| re: The Case for Peter Gelb | |
| Posted by: | singleticket 12:02 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
| In reply to: | The Case for Peter Gelb - LegitOnce 10:55 am EDT 08/06/14 |
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| Good piece. Thanks for posting. reviewing the production with the kind of wide-eyed horror usually reserved for coverage of “poor doors” in luxury apartment buildings. Not sure what you mean here. The critics are shocked at the inequity of poor doors or shocked that anyone should challenge the gods of real estate in choosing to put them there? The MET audience's reactionary aesthetics has always been a collaboration between the Parterre Box and the Family Circle. It's got deep roots in the populism of opera that came out of the European and Eastern European immigrant communities of nyc. It's part of what I've always loved about the Met. But that populism can get awfully phony and NY Post-like, monied conservatism speaking in or through an average Joe voice. | |
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| re: The Case for Peter Gelb | |
| Posted by: | enoch10 01:57 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The Case for Peter Gelb - singleticket 12:02 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
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| the only news piece that matters is the one that just came out saying the financial situation is worse than anyone predicted. i'd like to say stick a fork in him, he's done already but too much depends on how the current negotiations with the unions play out. if he pulls a miracle out his .. err, hat ... and comes up with a winning solution that makes everybody happy then who knows? granted, that seems like an impossible tasks but pulling off impossible tasks are what make great impresarios great. i don't think he's great. i strongly suspect he's done and he and the board all know it. i thoroughly expect him in the next two years (five if he successfully pulls off the union negotiations) to either suddenly discover a desire to spend more time with his family or some version of "accept new challenges elsewhere" will develop and he'll pass quietly into the distance leaving his mess for someone else to clean up. he can take his god-awful TOSCA with him. gelb's gotta go | |
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| re: The Case for Peter Gelb | |
| Posted by: | elmore3003 03:06 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The Case for Peter Gelb - enoch10 01:57 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
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| Amen! The man's a moron with no taste except he likes to think he's au courant by hiring whoever's the hot new kid on the block, whether they're right or wrong for the job. His productions and his taste stink. | |
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| re: The Case for Peter Gelb | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 02:08 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The Case for Peter Gelb - enoch10 01:57 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
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| If a miracle is pulled off at this point, it won't be Gelb who pulls it, given the statements he has already made. As I've mentioned in another post, the TOSCA is already scheduled to be replaced, but I don't remember when the new one is set to come in. | |
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| Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | NewtonUK 05:32 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
| In reply to: | re: The Case for Peter Gelb - Michael_Portantiere 02:08 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
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| ... and operas were being written apace ... here are some of the operas seen in New York. Interesting because the Met, in its 4000 seat barn, seems to ignore most of whats going in world opera since - well - maybe 1960? 1950? Below interesting operas, some good, some not so good, many worth seeing today, that Met did between its opening and World War II. (see below for SINCE World War 2 BEFORE WW2 ends 1882-1945 (63 years) 93 works Flotow's MARTHA Boito's wonderful MEFISTOFELE Thomas' MIGNON Meyerbeer's int'l hit ROBERT LE DIABLE Weber's DER FREISCHUTZ Boildieu's LA DAME BLANCHE Halevy's LA JUIVE Rossini's WILLIAM TELL Goldmark's QUEEN OF SHEBA Brull THE GOLDEN CROSS Wagner's RIENZI Goldmark MERLIN Nessler TRUMPTER OF SAKKINGEN Smareglia Il Vassalo di Szigeth Meyerbeer DINORAH Delibes LAKME Meyerbeer L'AFRICAINE Bemberg ELAINE Massenet LE CID Nikolai THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR Reyer SALAMMBO Paderewski MANRU de Lara MESSALINE Ethel Smyth DER WALD Auber FRA DIAVOLO Mascagni IRIS Catalani LA WALLY Smetana THE BARTERED BRIDE D'Albert TIEFLAND Flotow ALLESANDRO STRADELLA Franchetti GERMANIA Bruneau LATTAQUE DU MOULIN Lecoq LA FILLE DU MADAME ANGOT Converse THE PIPE OF DESIRE Lortzing ZAR UND ZIMMERMAN Dukas ARIANE ET BARBE-BLEU Humperdinck KONIGSKINDER (WP) Wolf-Ferrari LE DONNA CURIOUSE Thuille LOBETANZ Parker MONA (WP) Blech VERSIEGELT Wolf GFerrari SECRET IOF SUSANNA Charpentier JULIEN Montemezzi THE LOVE OF THREE KINGS Wolf Ferrari LAMORE MEDICO Victor Herbert MADELEINE Giordano MADAME SANS GENE Albeniz GOYESCAS Goetz THE TAMING OF THE SHREW de Koven CANTERBURY PILGRIMS Rimsky Korsakov LE COQ D'OR Mascagni LODOLETTA Rabaud MAROUF Liszt SAINT ELIZABETH Brothers Ricci CRISPINO E LO COMARE leroux LA REINE FIAMMETE Gounod MIREILLE Weber OBERON Hadley CLEOPATRA'S NIGHT Leoncavallo ZAZA Weis THE POLISH JEW Korngold DIE TOTE STADT Lalo LE ROI D'YS Catalani LORELEY Rimsky Korsakov THE SNOW MAIDEN von Schillings MONA LISA Riccitelli I COMPAGNACCI Mascagni L'AMICO FRITZ Montemezzi GIOVANNI GALLURESE Cornelius THE BARBER OF BAGHDAD Massenet DON QUICHOTTE Wolf Ferrari JEWELS OF THE MADONNA Giordano LA CENE DELLA BEFFE Spontini LA VESTALE Deems Taylor THE KING'S HENCHMAN Alfano MADONNA IMPERIA Korngold VIOLANTA Krenek JONNY SPIELT AUF Respighi LA