Watching The Met Opera's daily stream, Wagner's Flying Dutchman (Der fliegende Holländer) brought back very strange memories. So looking forward to seeing this on a cinema screen at my upstate local March 14, 2020. $25 well spent. Twas not to be. And then 3days later the gyms shut down. Everything. Broadway March 12. Shut down. The Met have released this "scratch taping" camera rehearsal from the Tuesday performance (March 10) prior to the Saturday live-stream that cancelled. Even more strangely, this opera's story of a sea captain forced to roam the seas indeed has a ghostly prescience. Are we responsible for own destinies? Or is there a force more omniscient and powerful? The Flying Dutchman was Wagner's 2nd opera and ever since world-renowned. Composed in relative poverty, fleeing debtors, rejected by Paris but not by Jewish composer Meyerbeer whom Wagner later…but there's a fascinating story that isn't quite as simple as history might like.
Interesting opera in these times, also, because, isn't 7-years roaming the seas without 'a significant other' equivalent to a year of contemporary Covid for some folk with no-one. No comfort. No closure. This Met Opera production is helmed by film director François Girard who shot to prominence in 1993 with Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. Then in 1998 The Red Violin. There was a striking, simple 2013 Parsifal for The Met.
Now, this Der fliegende Holländer. It ain't easy to stage. Though can seem so. It doesn't have Verdi's dramatic 'maturity' for want of a better word. Nor perhaps was ever meant to be, more Harry Potter (well kinda) magic and belief in a parallel world. Perhaps. One either falls into 'a staging' or perhaps over-interpretation. One can only imagine, 'what would Wagner have envisioned alive in 2020'. Perhaps François Girard gets close. One needs the David Lean wide-shot. The Visconti 'dust' in your face (The Leopard). The Bertolucci close-up of The Conformist.
And conductor Valery Gergiev? Read something, somewhat lackluster in an august… But to my ears ….The overture is a famous orchestral staple. Gergiev doesn't disappoint. And for me who's in awe of Furtwängler's almost demonic interpretations. Or perhaps crazy angel dust.
This seems streaming for a few more days on AllArts (it'll probably bounce back as it was filmed in 2014)- Mozart's Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail. Doesn't it seem like a Covid staging in an airport (this is a REAL airport, real planes taking off, sounds adjacent relics in the now) without masks and…Great. Unmissable! The Salzburg Festival, no less. What is it with me and Austria?! Well, they just seem to lead a way….in a very unusual way...
Here's a link to someone who wants you to enjoy thinking. Thinking is by no means necessarily painless. Mine own dreams testimony to that! Whether or not you agree re: these 'methods' is in my view immaterial. The result is that one THINKS. Understandably, not act. At least think about the geography of one's mind. If that ain't too pretentious!
If you don't agree, well that's just, OK. Just don't leave with nothing. That's not OK. Cause there's a voice. Here that needs to be heard.
Amy Winehouse sings Mozart
Not sure ANDREW is always right. If everyone lived by Aristotelian wisdom then indeed the world would be a better place. Forever. Alas, leading a human to fresh water isn't always easy. Now, some may indeed argue, there are pollutants in THIS. But, in my view, the message far outcries the medium. Therein lies the irony of the medium, however nay-sayers cry tainted. The message becomes far greater than the message ever imagined. Could that be because of the purity of its love? And a shared belief?
Is The Light in the Piazza ever so slightly implausible? Well, no! There may be indeed a possibly less than happy sequel, but one easily believes in the initial premise. And that is what you see. And, oh my goodness, hear. Never got to see this musical, that by all accounts (though not some critics) was one of the most beautiful, moving experiences ever in their theater-going. PBS did record it. So maybe, in time, we will see more than excerpts.
This re-union chat streaming until Feb 7.
For the first time, the @metopera’s Beverly Sills Artist Award is being shared between singers. The 2021 winners, who receive $10,000 each, are
@morley_erin
@brendaraesings
@A_R_Costanzo
#BenBliss
@RyanSpeedoGreen
So great and brave American soprano Erin Morley as Sophie in Wien's Der Rosenkavalier before Christmas 2020 with no audience but streamed live. (I mean she must have had to hop on a plane, go into quarantine, be ever aware of the risks) Her Sophie inhabits such a great combination of naivety, insouciance, subtle savvy balls! Forgot to mention the one other great quality…;) Strauss' music always speaks for itself but when you see it acted as librettist Hofmannsthal would have wanted, then the who thing is pure magic. Forgot to mention conductor Philippe Jordan;)
Interesting corollary to all this: The Florida Project (2017) a widescreen film following Sean Baker's iPhone indie hit Tangerine (2015). [spoiler alert] but the kids final race to DisneyWorld isn't cynical nor sarcastic. Perhaps something other. Perhaps not better. Arguably, not worse. There will always be fallen angels. And there will always be falling stars. And there will always be there where the street where you lived.
FLASHBACK. Decades before…
Perhaps the one-thing I miss more than anything else under Covid is the Outsider Art Fair (The Antiquarian Book Fair running a close second; having moved their dates from March to September for 2021) The former has an online presence this year (some great Zoom talks from this week uploading to their website soon, and one can access viewing rooms without purchasing a pass for the 7 physical locations). Walking through that fair every year, one never knows what will bump into your eyes. One could say that's true of any 'art' fair. Something very special, though, discovering not just the work but the stories behind the work that prove equally important. The inevitable commerce is always somewhat of a problem for me but every gallery is different. And none could be accused of not having passion for what they exhibit.
