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Post by AddisonMizner on Mar 1, 2020 21:17:09 GMT
I saw today’s opening of probably this years’ hottest opera ticket in the ROH’s FIDELIO.
Oliver Mears came on at the start (to much noise), announcing that Jonas Kaufmann was feeling unwell, but was going to sing anyway. He sang well considering, but did look a little distressed at the curtain call.
However, Lise Davidson as Leonore was the real star of the afternoon. An absolutely ravishing voice that soared over the orchestra and seemed effortless. Shivers were sent down my spine almost every time she opened her mouth to sing. She also has an excellent presence on stage. I expect everybody will be saying the same thing, and I will certainly look to hear her in other things after this.
I really enjoyed the production. It is very much a staging of two halves - the first act is very traditional, with the second act being much more modern with lots of video projection and chorus in modern dress. However, for me this really works and I think I understood the points the director was trying to make. It absolutely baffles me that it got booed at the curtain call. I do not understand booing anyway. No matter how much you hate a production, I think it is incredibly rude to those who have spent time and effort putting the opera together. Again, in this case it was entirely unjustified. There is nothing offensive and I ultimately found it very moving at the end and actually started welling up with tears.
If you haven’t got a ticket, go to the screening. It is worth it, especially for Lise Davidsen (although I doubt the size and power of her voice will come across on screen).
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Post by asfound on Mar 2, 2020 8:26:24 GMT
It absolutely baffles me that it got booed at the curtain call. I do not understand booing anyway. No matter how much you hate a production, I think it is incredibly rude to those who have spent time and effort putting the opera together. I'm starting to get tired of this and don't see why it is considered acceptable behaviour. I first encountered it at Guillaume Tell and it totally ruined what I thought was a brutal, powerful moment by booing during the actual scene (they later cut the scene meaning more open minded people would not be able to experience the director's original vision) and more recently at Luisa Miller during the curtain call. Aside from the fact I thought Luisa Miller was excellent all round, you are not just booing the aspects of the production you may not like or think are too modern, but everybody involved. And even if it's a small minority, booing cuts through the applause. Then there is booing the "bad guys", which is just childish. But generally it seems a section of the audience will boo anything that isn't antique decor and hoop skirts. If you don't like it, just don't clap. Or do some research and just don't go.
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Post by Mr Snow on Mar 2, 2020 9:50:12 GMT
However, Lise Davidson as Leonore was the real star of the afternoon. An absolutely ravishing voice that soared over the orchestra and seemed effortless. Shivers were sent down my spine almost every time she opened her mouth to sing. She also has an excellent presence on stage. I expect everybody will be saying the same thing, and I will certainly look to hear her in other things after this. Count me as another saying exactly the same thing. Astonishing.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 4, 2020 15:02:19 GMT
Yes, I suppose 'don't go' is the right advice for people who love the operatic repertoire in its more tradition form (as they believe it was conceived by its composers) and know that the production is likely not to please them.
But if they don't go then how are they going to hear the greatest singers of our day (including Lise Davidson) live on the operatic stage?
And people who have paid up to £264 for their ticket (as with the current Fidelio) might also be inclined to boo if they felt the production spoiled their enjoyment of the musical side of the performance. Not applauding might just not feel enough to compensate for the £264 spent on the ticket – and even the tickets in the cheaper parts of the house are substantially more expensive for Fidelio than for a more routine performance that is not a new production starring top singers.
I do not wish to be offensive here – I am merely trying to put the other side of the argument about booing at the opera house as in a debate.
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Post by tmesis on Mar 4, 2020 16:58:26 GMT
I'm seeing this next week and the reviews of the production don't fill me with joy but I would say around 50% of new productions at The Garden tend to be annoying these days.
You don't get much booing at the opera these days and usually it's for the production. I seem to recall it was more prevalent in the 1970s when I first started attending. I well remember a very prestigious production of Norma with the almost unbelievable (these days) cast of Montserrat Caballe in the title role and Grace Bumbry as Adalgisa. After the overture a guy shouted out 'Dreadful' and, possibly the same chap at the very end, just before the applause, shouted 'Rubbish.' As you can imagine this was quite a dampener and our two famous divas never quite got the applause they were expecting!
