about the Flying Dutchman, it's this legend, and all of a sudden ... it appears one night. No, it can't be. Yes, it is. It is.

This terrible ghostly gray ship!

I love those choruses, the sailors trying to act as if everything is all right. But it is not! This is a very good ghost story, you know. It is really frightening. I will have to link to this essay I read about how Wagner was in a shipwreck, how he learned what it was like. He put that all into that music.



 Then at the end, Senta the captain's daughter, giving herself up to save the Dutchman. I had never seen the opera when I was a teenager. But I saw it in my head and it was better than any production. The daughter, this beautiful young woman, standing at the edge of the sea, in a white gown, her hair blowing. Like something out of Charlotte Bronte.

"Preis seinen Engel und sein Gebot!" Again I apologize if my endings are wrong, but it means "Praise your angel and his pronouncement!" And she says: "Here I am, true until death!" And she jumps.

What a scene! What a situation! You love it as a teenager. And as I listened to it today I saw it as I saw it then. It is all over in a flash then and the Dutchman is redeemed and you hear that ghostly call of the ship and then the music changes, it becomes magical and tender. You hear that music at the end of the overture too.. You see the sky clearing, the curse of the Dutchman evaporating, the mists rising, the stars coming out. The angels looking down. That is how I saw it as a kid and I saw it that way today too.

I am sure whatever the San Francisco Opera came up with was not as good as what was in my head. Let me check and see.

Sure enough, judging from this picture of Greer Grimsley as the Dutchman, nope, it wasn't.

He looks like a guy in a biker bar at closing time! Ha, ha!

But in all fairness, in the opera pantheon, "The Flying Dutchman" is a tough one to get right.

How can it live up to your imagination?

Sixtus and Sixtus

Today is the Feast of St. Sixtus. That is he pictured above! And if you think the name Sixtus is cool you should see it in Latin. He was an early pope who was martyred and his name appears in the Roman Canon heard in the Tridentine Mass I attend and it appears as Xysti.

Xystus!

In the objective case, is my guess. It has been a while since my high school Latin classes.

With the "X" version I have no problem but when I see it "Sixtus" with an "S,"  I am sorry, all I can think of is Sixtus Beckmesser from Wagner's "Die Meistersinger."

May we present a very cool clip featuring Sir Thomas Allen? He follows in the footsteps of great comic Sixtus Beckmessers including, I am proud to say, Erich Kunz. And our Walther von Stolzing, Ben Heppner, follows in the footsteps of great big Walther von Stolzings.

I love when Sachs is singing his song about Eve in Paradise, and Walther whispers to Eva: "Why is your name in his song?"

And she says: "I've heard it before. It's not about me."

Hahahaa.

And later the idea of Eve in Paradise will work its way into Walther's Prize Song.

Anyway. I hope St. Sixtus had a sense of humor and does not mind this. The fact that his name appears on a fine Trappist ale...

.... suggests that he can take a joke.

Take it, Sir Thomas:

'Silent Wagner'

 My friend Prof. G has hipped me to this movie on YouTube. It is from 1913 and it is called "Silent Wagner."

It was a biopic about Richard Wagner that came out in 1913! The movie was supposed to mark the centenary of his birth. As the professor points out, another way in which it was noteworthy was that it could well be the first full-length silent film. Everyone says that D.W. Griffiths' "Birth of a Nation" was the first long silent film but this one predates it by two years. It is 80 minutes long!

At first I thought it was a spoof. I was not watching closely and I was skipping around. And at the beginning they flash that silly quote by Mark Twain: "Wagner's music is really a lot better than it sounds," something like that. So that threw me off.

There are touches that are funny in this movie, I think. One scene in which Wagner is snubbed by Liszt made me laugh. You see Liszt going back to talking to his friends, kind of waving Wagner away.

From what I understand the filmmakers -- Carl Frohlich was the director -- wanted to use actual Wagner music for a soundtrack but the Wagner family wanted to charge too much. They engaged and Italian composer, Giuseppe Becce, and Becce happened to look like Wagner so wound up starring as him. I think Wagner would have gotten a kick out of that.

