Rosenkavalier Now Owned By Bavarian and Petrenko

[lennygoran]

Tommasini claims bavarian orchestra and petrnko now own Rosenkavalier after a concert performance at Carnegie Hall. Len


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/arts ... collection

[maestrob]

For those who can access the link, there's a link in the article to the WQXR website, where one can hear the concert previous to the Rosenkavalier by the same orchestra, which includes the Brahms Double Concerto. Very fine.

Thanks Len!

[barney]

Wish I'd been there! I did hear Pete Rose twice in the role, and it was as described. Fine singer though.

[John F]

Tommasini claims bavarian orchestra and petrnko now own Rosenkavalier after a concert performance at Carnegie Hall.

Tommasini is way over the top. I wasn't there; a friend was, and thought it a fine performance but not transcendent. You don't have to go back very far in time for much stronger casts, even in Munich, and though the orchestra is one of the strongest in Germany's opera houses it has never been the equal of Vienna's or the Met's. Does Tommasini not remember the Met performances conducted by Carlos Kleiber (with Pavarotti as the Italian singer) and Karl Böhm, or for that matter James Levine?

[lennygoran]

Tommasini is way over the top.

I agree-owning an opera that's only done in concert form--not only that-- the Met full productions have been exquisite--the old one and even the new one. Give me a full production-the work is after all an opera! Regards, Len

[barney]

Tommasini claims bavarian orchestra and petrnko now own Rosenkavalier after a concert performance at Carnegie Hall.

Tommasini is way over the top. I wasn't there; a friend was, and thought it a fine performance but not transcendent. You don't have to go back very far in time for much stronger casts, even in Munich, and though the orchestra is one of the strongest in Germany's opera houses it has never been the equal of Vienna's or the Met's. Does Tommasini not remember the Met performances conducted by Carlos Kleiber (with Pavarotti as the Italian singer) and Karl Böhm, or for that matter James Levine?

I agree with all of this, except perhaps your observation about the orchestra. I heard them twice in New York in 2016 at Carnegie Hall under Janssons, and I thought them vastly superior to the NYPO, whom I also heard twice. Better than the Met? Well, no. That orchestra is sublime.

[John F]

But I didn't compare them with the New York Philharmonic... And I believe you may be talking about the Bavarian Radio orchestra, which Janssons conducts, rather than the Bavarian State Opera orchestra, which was being reviewed. Lenny seems more interested in what he sees than what he hears... Oh well, to each his or her own.

[lennygoran]

Lenny seems more interested in what he sees than what he hears... Oh well, to each his or her own.

I want it all when it comes to opera--at the Rosenkavaliers from the Met I feel I made out very well--why settle for just a concert production. Regards, Len

[barney]

But I didn't compare them with the New York Philharmonic... And I believe you may be talking about the Bavarian Radio orchestra, which Janssons conducts, rather than the Bavarian State Opera orchestra, which was being reviewed. Lenny seems more interested in what he sees than what he hears... Oh well, to each his or her own.

Oops. Sorry. Yes, it was the radio orchestra.

[John F]

Lenny seems more interested in what he sees than what he hears... Oh well, to each his or her own.

I want it all when it comes to opera--at the Rosenkavaliers from the Met I feel I made out very well--why settle for just a concert production. Regards, Len

If you really care about the music - and in opera it's the music that really counts - there are excellent reasons for hearing it without the distractions of a stage production, whether in concert or on records. Especially on records, we can hear performances that are musically beyond just about anything we can see in an opera house today. And then there's what has happened to stage productions, with "Der Rosenkavalier" set in any time and place other than 18th century Vienna. Talk about distractions!

[lennygoran]

If you really care about the music - and in opera it's the music that really counts - there are excellent reasons for hearing it without the distractions of a stage production, whether in concert or on records. Especially on records, we can hear performances that are musically beyond just about anything we can see in an opera house today. And then there's what has happened to stage productions, with "Der Rosenkavalier" set in any time and place other than 18th century Vienna. Talk about distractions!

John I know others who feel that way-still I'll go with full production operas and keep my fingers crossed on the productions--the Met's productions didn't let me down. Regards, Len

[barney]

I've heard many concert performances, or even semi-staged operas, that have been deeply satisfying. Near the top of the list would be Kaufmann and deYoung's recent Parsifal in Sydney. But in the end the composers designed the operas as theatrical works, and I reckon that is their trust representation. Full performances get more things wrong, obviously, but when everything is right, well ...

[barney]

I offer as evidence the famous Zeffirelli La boheme at the Met.