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Post by argon on Mar 4, 2020 18:17:39 GMT
Saw this on Sunday I kind of understand the lack of appreciation for the production and for Kauf's Dunkel hier aria he was clearly not at his best. However, I was completely baffled by the lack of applause for the Quartet song in Act 1 which was sung impressively by the singers albeit not at the level of Gundula Janowitz et El in Vienna but still very good.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 5, 2020 11:19:10 GMT
Saw this on Sunday I kind of understand the lack of appreciation for the production and for Kauf's Dunkel hier aria he was clearly not at his best. However, I was completely baffled by the lack of applause for the Quartet song in Act 1 which was sung impressively by the singers albeit not at the level of Gundula Janowitz et El in Vienna but still very good. Maybe most of the people who could afford to pay the astronomical prices for this Fidelio were not true opera aficionados and were there to see Kaufmann rather than Fidelio and of course he is not in the first Act.
Or the performance of the quartet was so good that the audience was carried away and did not want to break the spell by applauding. That is a great compliment to the performers if it is a genuine reaction for the right reason, but not if it happens from ignorance!
And now I have to throw in one of my usual anecdotes and say that to hear Jon Vickers sing Florestan, which I did a number of times (including under Klemperer) remains one of my greatest opera-going memories – and that was at prices that we all could afford!
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 6, 2020 11:45:26 GMT
Since the theatremonkey has condoned my going off in a different direction in the thread about Tracey Ann Oberman as Shylock, I am going to do it again here in talking about when an audience is so moved by something that they fail to applaud.
It concerns the production of Side by Side by Sondheim at The Venue in Leicester Square in 2007 with Josie Walker and Abbie Osmon:
"Sadly the theatre was half empty, but those hardy souls who did turn up were extremely appreciative and received all the songs with great enthusiasm, except the powerful duet ‘A boy like that’ from West Side Story which was done with such emotional strength that the audience sat in stunned silence at the end for quite a long time before applauding, which was the biggest compliment they could have paid the two singers."
And of course at a good performance of Tosca there should be no applause after the aria 'Vissi d'arte' in Act II if the soprano is dramatically convincing in her singing and acting of Tosca's situation at that moment.
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Post by tmesis on Mar 9, 2020 18:32:44 GMT
Just arrived for tonight's performance to discover that Kaufmann's pulled out and is replaced by David Butt Philip (me neither.)
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Post by Dawnstar on Mar 9, 2020 18:50:37 GMT
replaced by David Butt Philip (me neither.) If by that you mean you've never heard of him then I'm a bit surprised as he's sung quite a lot in the UK. He was on the JPYA programme a few years ago & since then I've seen him sing for ETO & OHP and I think he's sung for ENO & ON too. I didn't realise his voice had developed as far as Florestan though.
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Post by AddisonMizner on Mar 9, 2020 18:52:29 GMT
David Butt Philip is singing Florestan for Glyndebourne during the Summer. He is a regular at ENO and is singing the tenor role in RUSALKA there in April. He is very good by all accounts, and is very much on my list to hear live. I certainly wouldn’t have objected if he was on for Kaufmann when I went to the opening performance.
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Post by tmesis on Mar 9, 2020 19:24:13 GMT
Just realised I've seen the guy in the Glyndebourne tour of La Boheme and he was excellent so I take my slightly sniffy comment back!
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Post by tmesis on Mar 10, 2020 8:17:06 GMT
This is a hard one to sum up.
Obviously the loss of one of the performances of the annual visit of our star tenor was a bit of a blow but I've seen Kaufmann stacks of times and he was definitely singing at his best around ten years ago - his last appearance in La Forza del Destino was pretty unexceptional. His replacement David Butt Philip did a very good job although he is no heldentenor. Although the role of Florestan is short it does begin with one of the hardest arias in all opera to pull off and he managed it very well without the sheer heft of some earlier singers in the role like Alberto Remedios or, especially Jon Vickers who I was lucky enough to see in the role in 1980. Nobody did hype-intensity like Vickers and he never disappointed (his Peter Grimes and Tristan were also unforgettable nights at ROH.)