CAMPANA SOMMERSA Rimskly Korsakove SADKO Mascagni IRIS Deems Taylor PETER IBBOTSON Mussorgsky FAIR AT SOROCHNITZY von Supper DONNA JUANITA Montemezzi NIGHT OF ZORAIMA Weinberger SCHWANDA THE BAGPIPER Gruenberg THE EMPEROR JONES Donizetti LINDA DI CHAMOUNIX Hanson MEERY MOUNT Cimarosa MATRIMONIO SEGRETO Damrosch MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY Menotti AMELIA GOES TO THE BALL Menotti THE ISLAND GOD rogers Corwin THE WARRIOR SINCE WORLD WAR II AT THE MET (1946-2014, 68 years) 31 works Barber VANESSA Menotti THE LAST SAVAGE Barber ANTONY & CLEOPATRA Levy MOURNING BECOMES ELEKTRA Britten DEATH IN VENICE Rossini SIEGE OF CORINTH Massenet ESCLARMONDE Britten BILLY BUDD Zandonai FRANCESCA DA RIMINI Handel RINALDO Corgliano GHOSTS OF VERSAILLE Glass THE VOYAGE Verdi I LOMBARDI Verdi STIFFELIO Britten A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM Schoenberg MOSES UND ARON Harbison THE GREAT GATSBY Busoni DOKTOR FAUST Prokofiev THE GAMBLER Wolf Ferrari SLY Previn A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Prokofiev WAR & PEACE Alfano CYRANO Picker AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY Tchaikivsky MAZEPPA Glass SATYAGRAHA Adams DOCTOR ATOMIC Janacek FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD Ades THE TEMPEST Muny TWO BOYS Glinka PRINCE IGOR Composers of note whom the Met has ignored: Michael Tippett, von Einem, Salinnen, Kokkonen, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Ligeti, Paulus, Henze, Messiaen, Argento, Birtwistle, Rihm, Maxwell davies, Rautavaara, Schnittke, Bryars, Saariaho, Heggie, Turnage, Goolijov, Neuwirth, Dove, Wouorronin | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | bwaydiva1 11:32 am EDT 08/07/14 |
| In reply to: | Back when the met was young ... - NewtonUK 05:32 pm EDT 08/06/14 |
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| Heggie should have had "Dead Man Walking" at the Met with Joyce DiDonato. (Paging Mr. Gelb-she could still do it-and she brings in a lot of people.) | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 09:05 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - bwaydiva1 11:32 am EDT 08/07/14 |
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| "Dead Man Walking"-- with Joyce DiDonato in fact -- played at the New York City Opera in 2002, four years before Gelb came to the Met, and it got lousy reviews then. But by all means, use the fact that Gelb has not revived an opera that failed at NYCO barely a decade agao, and with the same leading singer to boot, as proof of his incompetence. Armchair artistic direction is easy when one is utterly ignorant of history. | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 09:10 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - LegitOnce 09:05 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
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| For example, "...when the score to a new American opera is as uneven as Mr. Heggie's, the popularity of the work is a more problematic matter.... Mr. Heggie's music, which, though professional and ardent, softens the edges of the grisly story. The score lacks the gravity, and subtlety, to deal with this subject. Echoes of Barber, Copland, Gershwin and especially Bernstein are too close to the surface. The vernacular music Mr. Heggie composes is quite tame, like the gospel tune that Sister Helen teaches the children at Hope House, the school she runs. Stronger composers evoke vernacular song and dance by adding some contemporary twists of their own." | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | Chromolume 11:24 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - LegitOnce 09:10 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
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| Yeah, but you know what? A composer just can't win anymore. Either the music is deemed "unhummable/unmemorable/unmelodic" etc, or the music is automatically compared to recognizable styles of past composers. It's getting harder and harder to not be condemned for either being too melodic, or not melodic enough. | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | LegitOnce 01:18 am EDT 08/08/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - Chromolume 11:24 pm EDT 08/07/14 |
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| I don't know that I agree with you. I review around eight or 10 new works a year, and looking back at my reviews, I find I'm pretty positive about the music half the time or maybe a little more. Alex Ross of the New Yorker I think does a really heroic job of seeking out and understanding new music, and the writers at the New York Times, even if their tastes are pretty diverse, do try to meet the composers halfway. I was blown away, for example, by Gregory Spears' opera Paul's Case last winter: it was original and just radiantly beautiful, and I hope I was able to express that in my review. Some other new pieces I heard that week I was not quite so enthusiastic about, but I don't think it's fair to say that a composer "can't win." | |
| Link | New York Observer |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | Chromolume 09:02 am EDT 08/08/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - LegitOnce 01:18 am EDT 08/08/14 |
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| Maybe it's just that you try to do a better, more objective (and enthusiastic) job than many. And I applaud you for that. ;-) | |
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| re: Back when the met was young ... | |
| Posted by: | Michael_Portantiere 12:22 am EDT 08/10/14 |
| In reply to: | re: Back when the met was young ... - Chromolume 09:02 am EDT 08/08/14 |
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| "Maybe it's just that you try to do a better, more objective (and enthusiastic) job than many." I don't think someone's general reviewing style can be "objective" and "enthusiastic" at the same time, but at any rate, many people would say that objectivity in reviewing art is both unattainable and undesirable. | |
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