Sieglinde Intervenes in a Private Matter

(She knows from Rings)

Jonathan Evans, for example, is a 22-year-old student from Winter Haven, Fla., who has been an opera buff since he turned 13. He was on an Amazon cruise with his parents, Jim and Sonya, when they learned of the festival and its ambitious program and jumped at the opportunity to see Wagner along the great river. "I've got a 'Ring' recording, the Met version with James Levine and Kathleen Battle," he said. "But to be able to actually see part of the cycle in this incredible place, and for only $20 a ticket" - the best seats in the house - "how can you pass that up?"

A 'Ring' in the Rain Forest [NYT]

Dear Jim and Sonya: sooner or later, we find out the truth. Now that you know, the best thing to do for everyone's highest welfare, especially for dear Jonathan, would be to openly embrace him as proud parents of a "connoisseur." (Just be grateful he didn't turn into a Broadway aficionado.)

For the benefit of other parents of "questioning" pre-adolescents and teens, Sieglinde has organized (yet another) list for you. (Don't we just love Sieglinde's Germanic organization?) This time, it's a chronological list of telltale signs (specific to Wagner's Ring) your dear child is a "connoisseur" too.

1. Age 10, tells you J.R.R. Tolkien is a plagiarizer and fraud. (But still insists on calling his favorite teddy bear Frodo.)

2. Age 11 1/2, asks dad about possibility of moving the family to Valhalla, New York.

3. Age 12, wants to be fat, greets you "Hojoto-ho" from the school bus, and starts referring to you as Fricka in his fiuschia diary.

4. Age 14, "discovers" varsity "sports", switches to diet soda, and scribbles nothing but "Sieglinde" in his algebra textbook. If you have another son (more critically, a twin son) please read Die Walküre Act I synopsis pronto!!

5. Age 15, realizes Hildegard Behrens is too queer for devotion; listens to the Waldvogel in him and erects shrine for Kathy Battle in his room, amidst posters of Tom Cruise (Top Gun pose) and Rosalind Russell.

6. Age 16, obsession with Ring reaches crescendo; collects all types of rings, decorative and otherwise. (Remember that small, ornately studded leather thing you found under the sofa one afternoon and thought was a funky napkin ring?)

7. Age 18, chooses Yale over Harvard, leaves the Levine Ring home, and takes the Furtwängler Ring (RAI Roma, not La Scala) to New Haven.

[Side note: Those with short-haired daughters, only nuanced telltale sign: discussion at the dinner table about the Solti/Sutherland Ring. Everything else should be obvious and frighteningly explicit.]

The Emperor Speaks

Words, threats, vendettas; the whole stand-up routine


During the La Clemenza di Tito broadcast Saturday (07 May 2005), the intermission feature was another enlightening edition of Opera News on the Air, facilitated by (gutsy) Robert Marx. This week, it was a discussion of current issues facing the Metropolitan Opera with the Met’s General Manager and Supreme Master Mastercarpenter, Joseph Volpe. Sieglinde has summarized the most important points of the interview, as well as incisive clarifications and probable translations (in case things aren’t clear enough) for everyone’s benefit.

1. MARX (regarding the future of these “really extraordinary” live radio broadcasts from the Met): “How’s it all going?”
VOLPE: “Well, Robert, if you asked me that question two years ago, I would say that the future was not looking particularly bright. It was rather dim as we were running out of gas …”
SIEGLINDE: Yeah. Chevron. Texaco. Gas. We get it. Let's move on.

2. VOLPE: “Of course we started our broadcast campaign, and we have about 85,000 .. no, 8,500 contributors. The numbers start going, you know …”
SIEGLINDE: Usually the second thing to go.

3. VOLPE: “It’s expected that we would reduce our broadcast expenses, which we’re working on and we’ve had some success.”
SIEGLINDE: Aha! This explains “the Divine” Margaret Juntwait.