But what of Lise Davidsen?
I saw her at last year's Proms and was very impressed at her singing of a selection of Strauss songs. The voice was very impressive last night; she has fantastic control, amplitude and evenness thought the range with spot on intonation but there is a coldness to her delivery that meant that I couldn't engage with her performance and her singing left me totally unmoved. I actually thought the best role for her currently would be the icy princess Turandot - she could do a stonking 'In questa Reggia.'
Musically the best thing about it was Pappano's conducting. We got off to a great start with a lithe performance of the overture - the ROH Orchestra almost sounding like a 'period' band and he judged the tempo of the sublime canon to perfection. I'd now love to hear him conduct some of Beethoven's symphonies.
The production was actually OK. The first act was naturalistic in a David McVicarish way (scene stealing horse!) but then Act 2 all got a bit silly but did have the advantage of being able to focus on the main protagonists (shame about the distracting video projections.) Fidelio is a difficult opera to pull off in many ways, not helped by Beethoven who begins in the world of Die Zauberflote but ends it closer to the Missa Solemnis. Along the way is some of the most sublime music written by any composer.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 10, 2020 10:44:11 GMT
tmesis said:
"Fidelio is a difficult opera to pull off in many ways, not helped by Beethoven, who begins in the world of Die Zauberflote but ends it closer to the Missa Solemnis. Along the way is some of the most sublime music written by any composer."
Following up tmesis's comments about Bethoven's changing musical style throughout Fidelio, I don't suppose Pappano does what Klemperer did in his Fidelio, which was to throw in a performance of the Leonore No.3 Overture. This rather disrupted the dramatic flow of the piece but, hey, Klemperer conducting the Leonore No.3 was a glorious bonus.
Is the Leonore No.3 Overture heard in the current production?
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Post by tmesis on Mar 10, 2020 11:45:43 GMT
No Leonora No. 3 last night Tony (it's a wonderful overture!)
I too cherished my classic vinyl recording of the Klemperer/Philharmonia Fidelio* which as well as the wonderful Vickers has the peerless Christa Ludwig as Leonora (unlike Davidsen much warmth in her performance.)
*I'm fairly sure there's no overture interpolation in this recording but I've heard other conductors include it at The Garden and ENO.
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Post by tonyloco on Mar 10, 2020 13:30:52 GMT
No Leonora No. 3 last night Tony (it's a wonderful overture!) I too cherished my classic vinyl recording of the Klemperer/Philharmonia Fidelio* which as well as the wonderful Vickers has the peerless Christa Ludwig as Leonora (unlike Davidsen much warmth in her performance.) *I'm fairly sure there's no overture interpolation in this recording but I've heard other conductors include it at The Garden and ENO. Yes, there is no Leonore No.3 Overture in the EMI recording of Fidelio under Klemperer but it is included in the Testament release of a live performance by Klemperer at the ROH from February 1961. There is online a detailed review of both recordings by KM.
As another TL anecdote, the chairman of EMI in the 1960s, Sir Joseph Lockwood knew nothing about opera but was stung by the great success Decca was having with its very vivid recordings of opera under producer Jphn Culshaw. The most spectacular example of this was Culshaw's Rheingold with its amazing sonic effects including the anvils in Niebelheim, the change in voice of Alberich when he put on the Tarnhelm and of course the crack of thunder and lightning when Thor swings his hammer towards the end. This recording sold like a pop album and people bought it in vast quantities to demonstrate the hi-fi equipment they had all been investing in since the advent of stereo! Lockwood was particularly annoyed that the principal producer of opera at EMI, Walter Legge, did not even like stereo and totally avoided any sound effects in his recordings.
