Category Archives: Idiots at the Opera

Not the NY Times – Metropolitan Diary

Idiots at the Opera, New York Stories, Politics and Culture, Theater, Movie, Event, Misci Reviews, true story

Coming home on the 1 train, a robust gray haired woman got on – along with many others – at 66th Street. I offered her my seat, but she said in a native accent as thick as our own, “No thanks I’ve been sitting for three hours.” She looked at my better-half, “Why don’t you offer it to him?”
I said, “I tried, but he’s been sitting too.”
She noticed his Playbill in hand and asked, “What did you see?”
Me, “Waiting for Godot. Patrick Stewart. Ian McKellan.”
“How was it?”
“It was a preview,” I said diplomatically.
The better half shrugged in agreement.
“I just came from the Met.”
“What opera?”
“Rigoletto.”
“Oh, the Vegas Rigoletto.” I said.
She did an eye-roll. She blamed Peter Gelb. As we headed uptown there was conversation about the unfortunate Eugene Onegin, as well as some other new productions under Gelb’s tenure, including the Tosca which she saw and we are going to.  Her theater recommendation was 12th Night with Mark Rylance – so we’re going. She mentioned $26 rush tix. Always a good thing.
God, I love this city.

And btw Godot and No Man’s Land two plays in repetoire have rush tix going for $30 each including facility fee (cash or credit).Tix may be available at TKTS as well, but rush is probably a better deal. They start selling them at 10:00 am day of the performance at the box office.  I got there at around 8, but could have come later as the line never got very long.  As for the opera, that’s another cheap date for the savvy.

(If you find any of these posts useful, or even mildly entertaining, you might want to check out some of Marion’s other work, like her novel or a shorter work.)

Idiots at the Opera — Notes on The Nose

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I’d never read Gogol’s short story The Nose, but watching the William Kentridge production of Shostakovich’s operatic version, it felt somehow both fresh and familiar.

Fresh because it’s easy to imagine how young Shostakovich was when he wrote the music, how new the century was, and how daring and exciting it must have been to create a new kind of opera – modern, antic, and absurd.

Familiar because of the source story’s influence both direct and indirect. A bureaucrat wakes up one morning to find his nose is gone. Then he discovers his nose is human-sized and living a life of its own. The story was written in the 1830’s, about eighty-five years before Gregor Samsa awoke to his own changed state, about ninety years before before surrealism, expressionism, and dada, somewhere close to a hundred before the birth Philip Roth, Woody Allen, and Mel Brooks.

The story´s  influence on Roth and Allen is unambiguous. Look at the giant breast run amok in Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex (1972), and then there’s the even more obvious reference in 1973’s Sleeper in which the future society’s dictator Continue reading Idiots at the Opera — Notes on The Nose →

Idiots at the Opera — Eugene Onegin — Why is Everyone Standing So Far Apart?

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This will be short, as there’s not much to say about the Met’s current production of Eugene Onegin that hasn’t already been said better by The New Yorker, The New York Times and assorted others.

The Times called the setting drab, and boy were they right. The first act takes place in what looks like a sun room, done up to resemble a sepia photograph from the 1870’s, the period in which this production is set. Everything and everyone looks drained of color, except for a dancer in a magenta dress, but even that harvest presentation lacked the joy it should have had. That’s a shame, because given the overwhelming – we are Russians and we suffer – theme, we could have really used some color.

The music has different emotional tones, including playfulness, but the libretto – unless something has been lost in the translation – moves from somber to depressing. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s why good direction is needed to find the nuance and highlight dramatic tension. Anna Netrebko, star that she is, does bring some underlying passion and sensuality to the famous letter scene, in which her character, Tatiana — a shy, bookish, young woman, pours out her love and longing for the eponymous character in a letter, but even here, Netrebko is not helped by the staging. Why is it set in the same room as the opening act? Since she’s up writing in the middle of the night, wouldn’t she be in her own bedroom? And when her nanny comes in, why are they standing on different sides of the stage? That’s a motif repeated throughout the evening – having singers stand really far apart from each other. Was it meant to show us their emotional distance? If that’s it, it was an awkward and self-conscious means of doing so.

There’s a lot of press about what was going on behind the scenes. Deborah Warner, who’d developed the production, which was first staged by the English National Opera in 2011, was unable to work on it in New York. She sent Fiona Shaw – her collaborator, who had to leave due weeks before the opening to fulfill another commitment. That may explain why the staging seemed so off and awkward, and the lack of dramatic coherence. Each act felt almost like a separate piece, with little sense of how characters got from here to there, and the blocking looked like something out of a high school production.

Singing Onegin, Mariuz Kwiecien was in good voice, but didn’t manage to convey the character’s charisma or glamour. Not having seen or heard the opera before, I’m not sure how much was due to the production or underwriting in the libretto, but the staging certainly didn’t help. At a pause, the better half, who’d read the novel (in Russian) in college, was trying to explain who Onegin was to me. He’s prideful and cold.  He thinks he was meant for better things. But how the hell could anyone think he’d do better than Anna Netrebko?

