J is right that Wagner´s idea of "opera" is _Wagnerian_. Oddly, Grice´s favourite piece of music EVER was Mahler´s "Song of the Earth", which IS Wagnerian. He only dismissed "Meistersinger of Nuremberga" as for children. I´m sure there is a lot of Tolkeinianism in "Das Rheingold". The role of Wotan was played on Monday night at the Met by formidable Welsh baritone, B. Terfel -- who is an institution ... in Wales.
People objected to too many visual trickeries, but the Met is aiming at big shows now. The thing was televised for free at Times Square and the Lincoln Center Plaza. Meg Ryan was in attendance but she left before the intermission.
--- Oddly, there was NO intermission, which makes it a trick to capture the exact moment when she left. Anjelica Houston was also in attendance, and she came out humming some of the tunes.
Next week, they are showing Donizetti´s "Don Pasquale". "A different sort of animal," the director of the Metropolitan Opera, J. Gelb, said.
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Not exactly what I wrote, JLster. SO you infer it, not unreasonably: Wagner produced wagnerian music. Though it often sounds Disneyian to me, alas. That said Im opposed to the chi chi postmodernist Wagner that the LA/SF theatre/opera types ..covet. I nearly went to the Ring last spring, with Placido, oh producing or whatever--they had a bum's rush a few times where one could get a seat in the upper-most tier for like 100 shekels. But I didn't, thank Osiris, after seeing some of the shots--like Star Wars meets a Lady Gaga show or something. Outre, as they say. And reading the reviews it wasn't that well liked, though the musick was supposedly good.
ReplyDeleteThe LA-SF "creatives" want an ironic spin on like Wotan and the rest, when that's not what RW wanted, I contend. RW wants the ox horns and breastplates and actual anvils being hammered on. He's not verdi or some italian drama queen. Wagner wants bearskins and primitive nordic pagan imagery, and manly military brass. It's a call to Arms, not Aida. Wotan's not some capitalist pig, he's....the German soul itself--!. The usual opera dweebs just don't get it.