When Lockwood heard that Legge was recording Fidelio at Kingsway Hall, he brought in a second team of recording engineers from Abbey Road who proceeded to add Decca-like sound effects to their tapes. The most spectacular of these occurred in the dungeon scene with creaking doors, clanking chains and plenty of echo. Lockwood had a test pressing made of this part of the opera and sent it to the principal London critics, who thought it was ludicrous and sounded more like a night in a haunted house than Beethoven's great opera. I suspect their replies to Lockwood were more temperate than that, but they all said tactfully that the sound effects were not really appropriate for this opera.
In relating this story many years later, Lockwood says he does not know whether any of his version of the master tapes were used in the final release, but there is no doubt that Legge would never have agreed to that and fortunately Lockwood was not able to ruin one of EMI's best and most iconic opera recordings.
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Post by jgblunners on Mar 13, 2020 9:58:45 GMT
I'm torn - I have a standing ticket for tonight and Kaufmann has called out again so David Butt Philip will be on. On one hand, I've heard that Lise Davidsen is excellent and it's always a treat to hear the ROH orchestra under Papanno. On the other, it is a little disappointing that I won't be able to see Kaufmann and with the current Covid-19 situation I'm not sure whether I should be cutting back my theatre attendance. If I had paid top whack for central stalls I would probably still go, but given I've just got a standing place I'm reassessing whether I should make the trip...
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Post by tmesis on Mar 13, 2020 11:23:46 GMT
I can't decide for you but on the whole I did enjoy it and thought it was good, but not outstanding on the musical side. David Butt Philip has an impressive voice and certainly sounds more youthful than Kaufmann at this stage in his career. Although I didn't warm to Davidsen's performance many others did and technically she's fantastic. As mentioned earlier, very impressed by Pappano's conducting and the production is OK. Also you don't get that many opportunities to see Fidelio - the last time was nine years ago (with Karita Mattila as a much more emotionally involving Leonore.)
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Post by jadnoop on Mar 13, 2020 12:25:19 GMT
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Post by vabbian on Mar 13, 2020 14:51:45 GMT
Out of the 5/6 times I've booked to see Kaufmann, he's only turned up twice, and one of those was because it was his own recital.
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Post by vabbian on Mar 14, 2020 10:32:30 GMT
My least favourite part was when Tweety Bird got lobbed across the stage.
Davidsen - fantastic. Butt Philip - unremarkable. Pappano - on great form (as always).
The second act was a CHOICE. Overall a very meh night at the opera.
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Post by Mr Snow on Mar 14, 2020 11:11:07 GMT
So they'd like my money 14 months in advance for a a singer who is a)prone to cancel and b)arguably already past his best and possibly in decline? (wouldn't mind but they could give a hint of what the programme might include could be tempted by something I've never seen before. ) I've made my choice.
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Post by jadnoop on Mar 14, 2020 13:32:45 GMT
So they'd like my money 14 months in advance... Yes, the long timeframe is definitely annoying. Having said that, I think the Barbican is generally pretty good about refunds (although not as good as the NT)
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Post by n1david on Apr 5, 2020 9:07:38 GMT
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Post by tmesis on Apr 5, 2020 16:02:39 GMT
No it's David Butt Philip. I think in the end Kaufmann only managed two performances.
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Post by n1david on Apr 5, 2020 17:58:39 GMT
Thanks. Not a huge Kaufmann fan so looking forward to seeing this just a bit more now given it closed at the ROH before the performance for which I'd booked...
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Post by Dawnstar on Apr 5, 2020 21:45:39 GMT
I bet the ROH are hacked off that they didn't manage to film it with Kaufmann to boost the DVD sales!
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Post by n1david on Jul 20, 2020 14:31:27 GMT
Showing on BBC4 on 26th July, 9.05pm
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 19:05:39 GMT
Well, I struggled through this on iPlayer. What was Beethoven thinking?
“I know, I’ll put all the B stories in the first half and make them wait for the A story - at which point I’ll inexplicably turn my feisty heroine into an over-emotional wreck and rescue characters that have zero hope of escape from a horrendous situation by...having massive political upheaval happen off-stage that miraculously saves the day.”
I think my GCSE English teacher would have given that a C. If she was feeling kind.
The singing was nice but I didn’t feel like it was anything exceptional...?
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