Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
My kids liked Rosenkavalier at the Met
One singer chewing air
Hogarth's The Countess's Morning Levee (ca. 1744), the inspiration for the Marschallin's morning reception in Act I
As a member of the San Diego Opera Chorus, I don’t often have a chance to review an opera but I’ve got one now. I went to see Der Rosenkavalier, by Richard Strauss, at The Metropolitan Opera on Friday, December 20. Rosenkavalier is a consensus top 10 opera. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone claiming Rosenkavalier to be unworthy of veneration.
This Rosenkavalier was something other than opera. It was not not opera but it lacked operatic qualities. It was opera-ish.
Video:
Presentation of the Rose
Lucia Popp & Brigitte Fassbaender
The production moved the setting from the 18th Century to Vienna of 1911, the year of the opera’s premiere. This is a common move for an opera production to make. It works to a greater or lesser degree with most operas but Rosenkavalier isn’t an opera which does well with a change of setting.
The milieu of Rosenkavalier is the Vienna of Mozart and Haydn. The dramatic conflict of the story is based on that culture. The interaction of the characters is based on that bygone era. The character of Octavian, the protagonist, is based on the character of Chrubino from Mozar’s The Marriage of Figaro.
This change of setting destroys the opera which Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, created. The entire thing stops making sense. At the same time, it remains an opera and operas always require a suspension of disbelief. A change of setting requires us to double down on that suspension. The interaction of the characters is based on the 18th Century not the 20th Century and they still fall in love at first glance. Double disbelief.
Video:
Der Rosenkavalier Final Trio
2011 production with Schwarzkopf, Jurinac, Rothenberger
Now for the singing. The cast was full of modern singers which means the voices were pretty and boring. It meant the singers disappeared when the music required them to use their middle and lower voice. It was the quality of the singing which made this production something other than opera.
There were no exciting vocal moments in the entire evening. The Presentation of the Rose scene at the top of the second act was stunning because the music lined up with the strengths of the singers. It was an exquisite moment of music but it was the only such moment in an evening which stretched to four and a half hours, including intermissions.
The famous finale trio of the third act turned into a duet as Octavian could not be heard at all. The singer was emoting well but ultimately she was on stage “chewing air”—when the mouth is moving but nothing can be heard.
I did enjoy the evening as did, believe it or not, my 15-year-old and 12-year-old children. Rosenkavalier contains some of the most moving music ever composed for the opera stage but it requires singers who have developed voices which allows them to express their characters.
The characters were expressed physically but rolling around on the ground in an awkward approximation of ecstasy isn’t great theater. Well, it kind of is great theater but not in the way it was intended to be.
Here's something you might be interested in.
My kids liked Rosenkavalier at the Met
One singer chewing air
My kids liked Rosenkavalier at the Met
One singer chewing air
Hogarth's The Countess's Morning Levee (ca. 1744), the inspiration for the Marschallin's morning reception in Act I
As a member of the San Diego Opera Chorus, I don’t often have a chance to review an opera but I’ve got one now. I went to see Der Rosenkavalier, by Richard Strauss, at The Metropolitan Opera on Friday, December 20. Rosenkavalier is a consensus top 10 opera. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone claiming Rosenkavalier to be unworthy of veneration.
This Rosenkavalier was something other than opera. It was not not opera but it lacked operatic qualities. It was opera-ish.
Video:
Presentation of the Rose
Lucia Popp & Brigitte Fassbaender
The production moved the setting from the 18th Century to Vienna of 1911, the year of the opera’s premiere. This is a common move for an opera production to make. It works to a greater or lesser degree with most operas but Rosenkavalier isn’t an opera which does well with a change of setting.
The milieu of Rosenkavalier is the Vienna of Mozart and Haydn. The dramatic conflict of the story is based on that culture. The interaction of the characters is based on that bygone era. The character of Octavian, the protagonist, is based on the character of Chrubino from Mozar’s The Marriage of Figaro.
This change of setting destroys the opera which Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hoffmansthal, created. The entire thing stops making sense. At the same time, it remains an opera and operas always require a suspension of disbelief. A change of setting requires us to double down on that suspension. The interaction of the characters is based on the 18th Century not the 20th Century and they still fall in love at first glance. Double disbelief.
Video:
Der Rosenkavalier Final Trio
2011 production with Schwarzkopf, Jurinac, Rothenberger
Now for the singing. The cast was full of modern singers which means the voices were pretty and boring. It meant the singers disappeared when the music required them to use their middle and lower voice. It was the quality of the singing which made this production something other than opera.
There were no exciting vocal moments in the entire evening. The Presentation of the Rose scene at the top of the second act was stunning because the music lined up with the strengths of the singers. It was an exquisite moment of music but it was the only such moment in an evening which stretched to four and a half hours, including intermissions.
The famous finale trio of the third act turned into a duet as Octavian could not be heard at all. The singer was emoting well but ultimately she was on stage “chewing air”—when the mouth is moving but nothing can be heard.
I did enjoy the evening as did, believe it or not, my 15-year-old and 12-year-old children. Rosenkavalier contains some of the most moving music ever composed for the opera stage but it requires singers who have developed voices which allows them to express their characters.
The characters were expressed physically but rolling around on the ground in an awkward approximation of ecstasy isn’t great theater. Well, it kind of is great theater but not in the way it was intended to be.
Comments