Thanksgiving, opera-watching
Nov. 29th, 2018 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnD's parents, who are awesome, came the week before Thanksgiving, and we all enjoyed having them here. There was quite a lot of confusion as to what exactly was going to happen with Thanksgiving, given the smoke and fires and shifting of where-people-actually-were, but just about the time we had settled on spending the holiday weekend with K/B/D, we had to change plans again to staying home when Kid #1 was sick and then kid #2 was sick with something that laid them out with erratic but sometimes quite high temperatures for days on end. (E was miserable; A was surprisingly mostly happy except when his temperature spiked above 103, which it did appallingly often for several days.) Today is the first day in a week that we have not had a child with an alarmingly high temperature in the house. I was grumpy about missing K/B/D (I'm still grumpy about that, for that matter), but aside from that it was... actually... a really restful Thanksgiving, and we are thinking maybe we should have holidays at home more often.
Also (you knew this was coming) it meant I got to watch some opera, which I hadn't had time for in a while :D
Les Pecheurs de Perles (Massis, Grassi,Nakajima) - I... don't have a lot to say about this one. I liked Massis (the soprano). Grassi (baritone) was fine. Nakajima (tenor) was unremarkable, which is really too bad because I like seeing Asian singers on stage. That Duet is That Duet, and Bizet certainly writes prettily, but besides that I feel like maybe you need an extremely strong production to get over the gaping holes in the libretto, like, how does it make any sense for Zurga to set fire to everything? I mean, he's the king! And this wasn't an extremely strong production.
Macbeth (Keenlyside, Monastyrska) - Now this, THIS, was FREAKING AMAZING. I had previously only seen the extremely-regie Hampson production, which, well, Hampson was great, and the music is really addictive -- it's probably the Verdi opera that gives me the most earworms. But I didn't think much of it as, well, a drama. (I mean, I didn't think badly of it? I just didn't think of it, it was just Macbeth, okay, I've known the story in some form since age eight.) But this one, a sort of stylized-quasi-traditional ROH production (like, it's not super-period, and has some odd touches like a wire cage in the middle of the stage that might represent the fetters of the crown, but it's not super-regie), really brought home to me that it's a drama, about power and the lust for power and how it destroys you, and I was riveted.
Monastyrska was the big surprise for me. I'd never heard of her before, and her singing is fabulous -- and furthermore she has that quality of being exactly with the orchestra, even on those hard runs, that makes me fall in love with whoever does it. She was so good I was admiring her singing while the opera was going on, whereas usually with a good production I'm too caught up in the drama to pay attention to that until I'm writing up these posts later :) She's definitely the best Lady Macbeth I've heard (which, I mean, I haven't heard a bunch). Her facial acting is not as great -- she seemed to basically have two expressions, angry and more angry, which tbh is... kind of all you need to play Lady Macbeth, I guess.
Keenlyside is just devastating as Macbeth; he sells everything to me, from that first "of course I'm not going to go after the crown" to the terror of "Why could I not say 'amen'?" to the deadened sensibility of "...I'm going to kill Banquo, and his son," to that terrible moment where he finds out Lady Macbeth is dead, and that's what all his striving has been for: for nothing, because she's dead and he's going to die and what was the crown for, then, anyway? It is all just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and here Keenlyside's singing and Verdi's music just -- I just -- well. I get it now. (And I know it's a slightly different emphasis in the play, but.)
Another nice touch was that the witches show up every once in a while, and are clearly drivers of the action; they save Fleance, and they show up at the very end as if to say that the entire play/opera has been their design.
Next opera post(s), I promise, will be about Les Huguenots and the Chatelet Don Carlos :) (...speaking of which, shoutout tojustplainsavannahd: I saw your tumblr was gone; are you okay?)
Also (you knew this was coming) it meant I got to watch some opera, which I hadn't had time for in a while :D
Les Pecheurs de Perles (Massis, Grassi,Nakajima) - I... don't have a lot to say about this one. I liked Massis (the soprano). Grassi (baritone) was fine. Nakajima (tenor) was unremarkable, which is really too bad because I like seeing Asian singers on stage. That Duet is That Duet, and Bizet certainly writes prettily, but besides that I feel like maybe you need an extremely strong production to get over the gaping holes in the libretto, like, how does it make any sense for Zurga to set fire to everything? I mean, he's the king! And this wasn't an extremely strong production.
