| re: James Levine passed away over a week ago | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 11:28 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 11:18 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
| In reply to: re: James Levine passed away over a week ago - singleticket 09:39 pm EDT 03/17/21 | |
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| The Met had Rudolf Bing, quite a character himself, Edward Johnson, who had been a singer before turning to management, Giulio Gatti-Casazza (who had led La Scala), among other managers who ran the house both the old and new. There were always great singers and some not so great, great conductors and others not so well-regarded or remembered. Bing actually raised a lot of the staging standard by hiring Broadway people and famous directors like Tyrone Guthrie and Alfred Lunt to direct productions. Unfortunately, Bing also didn't want competition of the old house with the new -- which isn't always said, but others have vouched that this is true. Even though the old Met had some terrible sightlines and bad seats, with very limited space for scenery, it could have been used for productions, but Bing didn't want anyone to compete; however, he did have NY City Opera at Lincoln Center (which he was rather a snob about and didn't really consider them a rival until he began raiding some of their singers). It's a real shame such a beautiful theater was razed. Levine raised the orchestral standard consistently, though the chorus wasn't in great shape really until the 1990s after he had been there like 15 years as music director and finally cared about hiring a fine chorus master. But he wasn't the be-all and end-all. That was a lot of Met-generated self-serving publicity. Others, and myself I might add, were sometimes very happy to get someone else conducting Mozart or Strauss, for instance. The Carlos Kleiber "Der Rosenkavalier" was even better than the rather overhyped, but still really good "Boheme" that he did. | |
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