pennywise, poundfoolish

Sonia Prina sings Cara sposa from Handel's Rinaldo

   Sometimes Scrooges don't know when to leave the counting house I fear.

        Since Prague is such a walkable city we had become accustomed to getting around town either on foot (mostly) or using the trams and the metro for a very reasonable monthly pass fee. Of course that was before I broke my leg. Old habits die hard, however, and unrealistic expectations about the rapidity of recovery from a broken leg cloud your judgement I reckon.

techie explaining the mysteries
of a smart phone

        I had been stuck in our apartment due to a string of bad weather days that left the streets treacherously slippery with ice and snow. Our son came down for the weekend from London in the midst of this. I had planned to go out for dinner, at least, since I couldn't possibly walk enough to see the sights, which he and road buddy would do together. But the conditions on the streets were too dangerous for me to go out at all and we all ended up doing take out here at the apartment. Something of a lost weekend for me, although it was good to spend some time with my son.

Rudofinum auditorium

        The streets and sidewalks were finally safe enough for me to try walking on them. I also wanted to try getting on a tram. There are different kinds and vintages of trams here in Prague. The newest ones are handicapped friendly in that they are low to the ground and an easy step up to the car. The older ones have three steep steps getting to the floor of the tram—very challenging for a recent broken leg. We were planning to go to a Baroque Ensemble concert at the Rudolfinum concert hall and took the tram for a practice run in the early afternoon. In the end I decided it would be better to go by taxi at night.

Sonia Prina singing an encore

        We called a taxi for 6:30 p.m. which picked us up at the front door and drove us to the Rudolfinum. The concert was excellent and the Italian alto soloist, Sonia Prina, was spectacular doing the agitata (agitated) style typical of Baroque composers such as Handel and Vivaldi. She sang a beautiful rendition of Cara sposa (Beloved wife) from Handel's Rinaldo. I found a recording of it on YouTube. [See link above]

        We had planned to take a taxi back to our apartment, but there was only one unmetered taxi which tend to cost two to three times as much as a metered one. I felt confident enough to try a tram, so we walked to the tram stop. There were no handicapped trams listed on the board and I was too impatient to wait for the next one so I stupidly decided to climb the three steps on an older car. Halfway up, the door that I was holding on to started to close and I lost my step and balance but managed to grab onto a pole for support, when a couple of very kind and concerned gentlemen helped me get back on my feet and to a seat, but I was rather shaken and still had to alight from the tram on the same high steps at our destination stop. I stood with with some trepidation and moved over to the door when the tram stopped. One of the same gentlemen, clearly concerned, helped me down the steps. People can still be good Samaritans it seems, although, if you go by the latest crop of Hollywood flicks since 911, the whole messed up world is in revenge mode. I guess it brings in big box office.  

Who are the clowns?

Vesti la jubba -- Luciano Pavarotti

Send in the Clowns -- Sarah Vaughn

CAUTION: This post may seem incoherent and confused. People of unsound mind should stop at this point and just listen to the songs. 

     Once in a while in this mad confusion we call our short time to preen and strut upon the stage of life, things seem to fit like the final piece of a difficult jigsaw puzzle. In a gestalten flash your life makes some sense as the final piece fits into place and the picture emerges. You are stripped to the core, without pretensions, and you must put your complete trust in someone else's hands. Your very life is in the hands and skills of other people, most especially the surgeon and the anesthetist.

      I consider myself an independent and self reliant person. I am said to be arrogant and aloof by friend and foe alike. The former understand that aloofness is a mask I wear to disguise a rather shy introverted fellow and they accept me as I am. The latter don't matter. It is easy to be self reliant and independent when your path runs smoothly (a phenomenon I call the 'Good Time Charlie' syndrome), but when, through accident, or carelessness, or taking things and people for granted your path is sundered as if it ran across the direct path of an earthquake, then you must drop the I-don't-need-anybody mask and accept unconditionally the help that you do, in fact, need to survive a crisis. Knowing this is both humbling and oddly liberating.

       Openly accepting and acknowledging your vulnerability has the obverse effect, contradictory as it may seem, of making you stronger since you are multiplying the number of people in your corner. It goes from the strength of one to the potential strength of an infinity of others, beginning with your partner and expanding out from there. You no longer have to be Atlas bearing the weight of the world on your own shoulders alone. This, I believe, is the most important lesson I learned from my recent brush with loss of mobility due to an accident in which I broke my leg in a city that isn't where I usually live and a language I don't speak. I had to trust in the goodwill and competence of other people and temporarily relinquish control of my own life to them. Having no choice I made the decision without hesitation.

