Friday, April 18, 2008
Female Offspring of the Military-Industrial Complex
Our spy at the Final Dress of Fille (hereinafter FDF, though this posting is going to be like two lines long so it's a short hereinafter), we'll call him Raury L'annato, knows better than to gab about a rehearsal, but figured it can't hurt to mention that all principals were in top form and sang out, Louise. It's been sold out for months and tickets are going for mortgage-like prices online, but anyway it seems likely to be the talk of the town, insofar as opera ever is.
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8 comments:
And will be roundly condemned by 57 old farts on Opera-L for not being true to the 1873 production and not including sufficient dead singers ;-)
gert: it goes without saying you are correct :) I do think one would have to be pretty hardcore to disapprove of Florez in this, but then somebody inevitably is going to say he was inaudible...
You know the only answer to people who quack on about inaudibility/ small voices?
Bidu Sayao.
That's the only answer to people who quack on about inaudibility/ small voices.
Amerjaquino: I will certainly make use of it in the future!
"Our spy ... knows better than to gab about a rehearsal"
oh, Maury, you are too good for the Opera blogosphere. Both Parterre.com and Opera Chic have *extensive* reviews of the rehearsal. So much for discretion ...
I wonder if the Met will complain about this, or reserve its umbrage just for when the reviews are negative?
-- RD
RD,
(Wondering if your inclusion of initials means I know you/know of you, but I can't offhand unabbreviate RD.)
I think it's less than I'm the soul of discretion than that I suffer from PTSD from the one time I, well, not only reviewed, but bitched about a rehearsal in another town on Opera-L, not realizing at the time this was not done, and was virtually tarred and feathered. So it drove the point home, though it also pretty much ended my interest in that particular forum and left a bad taste.
It does seem inevitable now with the anonymity of the opro-blogosphere that reviews will appear for something so open admissions as these open-house rehearsals, but yeah, I guess for now I'm erring on the side of not pissing anyone off.
I keep hearing that this singer is inaudible, that that singer is inaudible and then I go to the opera house, be it NYCO or the MET and hear said singers perfectly. I suspect it's because I listen.
I'm old enough that I wasn't raised in the world of super-amplification, the culture of elevated volume to assault you during commercials. I still have my hearing and I use it.
We had EARS then!
La Cieca believes there is a difference between a review and a report following a dress rehearsal. A report concentrates more on the general look of the production, how the open rehearsal progressed (e.g., any stopping and starting), and I think it's fair to say that singer X or Y was marking.
After all, if a company welcomes the public to a rehearsal, then surely it is expected that there will be talk afterward. If the Met really wants to keep a lid on a show, they have the option of closing the final dress (as, for example, the previous administration did with the Wilson Lohengrin. Nobody had a clue what was going on with that show until opening night.)
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