Pytor Bezcala shined as Onegin’s friend, Lenski, the suitor of Olga, Tatiana’s sister. Bezcala who is (unbelievably) in his late forties. brings a boyish charm and innocence even to dark roles like Faust and the Duke in Rigoletto. Lenski’s youth and impulsivity is a role that plays to his strengths as both an actor and singer. The highlight of the evening was the aria he sings while waiting for Onegin to arrive on the morning that these two now former friends are to duel. It’s a beautiful piece filled with nostalgia and loss. Bezcala’s rendition was perfection, and arguably the highlight of the night.

Oskana Volkova as Olga, has a smoky mezzo, and is well-matched with Bezcala (with whom she sang as Maddalena in last year’s Vegas Rigoletto). Dramatically and vocally she managed to suggest the depth of her character, who like Onegin may have been underwritten. (One of the first things I asked the better-half after it was over was whether or not in the novel we find out more about Olga’s fate.)

If the stage first came to life during the duel, then the third act, which begins in the palace of Prince and Princess Gremin was where it finally seemed to gel. Alexei Tanovitski brings emotional as well as vocal depth to the small role of Prince Gremin.  At last the stage has some vibrant color , and for the first time I “got” who Onegin was. It’s a scene filled with regret and realization, and it would have made a much more effective opening.

With or without music, translating a novel to the stage requires innovation to preserve the emotional essence of the story and create dramatic tension. An audience can’t see or hear “thought” or description – only emotion and action. Changing the linearity would have helped. If the production had opened with the ballroom scene at the palace, we would have gotten what we needed to know about Onegin. We would have even had some sympathy for him. The action could have then gone back to a shortened and less busy first act and continued, up to the last scene, when Onegin meets  a now married Tatiana, no longer the shy country girl whom he’d rejected, but now a sophisticated and married princess. Onegin’s final comeuppance would have had much more emotional punch.

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Please Don’t Make Me Burn My Tickets, Mr. Gelb

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I’m old enough to remember when people used to talk about Soviet Jewry. Religion, all religions were suppressed in the old Soviet Union. The Soviet Union while fervently anti-zionist, recognized Jews as a nationality – that is they weren’t Russians; Ukrainians, Kazakhs, or anything else no matter where they lived or how they long they lived there. They were Jews, but they weren’t really allowed to express any kind of Jewish identity. In addition to historic anti-semitism, there was institutional anti-semitism and discrimination throughout the Soviet era. I’m sure it’s still no picnic for Jews in Russia now. But back in the 1970’s when Jews were desperately trying to leave but weren’t allowed to, it was a really big deal. There were massive demonstrations in the United States in support of Soviet Jewry, primarily with the message of allowing immigration, as well as ending the policies that led so many Jews to seek it.

In those days, Soviet artists and performers no matter what their nationality were not allowed to freely travel. It was huge when they managed to escape their handlers and “defect” to the West. Imagine that. Leaving your country was “defecting,” proof positive of dissidence. It was historic when dancers like Nureyev or Baryshnikov sought refuge in the West. Sometimes defectors left behind their spouses, even children when they “escaped.” When Soviet performers form official companies made sanctioned visits to the United States, sometimes they were met with protests. But generally when visiting cultural ambassadors were performing in the US, we didn’t expect these captive artists to speak out against any of the heinous policies of their government. We didn’t hold it against them if they seemed to at least tacitly support the regime. What choice did they have?

However, let’s stretch our imagination for a moment. What if if back then, the Soviet Union had allowed some conductor and singer to travel freely, to even reside in another country without losing the right to return to Mother Russia? And what if those “free artists” had made statements in the past supporting their leaders? Now imagine a new “crackdown” on the Jews, new laws being passed that make it a crime to even speak about a Jewish identity, new semi-sanctioned pogroms. What if these artists didn’t even speak against that? Didn’t announce that they could not support those policies? What if one of them made a statement saying she did not personally discriminate against anyone including Jews, a statement in which she didn’t directly reference the crackdown or the specific Continue reading Please Don’t Make Me Burn My Tickets, Mr. Gelb →

At the Theater — The Golem of Havana

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They had me at the title, The Golem of Havana. They had my better-half as well. His father’s family briefly sojourned to Cuba on their way to America.

Tickets were cheap, and it was at La Mama in the East Village, a theater I probably hadn’t set foot in in twenty years or so though I once wrote a book set in the neighborhood.

As the band began to play, the BH realized with a little trepidation that it was a musical. He doesn’t like musicals — with a few exceptions. Fortunately, this turned out to be exceptional – one of those musicals where the music and story are integrated, where there is a serious theme and the music adds to the emotional impact. At intermission he paid the show the ultimate compliment. “It’s like opera,” he said.

The mostly equity-cast all acquitted themselves so well it’s hard to find standouts, though I especially enjoyed Felipe Gorostiza as Batista. He managed to make the dictator comically sleazy while also suggesting his dangerousness and superficial charm. Liba Vaynberg in the leading role was powerful, and if the world is just, she won’t need a day job for long.

The story is the tale of a tailor’s family – Hungarian Jewish immigrants, Holocaust survivors – struggling in Havana on the brink of revolution. The golem at first exists as a Continue reading At the Theater — The Golem of Havana →