I am going to watch the whole movie and pronounce upon it. As the Prof. says, it is interesting in that it was made in an era when a lot of people still remembered Wagner and the world that Wagner knew. It gets points for authenticity because of that.

We must discuss. Meanwhile, watching the movie, I confess it is strange.

It is so silent!

Sir Tristan meets his match

Love this story about the Tristan monument in Cornwall, England, being moved to make way for a bus stop.

He apparently fought Lancelot (see picture above) but now he must fight the transit system!

It sounds totally like something that would happen in Buffalo.

The story is not as bad as it sounds considering that the stone has already been moved at least once. Isn't it the whole point of a gravestone that you can stand there and think whose body lies there? So that was already lost, if what I am reading is true.

Meanwhile, I am watching that post-Apocalyptic looking clip they put with the story. Whoever staged that "Tristan" production did not break the bank on it, that is for sure. What is that in the middle, a chair with a sheet over it?

I like that entire site, "The Wagnerian." I had never seen it before. It seems to be run from England. I just might have to subscribe to it to keep up to date on all my Wagner news.

This got me laughing:

The Wagnerian is published by S.M. Moran. Educated at Eaton and then Oxford,  Seb has had a long career in a range of professions, but specializing in public relations. While, much of that career has been spent in the UK, he has also spent  brief periods  in the Middle East, India, Africa, the Himalayas and Switzerland. Now retired, Seb spends much of his time divided between Wagner, sports and his club in London. 

Cosima on Twitter

I get a kick out of @CosimaWagner on Twitter.

R reflects on his facial features, which he cannot reconcile with his talents.


R had a very bad night, horrid dreams, congestions, an error of diet no doubt the cause. He does not drink his waters.


The gray weather makes R indignant, and when he sends for champagne at lunch, he says all that is left to do is either drink or grumble.


In the evening R says, "I have drunk too much beer, and then I become quarrelsome and overly touchy, like R. Schumann."

By now you get the joke. So funny, in the midst of all the other flotsam and jetsam on Twitter  -- look, there I am all of a sudden sounding like R.

I like the Schumann reference. Once I read a really funny story about how Schumann and Wagner were out on a boat together with some friends. Schumann never said a word while Wagner talked all the time.

Later Schumann complained to a friend he could not get a word in edgewise.

And Wagner complained to a friend that Schumann never said a word and that it was exhausting to have to do all the talking, all the time.

Hahahahahaaa! We have this charming story through two different letters. They appeared, if I remember correctly, in a book called "Wagner Remembered."

Anyway, back to my Twitter friend, @CosimaWagner. She is pretty good about Tweeting. She weighs in about once a day which is more than I can say about most other people including myself.

I look forward to her next missive!

'They tend to freak out'

Rene Pape, pictured above in an undignified shot that I love, is this bass I like. And yesterday I was listening to his new Wagner CD. It has him singing "Wotan's Farewell" from "Die Walkure."

I can not listen to that music without thinking of two things I know I have written about. One was the time when my sister and I saw the opera in Toronto and both of us wept all through the last scene. We had a sodden Kleenex we were passing back and forth. It was pathetic! 

The other was when I tuned in to a radio broadcast. I had to pull over for the ending. This is not something you can drive through! I pulled over and I stayed there as the singers took their bows. And as he described the scene, the announcer began to weep. I will never forget that!

Anyway, yesterday I happened on this interview with Mr. Pape. Pape talks about his influences who include George London, Hans Hotter and Theo Adam. Hans Hotter is a singer I love.

Pape is asked if audiences for Wagner differ from other audiences.

"Wagner audiences are special, I think," he says. "It's their music -- but in a positive way. It's a passion. Everyone feels extended -- musically and physically -- after five hours or whatever of a Wagner performance. So people tend to -- how should I put it -- well, freak out at the end."

Hahahahaaa!

I guess I am Exhibit A!

The other main thing I got from that interview is that Pape has a dachshund named Wotan.

