Kitty and Andrew have just watched Misty Copeland rehearsing Romeo and Juliet.
Andrew: We could do with a take 2, Kit. Your French is a little..
Kitty: I have trouble reading…
Andrew: I know, it's OK, you'll remember it. The original French is so beautiful, maybe you should learn it in French.
Kitty: Fourrure tombée…
Donmar Warehouse Shakespeare Trilogy (streaming free from Oct 9)
More sublime Balanchine this week from the NYCB. It's one thing to create great choreography in a solo, duet, or trio. To have the imagination and talent to envision what a company of A-list dancers will look like on a lit stage. There lies genius.
There are but hours left to watch the stream of Bellini's I Puritani, sorry but I need to see something before praising it or..(thanks to OperaVision). This is a star-sing vehicle, but never has there been a more pellucid interpretation of this work than here in Stuttgart, Germany. (Werner Schroeter did Norma but not Puritani, that would have been amazing)
This is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel does not want to die: culture constantly re-inventing itself, challenging itself, even against all odds. This production isn't about making anything, that horrible word, 'relevant'. It's about finding the emotional impasses in Bellini's bel canto work that can oft seem so distant in some terrible dramatic framing. Great cast, great chorus, wish I could have recommended this sooner. Simple, great ideas cost nothing. Those pronounced Puritan hand movements define this production. As does the innocence of childhood eternally caught in our time.
The Met Opera, New York continues its nightly free streams, so no one has any excuse not to have seen the entire opera repertoire by next Fall:) !! The Met Orchestra has a good point, though, when they claim there is a possibility of pay during Covid, referring to other orchestral collaborations both singularly virtual and live. And they are right that there are no labor costs for The Met during the shutdown (as much as one would like to pay stage hands etc etc) so it's hardly union competition. I had sober visions of all the Met Opera stage staff lugging (and singing with the chorus) a Fitzcarraldo opera house up a Central Park hill:) ! Who on earth would be our Klaus Kinski, though?! A sort of Va, pensiero, or is it Liberté, redescends des cieux…?
The great (in every sense of the word;) Stephanie Blythe gives a virtual live stream talk at Opera America tonight Wed Oct 7 (there is one on YouTube from 2012 if they don't allow this one to stream). When she sings American popular song, it’s as if she was born to do so, rather than Wagner [Something exhilarating watching this interview live. Inspiring and unmissable.] Sure they will upload this. Thank you Stephanie Blythe. A-list agents are indeed taking on new talent in Covid. But one doesn’t need an agent of yesteryear or the future to speak. That said, if you are not that great at fine print then you totally need someone who is! Love your inner stray cat. Be grateful for the kind food of strangers. Above all: you have learnt everything by going out on your own. Discovering the world, your ears always alert. Humans aren’t always that good a role model! Prove them wrong. Teach them to better listen.
