Skip to main content

Thought for the day; Delicious Adriana


Yesterday, as the sun blazed, was a good day.
More importantly, I heard a blisteringly good sitzprobe of Adriana Lecouvreur.  Yesterday was a feast. I was like a kid in a sweetshop and it was entertaining to see the reaction of people who were in the theatre but who did not know Adriana, including more than one "it's my new favourite opera!". We of course did Adriana before in 2002 so we think we know it - and obviously, we do - but age and experience makes you listen differently and to hear the fluidity of the narrative music, the orchestral colours, the new interpretations of these particular singers and the very length, breadth and depth of the score is still - always - a revelation.

Outside the theatre, in the park, whose users we provide regular "free" concerts for during rehearsals and performances, people stopped, gathered, listened and chatted excitedly about this "gorgeous music", as if in shock that they had never heard something so sumptuous before, as if that could not be possible (e.g "surely I would know an opera so beautiful?"). One couple looked at the brochure and declared "this must be the Puccini one" (check the dates ladies and gentlemen). 

Of course, this last matter goes to the heart of something I have discussed quite a bit recently, namely the narrowness of audience repertoire choices, knowledge and assumptions. It is as profoundly depressing in late Italian rep as it is in Britten who during our recent Turn of the Screw found many "surprised" and shocked converts.

Cilea's music for this opera has that effect we will all recognise, when music will stop you in your tracks, interrupt whatever you were doing and just MAKE you listen. During the rehearsal, James and I had to discuss several things, just outside of the auditorium but still close enough to see and hear what was going on perfectly. It is unusual for both of us to be mute for long but it happened quite a bit as the cast and orchestra poured forth the melodies and the passion. And that is a nice feeling. You know that ridiculously febrile sensation when you see or hear something that you want to scream from the rooftops about, knowing that anybody else seeing or hearing it will be equally affected? Yeah, that one. Well, thats Adriana that is.

At a time when I am finding much to be miserable about in the opera world, yesterday was a vivid example of why I can sometimes claim to have a fantastic job; a hundred singers and musicians liberally broadcasting musical happy pills into the hot London air is not your ordinary day in the office.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gelb and The Met

Having posted a piece that was kind to critics and thus risking opprobrium from all quarters, I suppose I ought to be wary of writing a piece that is sympathetic to the current opera demon, Peter Gelb.  Let us be clear, I don't know what the detailed financial situation at the Met is, I don't know how its budgets are split and allocated, I don't know how much they spend on sets and productions. I just read selective figures used negatively and that is always something we should be wary of.  What Gelb and the Met are going through is probably entirely unique in the opera world given the scale of economics involved and the accusations of mismanagement that are being thrown around are hard to reconcile with some of the realities; it is certainly true, for example, that Gelb has taken the Met's turnover from $222 million to over $300 million in eight years which doesn't immediately suggest mismanagement, but that is as glib and superficial an analysis as anything else I...
9 comments
Read more

Journalists: keep it simple!

An open letter to Eva Wiseman Dear Eva I read your recent piece on the Guardian website ("Is there anything worse than a man who cries") with mounting horror. I also noted the nearly 3,000 outraged comments below it and, I have to say, you brought it all upon yourself. I have no sympathy, but I am happy to help you by explaining where you went wrong. The most important thing to note - and Eva, this will stand you in good stead hitherto should you hold it in mind - this is 2015. Why is that relevant? Well, this isn't 1928, for example, when a book like "A Handbook on Hanging" by Charles Duff could be published and people "get it". And you're no Henry Root, love, let me tell you. And can you imagine what the world would say now if Clive James's line about that Chinese president "whose name sounds like a ricochet in a canyon" was published on Twitter? There would be bedlam. You can't possibly hope to get away with writing a piece t...
8 comments
Read more

Sometimes, facts really don't matter to people

Since the Brexit vote, and especially since the recent Autumn statement, there has been something familiar nagging at me; the remarkable refusal of Brexiters to accept or acknowledge the facts set out by the government and in the OBR's forecasts. It reminds me of something, a feeling I have had before. I know that the expression post-truth annoys a lot of people, but it is a thing, it really exists. People, for whatever reason can knowingly refuse to accept bare facts when it suits them. It isn't a new phenomenon at all. I am bound to say, moreover, that I have tended to experience it in a malign sense, when the things people want to believe are unconscionable or driven by prejudice of one kind or another. Last night I remembered where it was that I had last seen the phenomenon and it was an experience that left me astonished at the time, but which also provoked in me a genuine disgust for my fellow citizens. I am afraid it is an unpleasant parallel scenario, but it was pro...
5 comments
Read more