Wednesday, March 08, 2006

More Mazeppa De-brief

A: so, not a lot of love for Mazeppa production wise
J:
in general or the T review?
A: basically all the press coverage was anti it seems
A: and Sieglinde
J: huh
J: I would never have thought intergalactic
A: yeah...I don't know where he got that
A: I guess the ponytails are kind of star trek in a way
A: but the cossacks came up with it first
J: right
J: he had lots of nice things to say about the opera and the singers at least
J: whoa
J: the original concept of Maria cradling Andrei but not knowing who he is is pretty neat too
J: damn
J: I fucking loved that opera
A: yeah
A: that is great
A: the way they did it with her singing to the freaky mannequin thing, while it worked, is kind of less dark than that
A: huh
A: there seems to be really only one modern recording of it
A: with Gergiev
J: yeah some of the same singers are on it I think
A: oh wait...there's also this from 1994
J: nice cover
A: hello 1994
J: I just sent you an mp3 of Ghena Dimitrova singing the end of Mazeppa
A: whoa
A: lovely
J: it is not as drawn out and wonderful as it is in the actual opera. it is off some recital disc.
A: right
A: I can't believe its two years til that Salome
J: wait which Salome
J: we shd go next year to the Voigt one in Chicago
A: the Met one
A: with Mattila I guess?
A: that is going to be one hot f'ing ticket
J: totally
A: you will have to keep it away from the others lest they get singed
J: hah

5 comments:

Maury D'annato said...

I thought Mattila had bailed on that Salome production?

Ghena=Love.

p.s. there must be some older Russian recording in mono I bet

Alex said...

Nuts. I did find her absence on the Met Futures page foreboding. Any sense of who would do it instead?

Jonathan said...

Congratulations Alex, you have been cast as Salome in the Met's production of SALOME! Good work.

Maury D'annato said...

KM I think opted instead to sing in the Jenufa revival that season, saying she didn't like the Salome production. Some were heard to wonder aloud if her concerns might not have more to do with the toll Salome was taking on her voice.

Alex: just remember the strategically placed steel wool for verisimilitude.

Anonymous said...

Just went to the Met Futures page and apart from the fact that Salome is blank in terms of casting, there was some other interesting bits:

Barenboim to conduct Tristan with Heppner and Voigt in 07-08 [starts saving pennies]

The Ring is listed for 08-09 but the new production is listed for 10-11; I thought the current production was retired?

From the House of the Dead with Chereau and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Hmmm, sounds interesting, though I thought the opera itself was sort of a dud when I went to the City Opera production in 1990.

Carmen directed by Matthew Bourne and Richard Eyre? What, does it take two people to direct it? Is Bourne just going to plop his Car Man production on to the Met stage?