Cute.

Lost in la la land

Just a couple more thoughts on "Meistersinger" and then we will move on, I promise. I think what has happened is, I never saw this opera before in its entirety, and so it has been on my mind.

It is funny how sometimes you hear something that colors your life. You wake up in the morning feeling a little different because of it. One of these days I should list some of the music that has done this to me in the past.

I did finish watching the Glyndebourne production. As I shared yesterday, it took all kinds of doing including getting up that morning at 4 a.m. -- and being late for a party later that day. Yikes, I was almost an hour late because I had to finish watching the thing before Glyndebourne pulled the plug on it.

Howard ended up watching the last scene over my shoulder. We had it on full screen. Howard always kills me. As Beckmesser was making his sorry attempt at singing the Prize Song, Howard said, "I don't know, he sounds all right to me." By the way what I wrote the other day about the name Sixtus Beckmesser, I was wrong. Beckmesser was a real actual Mastersinger, I have learned.

When the opera was over I had to scramble to explain away the last scene, the one that always gets quoted, about keeping German art sacred and pure. Awkward!

I said, "Howard, I don't want you to think I am watching Nazi opera, or anything." I explained "Meistersinger" premiered in 1868 (was it? I am in a hurry right now) and furthermore there was that speech Hans Sachs makes earlier condemning man's inhumanity to man.

Also I tried to tell him how it is supposed to be set in the Middle Ages and these Mastersingers, you know, they are these provincial tradesmen striving for something greater. They are gently comic figures. This opera is bittersweet in a kind of Mozartean way -- there was one instance where I am sure Wagner is quoting Mozart -- but it is not meant to be serious as a heart attack.

Also, I did not say this to Howard but face it, no German opera is complete without crowds of people shouting "Heil" to something. It just has to be done. I mean, look at "The Magic Flute."

OK, time to put this all to bed. But it is not easy!

This morning I realized it was time to snap out of it so while I was drinking my coffee, I looked into this new memoir that came my way, by Katherine Weber, the granddaughter of Kay Swift, who had the long affair with George Gershwin.

And there "Meistersinger" was again!

I could not get away from it!

Apparently Gershwin went with Kay Swift to see "Die Meistersinger." The book said, "He was enamored of the score."

That is fascinating! It is fun to look at "Meistersinger" through Gershwin's eyes and wonder what he took away from it.

But it is time for me to stop thinking about this.

Nuernberg all-nighter

No one can say I do not practice what I preach! Yesterday I encouraged people to check out "Die Meistersinger" from Glyndebourne. I said I was going to even though we had less than 48 hours left to do it. And trust me, I had a lot scheduled for those hours.

I was up at 4 a.m., watching the first act!

I could not sleep because I had a lot on my mind so I thought, as long as I am good for nothing anyway, I may as well watch "Meistersinger." Anyway that is time well spent. It is one of the dumb things about the world that reading a book is looked on as being productive while listening to music in general is not.

So, somewhere around 5:30, 6 a.m., there my life is, mirroring art. Hans Sachs has been up all night and so have I!

The Hans Sachs in this production is Gerald Finley, a Canadian singer. I am not an expert on this opera, though I am fast becoming one. I had never really seen it before, not even on video. I knew parts of it and had a sketchy concept of the story. My father loved this opera and I remember when I was about 16 he sat me down and we listened to it together. I guess I liked it but I do not remember a lot more than that.

My father had a book of Wagner librettos that I inherited after he died and he had made pencil notes about the dates he listened to "Die Meistersinger." It must be written in there when exactly he and I listened to it. I will have to go look. My dad did that for one other thing that I know of. In "The Forsyte Saga," he noted down whenever he read "Indian Summer of a Forsyte." That is extremely affecting, too. So beautifully written.

I was up all night when I read "Indian Summer of a Forsyte," too! I remember when I finished it the sun was coming up.

What is this all adding up to? Darned if I know.

Back to "Die Meistersinger." I still have half of Act 3 to go but I took a break to, ahem, share my observations, should you wish to call in sick to whatever plans you had today and catch it at the last minute.