4. VOLPE: “We will also attempt to reduce the fees that we pay to the company and to singers, and and my hope is that they will be agreeable so that we can continue these broadcasts.”
SIEGLINDE: Read: This is an ultimatum. Either Voigt, Fleming, Mattila, et al. agree to a pay cut, or we’ll have to program more of Valayre, Crider, and Papian for these broadcasts. (Remember, Joe doesn’t mess around with threats. Ask Kathy Battle.)

5. VOLPE: “So my dear friends, I can say that we will have our radio broadcast next year, and I feel quite optimistic that they will continue.”
SIEGLINDE: *Let us all bow low*

6. VOLPE: “Now, long term, (the broadcasts) might also be carried in different forms; I mean, we’re looking and talking to satellite radio people and maybe we’ll have it over the internet. So a lot of things will happen in the long term future but for the short term, I’m pleased to say, that these broadcasts will continue.”
SIEGLINDE: What Joe really meant to say was: “Now, long term, (the broadcasts) might also be carried in different forms; I mean, I’m sick and tired of pirates on opera-sell making money off these “free” radio broadcasts, don’t you think it’s time for the Met cash in? Just look at Howard Stern and Martha Stewart. Satellite is the way to go, baby. And the internet, yeah, bitches! If people pay crazy for porn, well we got lots of the same things going on here every week. F*ck you all, po' folks who can’t afford satellite radio or a computer. We’re going upscale, where opera truly belongs … So a lot of things will happen in the long term future but for the short term, I’m pleased to say, that these free broadcasts will continue, so enjoy it while it lasts, cheap bitches.”

7. MARX (regarding the increased diversity in the current Met repertoire): “Is audience taste changing?”
VOLPE: “I was thinking about this the other day. Rudolf Bing produced Nabucco in 1960-61 season. It performed 10 times. The next time it performed was when we produced a new production in 2001. Forty years later. We’ve performed Nabucco in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005. We totalled 30 performances. Many of those, and I would say most of those, were sold out or sold very well. Now why did not Nabucco do well in the 60s and it’s doing extremely well now. Is that a matter of changing tastes? I don’t know that it is. I think one is the question of, it’s a very difficult opera to produce vis a vis the principals, so do you have the singers to cast it …”
SIEGLINDE: Right. Bing only had Rysanek. Thank the Good Lord we got the likes of Guleghina, Gruber, and Neves. Sure is better to have ‘em than that old tire Leonie.

8. VOLPE: “If you look at my 16 years, of course including next year, we’ve presented 26 premieres at the Met, of which 4 were world premieres. During the Bing days, he produced 11. Now I’m not suggesting that we’re better than he is, I’m suggesting that times were different.”
SIEGLINDE: Not news: Volpe thinks he’s the best Met general manager ever in the history of ever. News: Volpe would like to now use the royal “we” to refer to himself. (Ooops, I meant themselves.)

9. MARX (regarding the upcoming world premiere of Tobias Picker’s opera An American Tragedy): “Is there a particular pleasure in producing a new opera and taking it from commission to first night?”
VOLPE: “… and today, in the courthouse where the trial was, if you search around for old timers, they’ll even be talking about that trial … And the production team, Francesca Zambello, they spent time there also.”
SIEGLINDE: Oh, Fran Zam, that girl; was she on trial too for another American tragedy??

10. VOLPE: “Of course you have the (*pregnant pause*) pleasure or the problem of dealing with the living composer. And I mentioned earlier that someone said that the best composers are the dead ones, but I’m not gonna attribute that to anyone.”
SIEGLINDE: If there’s any more direct hit than this, Sieglinde don’t know her American from her Tragedy. (Speaking of "hits," I'm told Joe Volpe's middle name is "Soprano.")

11. MARX (trying to either rescue Joe, or, more likely, create a bit more tension): “And what is it really like to have a composer backstage working with you throughout the process.”
VOLPE: “Must I say on the air? (*Liszt Hall erupts in nervous laughter*) No, actually in most cases, it’s really quite wonderful. If you go back to Antony and Cleopatra, when it was being produced, and Franco Zeffirelli was working on the staging, and some on the libretto, and he would say to the composer, well I need more music, I can’t get this army on.”
SIEGLINDE: What Joe really meant to say was: “Must I say on the air? No, actually, in Tobias Picker’s case, I’d rather have the disaster of Zeffirelli’s rendition of Antony and Cleopatra, the immense motherf*cker failure of the opening evening of the new house, than this shit.”

