tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post114002119817240386..comments2024-03-16T08:02:38.070-04:00Comments on wellsung.blogspot.com: Quality time with DagonAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15748408812275965064noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-1141800456404239302006-03-08T01:47:00.000-05:002006-03-08T01:47:00.000-05:00You know maybe I was watching a differant conducto...You know maybe I was watching a differant conductor than you were, because I thought Villaume was great. The act two storm has never sounded better (though maybe it was more the orchestra I should be praising. VCguy, I've never heard a sub-par performance from you guys.)Baritenorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16207379149791601246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18540063.post-1140113861728512112006-02-16T13:17:00.000-05:002006-02-16T13:17:00.000-05:00I am ambivalent about the production also. I say:...I am ambivalent about the production also. I say: MORE HALF NAKED MUSCULAR MEN in ALL Met productions, even if their presence is irrelevent and they're just standing in the background lookin' hot. All the better, as in the case of S&D, if they can be persuasively integrated into the drama. I wanted to take one of those soldiers home.<BR/><BR/>And how sexy is it when those dancers are planting white hand-prints all over the bodies of the other troupe members?!<BR/><BR/>I loved the orange and salmon tones. Striking and beautiful. And the slanting pillar of light in which Samson is turning the mill at the beginning of act III is powerful in its starkness. That said, I *hate* the set design for act II. It didn't help that at this performance the big "cone" downstage was losing its paint in SHEETS. It just looked cheap.<BR/><BR/>All the more impressive, I thought, was the singing at the end of act II. When Forbis and Domashenko realized that they were competing with disintegrating scenery, they really seemed to turn up the register of their performances. They went from hot to blazing.<BR/><BR/>Forbis' voice is fantastic, capable of truly heroic volume and tones. I was less attuned than you were to Domashenko's vocal shortcomings, but I did wish that she had lingered more over some of the phrases in "Samson, recherchant ma presence ..." at the begninning of act II. But that's just because I am used to Obraztsova singing the part, and I am in love with her sick, sensuous phrasing of that aria. As for Domashenko's "acting" -- I rather thought that her "vapmy ho" routine worked in regard to the production as a whole, reminding us, as it were, that *this* Dalila is ALL surface, an androcentric projection of a certain *kind* of femininity. Whether or not that was Domashenko's intention, I cannot say.Chalkenteroshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08435851223758000117noreply@blogger.com