Saturday, March 20, 2010

From the House of the Dead

The Met broadcast starts in just a few minutes. If your local radio station - bitter laughter - doesn't carry it, go to OperaCast's Met broadcasts page and pick an Internet station.

6 comments:

Civic Center said...

Listened to it on BBC3 via the internet radio box. Janacek really was some kind of god, and the performance sounded amazing.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Yes, indeed. Anne Midgette had quibbles about Salonen, and based on the broadcast, all I can say is "What??" I thought he was great.

I also loved that long, long silence at the end, completely uncharacteristic of the usually-stupid Met audience. Could not, of course, tell if they were simply stunned by the end of the opera and that barrage of sound, or they couldn't tell it was over.

LinGin said...

I think it was both, Lisa. I wasn't at this particular performance but attended opening night and the closing matinee performances. It seems that when there isn't a curtain slowly dropping the audience isn't sure if the opera has ended. (Hint, Mr. Gelb.)

Absolutely stunning in house.

Lisa Hirsch said...

Thank you, Linda. I so wish I'd seen it in the house; I hope the Met revives it within the next few years. Or, miracle of miracles, it gets produced here.

LinGin said...

It is a co-production with the Met, La Scala and Aix-en-Provence so it might be loaned out to other companies. I know Chereau tweaked it a bit for New York and because he was working with a new conductor in Salonen. The production had been previously been conducted by Boulez. In the meantime, the production is on DVD from Provence with a different cast.

I can't speak to Ms. Midgette's quibbles but on opening night, after the chandeliers had risen to the ceiling (but not dimmed) there was a sudden blackout and the light went on in the pit and Maestro Salonen leaped onto the podium. And I'm not exaggerating. He literally leaped. It set the tone.

Lisa Hirsch said...

OMG! to the leaping Salonen. That seems out of character for him! He likes to tell the Finnish joke: you can tell an extroverted Finn from and introverted Finn because the extrovert stares at your shoes instead of his own.

The Laurent Pelly Daughter of the Regiment made it to SF on its world tour, so there's hope! The miracle would be San Francisco Opera deciding to stage a little-known opera by a non-top-three composer. Of course we have Makropoulos coming this fall, so...