Glyndebourne set the opera in the early 19th century. It is obvious right away -- you have the top hats and the Empire waist gowns. It does not quite go with the opera's reflection of the medieval age of faith -- the night watchman calling the benediction as he calls the hours, the entire town at Mass, the hymns to and celebration of the Feast of St. John the Baptist. Also there is that last act when -- I remember the opera expert Father Owen Lee pointed this out  -- Wagner brings the Middle Ages to life as no play or movie has been able to do. You are kind of wasting that if you set the opera in a different era. "Die Meistersinger" is medieval and I can't understand why people can't leave it that way.

Still, the costumes are charming and you kind of forget they are not medieval. The opera puts you back in the Middle Ages no matter what the costumers are doing, I guess I am saying.

Finley, pictured up above, is tremendously moving as Sachs. He is a young Sachs. His hair is not even gray. He has a kind of pugnacious look, like a bulldog, and his ears stick out, and he's cute. Never having seen the opera before there were some things I had not realized. Sachs is kind of mean, for one thing. His apprentice is afraid of him. Sachs beats him. Sachs is wrestling with all kinds of stuff that the other people in the opera do not see.

Granted, my sleep is all over the map, and this ravishing music gets to me anyway, but I teared up watching the Prelude to Act 3. It just exposes all the secret messiness of this man's life. How he represses the memory of his dead wife -- and children, too, it seems. How he drinks too much. This might have been a Glyndebourne touch, the bottles lying around, but it rings true. Just looking at him slumped over his desk, his wine glass in his hand -- then opening the shutters and confronting the sunlight -- your heart just goes out to him. Finley shares the credit with Wagner on this one.

You hear so much, too much, about how Hitler loved "Meistersinger." Hitler must have been sleeping through the part where Sachs despairs over man's inhumanity to man. How come you never hear that quoted? I am just saying. You hear all this blah blah blah about the ending, when he talks about the sacred German art, but you never hear the other things that Sachs says.

Two other things and then I must get back to Glyndebourne because time is short.

One, Beckmesser -- this is Johannes Martin Kranzler -- pretty much steals the show whenever he is on. You cannot look away from him. He has a marvelous comic face, and something is touching about him, too. I would imagine that is important in a good Beckmesser. You do not want some cartoon, or some blatant idiot. Most of us have some kind of inner Beckmesser and Wagner was smart enough to know that.

Two, the part where Eva comes to see Sachs and she kind of flirts around with him, gently, about whether he is going to try to win her hand.... God knows how this works, but music fools around with your subconscious. And opera in general -- and Wagner in particular -- is very good about getting across people's foggy relationships with each other. Things that can't be spoken or acknowledged or put into words, that is what you get from the music.

I think I should get back to it now!

Free Wagner

You have one more day to catch "Die Meistersinger," the complete opera, streamed from Glyndebourne.

Not to fall back on Valley Girl talk, but it is So Cool. Gerald Finley is Sachs

It really puts you there. The camera pans over the crowd. You hear the clipped British announcement to turn off your cell phone and that the taking of photographs is prohibited. So exciting!!

I have not seen the whole thing but from the half hour or so that I managed to wedge in so far, it looks great. The British have a great sense of humor and a lack of vanity that I admire. I mean a lack of vanity in the service of comedy. You see this in Britcoms. They don't care how blowsy they look, how ridiculous. In "Die Meistersinger" this quality translates into great Sixtus Beckmessers. Although the Beckmesser in this production seems to be a German, Johannes Martin Kranzle.

Sixtus Beckmesser. Wagner and his friends must have been sitting around with their beers laughing and laughing when they came up with that name. Originally I heard Wagner wanted to name the guy Hans Lick, after Eduard Hanslick, the critic who hated him.

Back to the opera. I started watching it at work the other day and got so drawn into it that when someone came up to say hello to me I just about jumped out of my skin. It is that good.

Sometime between today and tomorrow I vow to get back to it.

I must!