Secco Recit

In an  interview  last month, David McVicar, the director of the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Tosca , talked about how, when talking about productions of operas, people confuse "traditional" with "period." Peter Gelb took over as the Met's general manager in 2006, and since then, most of the company's standard repertory has been replaced with new productions, most of which in turn could be said to be "non-traditional." In general, productions can be non-traditional in one of two ways. They can either be set in a time or place apart from what the libretto specifies, or the choices made could be more artistic, with unrealistic sets and stylized costumes and whatnot. It's easy to spot a non-period production simply by looking for anachronisms. And the Met's had their share, from Michael Mayer's infamous Vegas-set Rigoletto , to ones that more or less flew under the radar, like Deborah Warner's Eugene Onegin,  or Richa...

The Metropolitan opera has announced their 2016-17 season, and at a glance, I think it's a much stronger season than the current one. Let's break it down a little. The current season consists of twenty-four operas: Anna Bolena The Barber Of Seville La Boheme Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci Don Pasquale La Donna Del Lago Elektra L'Elisir D'Amore Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail Die Fledermaus Lulu Madama Butterfly Manon Lescaut Maria Stuarda Le Nozze Di Figaro Otello Le Pecheurs De Perles Rigoletto Roberto Devereux Simon Boccanegra Tannhauser Tosca Il Trovatore Turandot (I have to wonder: When the Met does The Barber Of Seville in English, that's what they call it, but when they do it in Italian, they call it Il Barbriere Di Siviglia. Same with Hansel And Gretel or Hansel Und Gretel and Die Zauberflote or The Magic Flute. So why don't they call their English-translated holiday production The Bat?) That's sixteen tragedies, six...

In spite of my last post, and perhaps against my better judgment, I really want to like La Rondine . It's a hodgepodge of romantic cliches, but I see why the characters and setting would have been appealing to Puccini. Well, except for the fact that he didn't seem to write any other operas that even approach being similar. Maybe a little Manon Lescaut . And on the face of it, La Rondine  seems like, if not phenomenal, it should at least be a good respectable opera like Francesca Da Rimini . Zandonai's Francesca  opera, by the way, is one I readily cite as an example of a terrific score making up for perhaps a less-than-satisfactory libretto. But to me, La Rondine  falls flat. But I want to like it. So I'm going to dissect it, focusing on the character of Prunier, the poet. Because when all else fails, making things meta automatically makes them better. Prunier is the first character to whom we're really introduced. He is a poet, and he has a half-finished song abo...

Dear Puccini, First off, happy birthday! Thanks for the great operas and all that. Now, can I ask you a question about La Rondine? The question is... well, La Rondine. I don't get it. I mean, I understand it, but it's like Act I of Die Fledermaus followed by Act II of La Boheme followed by the first half of Act II of La Traviata, but without the baritone part that makes it legit. And then no one dies! So, good job on the music and all that. It's probably one of my favorite scores from you. But... La Rondine. What's up with that?

So, nobody dies in Aida . How's that for a hook? Definitely a good tagline for an opera, "Nobody dies!" isn't it? I'd go see that opera. But really, think about the plot of Aida  for a moment. Set in ancient times, there's a king of a country near northern Africa, and he's fighting against a certain people to whom go our sympathies. This king's daughter is involved in a love triangle with a member of said people and a conflicted third party with interests in both factions. The members of the love triangle are a soprano, a mezzo, and a tenor, but not necessarily in that order. Anyway, through some shenanigans, the conflicted third party is sentenced to death, but don't worry, because member of fought-against-people-to-whom-go-our-sympathies and conflicted third party both survive the Act IV curtain, and presumably live happily ever after. Oh, also, there's a famous chorus in the second scene of some act or another that has people singing abo...