[lennygoran]

I've heard many concert performances, or even semi-staged operas, that have been deeply satisfying. Near the top of the list would be Kaufmann and deYoung's recent Parsifal in Sydney. But in the end the composers designed the operas as theatrical works, and I reckon that is their trust representation. Full performances get more things wrong, obviously, but when everything is right, well ...

Barney I agree with this-even if the full productions get a few things wrong this is how we like to see our opera performances. Of course I love listening to opera and classical music at home and do that every day I'm home. Regards, Len

[John F]

I've heard many concert performances, or even semi-staged operas, that have been deeply satisfying. Near the top of the list would be Kaufmann and deYoung's recent Parsifal in Sydney. But in the end the composers designed the operas as theatrical works, and I reckon that is their trust representation. Full performances get more things wrong, obviously, but when everything is right, well ...

Of course most operas (not all!) are constructed to be effective in the theatre, and I've been to a great many outstanding stage performances over the years. But if we're speaking of what composers want, I don't know of any who objected to having their operas recorded, or performed in unstaged performances. Indeed, Mozart arranged a concert performance of his "Idomeneo" in Vienna because he wanted it to be heard there, and no theatre manager was interested.

My point, and of course I'm repeating myself, is that in opera it's the music that really counts, and hearing the music whether in an opera house, in concert, or on a CD is the essential experience. Prima la musica, poi le parole. We speak of Mozart's "Magic Flute" and Verdi's "Falstaff," not Schikaneder's and Boito's, and when we speak of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" it's his music, not his libretto, that we're thinking of.

Still repeating myself, it's not from staged performances but recordings that I've really learned the operas I know well, from "Giulio Cesare" to "Wozzeck." There are those - Brahms claimed to be one - who can experience "Don Giovanni" best by reading its score. I've said that a staged performance, whatever its attractions as entertainment, tends to distract attention from the music; and since a single opera may receive many radically different productions over the years, no production - not even the original - has a status to compare with the musical score, and its realization in sound.

This isn't about either/or but about getting the priorities straight.

[THEHORN]

I wasn't there for this performance, although I would loved to have heard it . John, the Bavarian State orchestra, which also plays concerts, is a wonderful orchestra, no doubt about it . I recently say a youtube video showing the overture to the recent Munich Tannhauser production with Petrenko conducting , and the orchestra sounded absolutely work class to me .
The production featured a bevy of gorgeous bare-breasted young ladies shooting arrows together in perfect precision during the overture !

[Belle]

I've heard many concert performances, or even semi-staged operas, that have been deeply satisfying. Near the top of the list would be Kaufmann and deYoung's recent Parsifal in Sydney. But in the end the composers designed the operas as theatrical works, and I reckon that is their trust representation. Full performances get more things wrong, obviously, but when everything is right, well ...

I second that. I've seen "Guilio Cesare" in concert (Theater an der Wien) and "Alcina" at the Staatsoper, as well as "Castor and Pollux"and "Rodelinda" at Theater an der Wien. Vastly better experiences as full opera, IMO. (Otherwise, I seldom attend opera performances but hope to in 2019 when we return to Vienna for another musical 'innings' lasting 3 months.) I disagree that opera is mainly about the music; why would librettists have bothered to take the trouble they do if this was the case? We might actually hear Schubert or Haydn's operas if music was the primary consideration.

And what's not to love about Kleiber/Schenk's "Rosenkavalier"?

[John F]

I disagree that opera is mainly about the music; why would librettists have bothered to take the trouble they do if this was the case? We might actually hear Schubert or Haydn's operas if music was the primary consideration.

The music is why we bother with operas at all. Only a few librettos are viable as spoken drama, and they were spoken plays to begin with - "Pelléas et Mélisande," "Wozzeck," etc. There have been a few productions of Hofmannsthal's "Der Rosenkavalier" as a spoken play but they were not a success even in Germany. On the other hand, orchestral suites from "Rosenkavalier" are concert hall standards.

Years ago I wrote an extended commentary in CompuServe's Music Forum in which I argued that opera isn't just drama articulated by music, though you might think so from reading Joseph Kerman's famous "Opera as Drama." In addition, or maybe instead, opera is a musical form articulated and made explicit by drama. Here's some of what I said.

Considering opera as chiefly music can integrate or rationalize various aspects of opera that are an embarrassment to the opera-as-drama people. Opera denies basic dramatic verisimilitude because the characters sing instead of speaking, and because they tend to repeat their words and music, often exactly and sometimes at considerable length. Moreover, they sometimes sing more or less simultaneously, in twos and threes or in choruses. Operas often have ludicrous plots and characters; this is not merely a function of changing tastes, since even the original audiences sometimes thought so.