12, MARX: “Anything about those old days that you miss or would like to recreate as you move towards your final season?”
VOLPE: “You mean, besides my energy?”
SIEGLINDE: Usually the first to go. (Thankfully these days we got prescription drugs for “long lasting” help in this department.)

13. VOLPE (regarding those domestic tours): “The tour was a time when you gave performances; you did not rehearse during the day. In a way, it was a respite. In a way it was a vacation, it was a break. …”
SIEGLINDE: Yeah, no rehearsals needed for concerts in Duluth, Detroit, Denver, and the rest of the backwater. What do they know from opera? (Give 'em that Aida, Boheme, Carmen. Vacation time! Wet t-shirt contest with Renée and Debbie! Must not tell Jane.)

14. MARX: “Is it possible to recreate (domestic tours), given the economics of opera today?”
VOLPE: “… quite frankly, it’s my belief that we should try in some way to reconstitute a tour … It would be nice if we could find ways to take the company, even in concert form, not with full sets, to major cities in the country and perform. I think it will be an incredible outreach for the audience.”
SIEGLINDE: Read: the impending demise of your regional and local opera companies. The big apple is coming to your town.

15. MARX (regarding the arrangement between Boston Symphony and Levine): “From the Met’s perspective has the arrangement worked successfully?”
VOLPE: “I think it’s really worked brilliantly. I think I should take some credit for that. (*Laughter*)
SIEGLINDE: Insert favorite joke here. (Too easy. Sieglinde's drawing a blank.)

16. VOLPE: “Knowing Jim, flying to Europe, to Munich, or flying to Vienna to do concerts, the jetlag connected to that, where Jimmy would come back and for 3 or 4 days was completely wiped out because his schedule … I mean, James Levine works night and day no matter where he is …
SIEGLINDE: Joe, is it Jim, Jimmy, or James? (I guess it depends on the topic of conversation, and who’s on top, or who’s chained to the post …) PS. As Sieglinde tells La Scala: Good luck!

17. VOLPE: “… Boston is a perfect location. You can fly up to Boston or take the train, if they’re running, to Boston and in no time have a meeting and come back in the evening.”
MARX: “We’ll definitely contact Amtrak for that.”
SIEGLINDE: Oh my god, it’s true. Stop the presses. Joseph Volpe, soon-to-be retired Met general manager, is running for public office!

Hairball

It could happen to you!

Talk about a dramatic exit.

Midway through the third act of Verdi's Aida Sunday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, soprano Marquita Lister suddenly quit singing and walked off stage.

The opera stopped, the curtain dropped, and 2,500 people in the audience sat stunned.

Lister - starring as the Ethiopian slave Aida - inhaled something, although nobody knows just what. Thousands of pieces of decorative confetti floated down from above during the three-hour production, and one could have lodged in her throat.

'She said it felt like a hairball,' said Judith Lisi, president of the center. 'She couldn't sing, and had to walk off. She was trying to gargle it up, but couldn't move it.'

Hairball or not, the opera must go on [Tampa Tribune]

No, Sieglinde wasn't there, but should have been, because she's an expert on both hairballs and confetti. (Tragic, she misses yet another freak show.)

This unfortunate accident highlights the disproportionate risks involved in "live" events. (Just ask any American Idol groupie or Carol Vaness fan.) Indeed, the unexpected could happen anywhere. At any opera house. Large or small.

Here's a list, compiled by Sieglinde's mole (planted among the Met's production crew and stagehands), of very likely scenarios for interruptions resulting from artists accidentally engulfing foreign objects during our favorite shows at the Met:

1. During a Salome, in the heat of the Dance of the Seven Veils, Maestro Valery Gergiev swings his arms up and down and out of control (typical), and accidentally swallows the toothpick that he uses in place of a baton. (Opera stops cold; soprano stands butt-naked on stage for three full minutes while terrified stagehands, all busy checking her out moments before the swallowing happened, scramble to lower the curtain.)

