Upon hearing more of the closing of the New York Sate Theatre so that construction to the acoustically – as well as aesthetically, visually, and in other ways – awful theatre can be renovated before the new New York City Opera’s General Director (to be) Gerard Mortier, comes to town. I got to thinking, “who is this Gerard Mortier, and what does this mean to opera in New York and more importantly Opera in America?”
The first thing I did was think of the productions I know of from his current home at Opéra National de Paris. I immediately thought of this Ariadne auf Naxos (the clip above) where Natalie Dessay is whoring around as she sings “Grossmächtige Prinzessin” in an orange bikini. So many things are wrong with that…most of which is the idea that pasty white little Natalie Dessay had orange on…with pink hair I must add. It was not becoming to a woman of her very French coloring.
He seems to be a lot like his colleague from across the plaza, the Great Satan himself, Peter Gelb. I simply hope this doesn’t mean more puppets at Lincoln Center. At the Met they have been everything from really cool and trippy (Taymor’s Flute) to stupid and distracting (the little boy in Butterfly). I also hope that this doesn’t mean that I will have to go to other houses to hear the best signing from singers who don’t look like they came out of Cosmo.
I love Ruth Ann Swenson, who rocked Marguerite here in Cincinnati (after her acclaimed Met Performances of the same role…I saw it, and it was great… and Cleopatra) just after having her jobs taken at the Met by the Great Satan in his quest to stage with for skinny bitches. Ruth Ann is wonderful, she just is. I don’t find her fat, in fact I find her just right, and there is no one more suited to Violetta or many similar rolls. She is a darling in New York, as is Aprile Millo, but the Great Satan doesn’t like them so the world will not hear them in his house.
Back to the point: Mortier’s most famous so called staging was a Salzburg Fledermaus complete with heroin and crack whores. Seems like the Party was a sort of rave. I love that actually…but I would rather hear great signing then see silly pretty women rolling around in nasty outfits and shooting up. He also plans to stage a lot of crap.
Britten's Death in Venice
Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach
Janáček's The Makropulos Case
Adams's Nixon in China
Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande
Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise.
Needless to say, Valois will not be going out of his way to visit the NYCO.
3 comments:
Britten's Death in Venice
Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach
Janáček's The Makropulos Case
Adams's Nixon in China
Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande
Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Messiaen's Saint Francois d'Assise.
i am sorry. did i miss something here? Are you referring to this list of basicly masterpieces as "crap?" And you ARE writing about opera actually...? Dearest, and they wonder why americans are hated all aroun the globe.
BTW, saw Macbeth and Romeo and Juliette from the MET at a local movietheater. Now THAT is what i cal UTTER CRAP.
That sounds like a dream line-up of operas to me. You sound like the sort of reactionary dullard that obliges American opera houses to churn out endless outdatedly blinged-up, brainless versions of Traviata
For the author it seems everything composed after 1900 is crap by definition (with the possible exception of Bernstein, I suppose). Mentioning Adams and Glass in one go with Debussy and Stravinsky-- it hardly gets more ignorant than that.
BTW: Gerard Mortier was interviewed by a conservative European newspaper at a time he was still considered the incoming NYCO chief. They asked him if it wasn't too late to try to bring opera (or "Opera" if you so prefer) to the USA. His answer was no because there is a chance that after 9/11 the country was ripe to try opera after only having known Grand Opera till then. True, that.
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