Most opera performances also undercut the concept of opera as drama, starting with the fact that much of the sung text is not understood by most members of the audience, even when sung in their language. Moreover, the stage direction is typically routine or otherwise unconvincing, and the singers usually look and behave quite unlike the characters they supposedly portray.

Why is opera nonetheless so popular with composers and audiences? I suggested this:

In operas and other kinds of vocal music, the text provides opportunities for music to express emotions of many kinds, including the most powerful and poignant we know. Furthermore, the text makes those emotions explicit--or, put another way, the words interpret the emotional meaning of the music for us. So the text both inspires the music and explains it. Through the words we gain easier access to the feelings expressed in the music, and more easily make the connection with our own corresponding feelings.

In opera it's the dramatic structure - theme, dramatis personae, and story - that determines the composer's opportunities to write music expressing emotions. One might therefore expect that a librettist, with the composer's encouragement, might be tempted to offer an excess of opportunities, and focus on the most powerful emotions, even at the cost of dramatic coherence and credibility. Indeed that does happen, and not infrequently, with "Il Trovatore" the classic example.

Another marked feature of many librettos is the frequent inclusion of crowd scenes, providing the composer with opportunities to write for the chorus. Crowd scenes in drama are much rarer, and usually far less effective.

There's much more where this came from, but it will do. A stage production does some of the same work as the libretto to make the emotions in the music explicit, that is, when the production doesn't actually contradict the words the characters sing. But it is the least necessary and most expendable of the elements of opera, as is proved by the many, many thousands of audio recordings and radio broadcasts by which most people actually experience opera most or even all of the time.

[Belle]

Music and words go together like a 'horse and carriage'. One cannot function without the other. Opera cannot function to its capability without dramatic realization on a stage. Many theatrical elements such as blocking, glances, costumes, mise-en-scene and acting can add a great deal to the written word. And the music. A good director, such as the one I saw at Drottningholm in 2011 and "Don Giovanni", painted a character who was utterly poisonous but who had good music to sing. I left feeling angry about the Don.

And Mozart would very possibly not have created his phenomenal scores for the operas written by Da Ponte if he hadn't been provided with wonderful ideas to start with. It's a symbiotic relationship. The third dimension is performance (witness the enthusiasm for Otto Schenk's realization) and the fourth is the audience. Just standing up behind a music stand and singing sans context is, for me, rather a poor relation. And a major reason for the failure of both Schubert's and Haydn's operas was poor libretti. That and, in the case of Schubert, changing tastes. But that's no reason why they have both remained largely outside the repertoire.

We can 'read' Shakespeare in the classroom, or quietly and privately, or have a small troop bring a play to school but seeing Shakespeare performed as a play on the stage is the ideal.

And, FWIW, I regard recorded performances as the inferior to live concerts/operas/recitals.

[maestrob]

And, FWIW, I regard recorded performances as the inferior to live concerts/operas/recitals.

Back in the day, we used to listen to LP records and follow along with the 12" printed libretto booklet. Now that we have opera on video (either tape or DVD), I much prefer watching a DVD or tape with subtitles. I have a whole section of my CD wall filled with opera CDs, but I rarely listen to them, as the CD booklets of the libretto, with my eyes, are so small I cannot read them! FWIW

[John F]

Mozart would very possibly not have created his phenomenal scores for the operas written by Da Ponte if he hadn't been provided with wonderful ideas to start with.

Ideas, wonderful or not, don't make an opera. And Mozart created phenomenal scores for other operas, notably "Magic Flute," whose librettos lack anything like the distinction of Da Ponte's, or Hofmannsthal's, or Boito's. What Schikaneder's libretto for "Flute" provided Mozart with was many opportunities to write extraordinary music, some of it hardly operatic at all - cf. the chorale prelude for the armed men. And not infrequently Mozart makes something wonderful from words that are next to nothing and can gain nothing from stage direction: "Tamino mein! O welch' ein Glück!" "Pamina mein! O welch' ein Glück!"

Of course I enjoy seeing an opera in the opera house. I've spent countless hours and dollars/pounds/Deutschmarks/Schillings etc. on that recreation ever since I had money of my own to spend. Likewise on attending concerts, though there's much less to see. You should have a look at my scrapbook! And I've enthused here and elsewhere about some of those productions, including some unconventional ones; I traveled to Brussels to see Peter Brook's "Don Giovanni," though musically it promised nothing special, and felt it was well worth the trip. Even so, that's the frosting, not the cake.

[Belle]

I did know you had extensive experience with opera, but I stick by what I said. Nothing can replace the 'acting' and 'stage direction' in opera - it's theatrical elements - despite the one example you quoted. It's symbiosis and a way that instrumental music is not.