2. In the same Salome production (but a few short years from now), look-at-me-I'm-thin-as-Karita Deborah Voigt, during the now infamous Dance of the Seven Veils, accidentally swallows the sixth veil, filling up her now shrunken stomach and exploding it all over the stage, pit, and the first four rows of the orchestra. (Never mind the seventh veil.)

3. In a Tosca, Oceanliner Maria Guleghina accidentally swallows Samuel Ramey, the Scarpia, in a classic Act II tussle on the floor. (Ever intrepid, our trooper diva sings for both, up to the act's end; in other news, Ramey "retires" prematurely--finally.)

4. In most any opera, La Portaméenta Renée Fleming accidentally swallows a deliciously buttery floated high D-flat, which she released a few seconds before, but has found its way back onto the stage after touring her most ardent (but cheap) fanatics at the family circle standing room and side boxes. (Sieglinde is told in a vision that the ghost of the high D-flat will linger around the men's room up at the balcony level.)

5. During a routine Tristan und Isolde, on-the-diet-and-off-again Ben Heppner and always-off Jane Eaglen accidentally swallow one another as the tragic lovers rush towards each other prior to the bleeding love duet of Act II. (Conductor James Levine, lost in the depths of Wagner's world yet again, doesn't notice, and continues on until bitch-I-should-be-singing-the-Isolde Katarina Dalayman, the evening's overparted Brangäne, shreiks a high B upon seeing no lovers from the high parapet. Sieglinde doesn't know what she sees instead. Hairballs and confetti, not metaphysics, are what Sieglinde knows like the back of her hand.)

La Scala in La-La Land

Share this.

This prospect of opening up the roster of conductors [in the wake of the operatic ouster of Riccardo Muti] is apparently one reason that La Scala's musicians have welcomed Mr. [Stéphane] Lissner. Sandro Malatesta, a trumpet player and union representative, said he looked forward to "a gust of novelty," with new titles and top artists, including James Levine, music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, "who has never conducted here and I don't know why." Last week, during a quick visit to New York, Mr. Lissner talked with Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager-designate, about closer ties.

French Master Moves to La Scala [NYT]

Sieglinde says, good luck. Already, seeing our principal conductor conduct at the Met is becoming increasingly difficult, thanks to his competing commitments at the Boston Symphony and elsewhere. How can the Milano Zoo entice the maestro to give up a month of his time (factoring rehearsals) when he's already finding it a pain to shuttle between Boston and New York? Here's the situation: at the Met next season, Levine is set to conduct the new production of Don Pasquale, ceding Roméo et Juliette (new production), Mazzepa (Met opera premiere), and An American Tragedy (world premiere) to other batons (of variable quality). In addition, he conducts semi-exciting revivals of Così fan tutte (7 evenings), Falstaff (less than 8; he shares the run with Colaneri), Fidelio (less than 7; shares with Nadler), Lohengrin (measly 6), Parsifal (only 3), and Wozzeck (only 4). The total of about 40 evenings at the Met podium (accounting for the shared duties on Cosi and Falstaff, not including galas and performances with the Met Orchestra elsewhere) is probably the lowest it has been in decades. During his 3rd full season with the company (1973-74, at the tender age of 30), he led about 45 performances; in the 1996-97 season, he led more than 60; the current season (2004-05), he'll finish with only 48.

Meanwhile, I don't know what "closer ties" with the Met would mean. Could it be an influx of US-based artists into Milan's pathetic local roster? Well, here goes: I foresee the triumphant return of Renée Fleming (among the major artists who despise La Scala and/or don't sing there) in Norma, a work created for that historic stage, with Stephanie Blythe as her Adalgisa (company debut), conducted by James Levine (or if unavailable, the other American James, Maestro Conlon). Who shall be booed? What vegetables shall be thrown during curtain call? Deep questions. Plot thickens. Sieglinde *yawns*.