The reviews for Aida are not encouraging:
- Janos Gereben on opera-l
- Jason Victor Serinus in SFCV
- sfmike at Civic Center
- Joshua Kosman at the Chron
- Opera Tattler at Opera Tattler
Neither is this YouTube clip of Micaela Carosi singing "O patria mia" last spring in London, with Nicola Luisotti, which left me rolling my eyes. Note the huge preparation and lunge for the top C, and the lack of repose throughout.
Choices to be made: keep the Aida ticket and trade the Nozze ticket for Werther? Trade the Aida ticket, keep the Nozze ticket (or give it to someone) and see Aida at the ballpark? Bag Aida altogether? See Aida in the house for Zajick and hope everybody else improves? It's especially dismaying that Luisotti was off form Friday night, because Aida has some room to be a conductor's opera.
If I were in your shoes, I'd dump the Aida for Werther and keep the Nozze tickets. Nozze is the better opera (even at hundreds of viewings) and I think Pisaroni would be worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteI've seen Nozze five times in the last 12 years, in performances that were all satisfying at varying degrees of polish and professionalism; if decently conducted and staged, it is nearly bulletproof. But I'm concerned about Danielle de Niese as Susanna, given both her reviews and what I have heard of her on YouTube. I'm willing to wait a few years to see it again, whereas I've seen three Aidas, of which the most successful was, weirdly, at Festival Opera in Walnut Creek. A matter of expectations: the two at SF Opera were so badly cast as to be hugely disappointing, whereas Festival Opera, performing in a 900-seat theater with slightly less-than-heroic voices, was a big hit because they were less ambitious.
ReplyDeleteSo it's tough. I could just buy a Werther ticket, after all!
SF's production of Nozze (one of my favorite operas) is drab and the staging tends to vary from vulgar to incredibly vulgar. Aida sounds the way I guessed it would be, uneven. Maybe you should go to Makropolus three times?
ReplyDeleteThat's an idea, given that Makropoulos will come around a lot less often than either Aida or Nozze.
ReplyDeleteI had exactly the tix you have, and I traded my Aida for Werther, because Hello Ramon Vargas I love you. Since I did that, though, I have discovered that I underestimated the corrosive effects of missing a Zajick performance. Any Mozart trumps no Mozart, and any Zajick trumps ho-hum Aida, but does Zajick trump snooze-fest Nozze? I'm seriously leaning that way. The box office is gonna love me.
ReplyDeleteOh dear. How did THAT happen? Up past my bedtime again.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering!
ReplyDeleteYou own the comments and can delete on if you like (or I can).
Would you mind very much deleting? Apparently the terror of missing Zajick has stricken me with temporary (one hopes) dementia. It becomes ever more apparent why I hesitate to comment on these erudite blogs!
ReplyDeleteDone! And don't worry about the duplicate - it's an indicator of passion!
ReplyDeleteDone! And don't worry about the duplicate - it's an indicator of passion!
ReplyDeleteYou could have it worse, Lisa, you could have a Figaro conducted by Placido Domingo, like at LAO in September/October. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteEven worse than that is the news that Domingo might re-up as LAO GD, which would mean another five years of mediocrity in programming, vanity productions and absentee directorship. *sigh*