| re: "The Opera House" documentary | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 12:36 pm EDT 05/26/18 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:27 pm EDT 05/26/18 | |
| In reply to: "The Opera House" documentary - Ann 08:22 am EDT 05/26/18 | |
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| I saw this some months back in the cinema. Great to see Leontyne Price again, and she still has most of her voice! It was lovely to hear her recollections and see her joy at seeing a picture of her frequent colleague, the great baritone Robert Merrill ("That's Bob!!!") and her admitting it was hard to concentrate so much on her singing when faced with the beauty and great voice of her tenor co-star Franco Corelli. If only the super-voiced and very handsome Corelli had been born later, he would have even more fame -- all the videos, concerts and tv appearances that Pavarotti and Domingo had! (Maria Callas should have been born later too for so few videos exist of her as well.) Ms. Price had one of the greatest vocal tops of any soprano, but in the passing years, people move on to the next. Some younger folks at the screening I went to where impressed but had admitted never hearing of her prior to seeing the film. One thing the documentary sort of touches on, but doesn't quite admit to is that while Rudolf Bing championed the new Met's being built at Lincoln Center, he also was responsible for wrecking the old opera house. But one main reason is not really given: he didn't want competition. It's not touched on, but having read his autobiographies, I know that Bing knew his opera history very well. When the Met Opera was started in the 1880s there was also in NY Hammerstein's Opera House (yes, from that Hammerstein family). Bing wanted the new Met to be the big prestige opera house -- though he did raid the relatively low-budget NY City Opera for some singers over the years. The Old Met looked really beautiful; I feel sad whenever I'm on the NW corner of Broadway and 39th by the Chase Bank, as that housed the former Met. Voices like Enrico Caruso, Amelita Galli-Curci, Rosa Ponselle, Lawrence Tibbett, Grace Moore, etc. used to be heard there and kind of haunt the place with its history. While the old opera house lacked backstage and storage space (the sets had to be loaded out onto the street every time they changed operas), it still could have possibly been updated or used in some manner, but it was razed nonetheless. I would highly recommend this documentary if you are interested in seeing about the building of Lincoln Center as well as if you are interested in opera. It has some great footage indeed. |
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