Macbeth (Keenlyside, Monastyrska) - Now this, THIS, was FREAKING AMAZING. I had previously only seen the extremely-regie Hampson production, which, well, Hampson was great, and the music is really addictive -- it's probably the Verdi opera that gives me the most earworms. But I didn't think much of it as, well, a drama. (I mean, I didn't think badly of it? I just didn't think of it, it was just Macbeth, okay, I've known the story in some form since age eight.) But this one, a sort of stylized-quasi-traditional ROH production (like, it's not super-period, and has some odd touches like a wire cage in the middle of the stage that might represent the fetters of the crown, but it's not super-regie), really brought home to me that it's a drama, about power and the lust for power and how it destroys you, and I was riveted.
Monastyrska was the big surprise for me. I'd never heard of her before, and her singing is fabulous -- and furthermore she has that quality of being exactly with the orchestra, even on those hard runs, that makes me fall in love with whoever does it. She was so good I was admiring her singing while the opera was going on, whereas usually with a good production I'm too caught up in the drama to pay attention to that until I'm writing up these posts later :) She's definitely the best Lady Macbeth I've heard (which, I mean, I haven't heard a bunch). Her facial acting is not as great -- she seemed to basically have two expressions, angry and more angry, which tbh is... kind of all you need to play Lady Macbeth, I guess.
Keenlyside is just devastating as Macbeth; he sells everything to me, from that first "of course I'm not going to go after the crown" to the terror of "Why could I not say 'amen'?" to the deadened sensibility of "...I'm going to kill Banquo, and his son," to that terrible moment where he finds out Lady Macbeth is dead, and that's what all his striving has been for: for nothing, because she's dead and he's going to die and what was the crown for, then, anyway? It is all just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and here Keenlyside's singing and Verdi's music just -- I just -- well. I get it now. (And I know it's a slightly different emphasis in the play, but.)
Another nice touch was that the witches show up every once in a while, and are clearly drivers of the action; they save Fleance, and they show up at the very end as if to say that the entire play/opera has been their design.
Next opera post(s), I promise, will be about Les Huguenots and the Chatelet Don Carlos :) (...speaking of which, shoutout to
justplainsavannahd: I saw your tumblr was gone; are you okay?)
no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 09:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 04:00 pm (UTC)But I’m doing okay, thank you for asking, and I can’t wait to see what you think! :)
no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 05:03 pm (UTC)Anyway, I don't want to bother you any more, but I hope everything goes well for you, and I will post on Huguenots once I finish it up. (Though it may take a while; note to self, what was I thinking to start this during Christmas season?? :) )
no subject
Date: 2018-11-30 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-02 10:46 pm (UTC)Also, the Chatelet Don Carlos is just. Very gay ;)
no subject
Date: 2018-12-03 05:02 am (UTC)Heee. I'm looking forward to it!
no subject
Date: 2018-12-03 05:18 am (UTC)Heh, as you know I am fascinated by terrible people in authority setting fire to everything (:coughs: Philip II) or themselves (exh. A: Javert), but I am on the fence re: Zurga. Supposedly Keenlyside sang him in an English language production, which I have yet to watch, but it sounds awesome, and if anyone could sell me on kingdom-burning-down, it would be that man!
...speaking of which, his Macbeth sounds awesome! Even if there had been a dearth of open-necked white shirts and aphrodisiac green goo ;)))Not that I'm looking forward to Chatalet Don Carlos, or anything...
no subject
Date: 2018-12-06 05:14 pm (UTC)Wait, is this English language production obtainable?? I know there's an English-language CD, which I've listened to on Spotify.
Keenlyside is wearing a hot V-neck white tunic, so, kind of? No collar, though, which I feel like is sort of part of the canonical Hot Open-Necked White Shirt :) No green goo, though!
eeeee Chatelet Don Carlos coming up :D (I blame