In the former category, Met regulars might like to know a bit about two of
the new productions heading their way next season. The "La rondine" is
ours - ie. Covent Garden's - and very handsome too, with an amazing art deco
stained-glass
set, and very classy singers, though last time round we had Jonas Kaufmann
rather than Lasagna. The role of Magda suits Morticia to perfection. Pity
about
the opera......
The "Damnation de Faust" is a restaging of LePage's Opéra de Bastille
original that I saw there five years ago with Sabbatini, van Dam and
Larmore, and is easily one of the half-dozen or so greatest stagings I've
ever been lucky enough to see live, tirelessly inventive, invariably
apropos, utterly spectacular yet fundamentally simple, and with an
unobtrusively brilliant use of multiple video screens. Wait until you see
the retreating soldiers walk straight up a stage-filling vertical map of old
Nuremburg into the flies, or the whole of Luther's drunken cellar-full
appear from absolutely nowhere. And the Ride to the Abyss is unbelievably
effective as horses gallop across the screens in silhouette. And you won't
have to put up with Ozawa's conducting, or the orchestra's slapdash playing,
or the Bastille's grim acoustics....
As for the "something blue" see this, and marvel at European manners.....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IB9z2R34a5g&feature=related
It's available commercially on Dynamic DVD. You should see the Act II
set.....
SJT, whose freeze-frame's fair worn out....