So, what about the clowns?

       We all wear different masks in our interactions with the other (the not I). This is, up to a point, normal. We don't behave the same way in bed with a lover as we do in the barber's chair getting a haircut. Should we do so, our behavior would be considered inappropriate and we would be labeled as, perhaps, socially incompetent at the very least, insane in the worst case. So we learn early in life to wear masks. The consequence, in too many cases, is that we ourselves no longer are aware that we are wearing a mask and loose touch with the core of our own being. We no longer know who we really are. We are the clowns.

       The night after my release from the hospital for broken femur surgery, we were scheduled to go to the opera to see Mascagni's Cavaleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci. I was looking forward to it, but, during supper at our apartment I began feeling nervous and apprehensive about venturing out in public the day after my release from the refuge and safety of the hospital. My normal, pre-epiphany, stance would be to say nothing and wear the mask of I'm-fine-and-raring-to-go. I definitely wanted to go, but I didn't want to bear the burden of pretending, so I told road buddy the truth of what I was feeling. She simply gave me a nod and pat on the arm of sympathy and understanding and thus took some of the burden from me and I actually stopped worrying and felt more confident that I would be able to enjoy the performances. They were both excellent productions (with a slight edge in favor of Cavaleria); I was just enthralled by the acting and voice of the mezzo-soprano who sang the role of Santuzza in Cavaleria Rusticana. But it was I Pagliaccithat started the train (confusion) of thought that is ending in this post.

       I Pagliacci,(translates as The Comedians or The Clowns) and depicts how the stage and life blend into tragedy because of the necessity to wear the mask and put on the show. The main aria Vesti la jubba, (by Luciano Pavarotti linked above) entraps the man into wearing the mask rendering him unable to deal with a love triangle provokedby a jealous Iago type character.

      On a more happy ending note, I was also reminded of another allusion to the masking phenomenon. A Stephen Sondheim song that exemplifies and amplifies the missed and/or crossed signals that pass, out of reach, between, usually, people who belong together but don't realize it until some crisis or crises occur, and they realize that they have been the fools themselves. I refer to Send in the Clowns. One of my favorite versions is by Sarah Vaughn linked above.

...but is it opera?

Vladimir Franz [Wikipedia]

      OK, full disclosure, I have long been a fan of science fiction. But I had never heard of War with the Newts by the Czech writer Karel Căpek. My first contact with the piece was the working of the novel into an opera of the same name by Vladimir Franz, known informally as the “tattoo man.” You can see why on the right.

      The gist of the story is that some, shall we say, educable, mutant newts found in the South Seas are trained by humans to dive for pearls. Eventually the newts multiply and overpower humans in the conflict over land usage.

      The story is simple enough, but the story proceeds to focus on the human need to deny reality, and it's blindness to the harmful things humans do to themselves. The story pits the individual against the group. The group, being the group, establishes the zeitgeist, the perception and definition of reality. Obvious deviation from the group ethos, by its nature, threatening to the group, becomes labeled “heretic”, or non-conformist, etc., in order to keep the group oblivious of their constant denial of reality. Bobby, the young boy in the show, shows us the result of what happens when you can't deny reality any longer. Complex, I know!

*Bobby become
half newt

      My point here, though, is that this opera (at the Statni Opera in Prague) wouldn't work if you only saw it on one level. There is the music: dissonant, noisy, irritating, enchanting, the very well-paced music moves along with few dead spots—here annoying, there mesmerizing and compelling. It kept me focused and involved. It was fun and, at least one time, poignant. Above all, I think it works. It leaves you feeling uneasy; the intention of the composer I believe.

*overweight and badly dressed

     The stage set is fairly elaborate and colorful as are the costumes, which, I sat there thinking, reminded me of something familiar, then it occurred to me that they could be either a conscious or unconscious spoof of overweight, badly dressed Americans. Obviously another subtly amusing level of what is going on in this opera.

      It is, in fact, a remarkably astute satire on human nature in the 21^st Century. I'm sorry to say it's not very flattering to us humans. But I enjoyed it, it kept me interested right through the curtain calls. But, with an amalgam of musical genres of popular music seemingly mixed in, and the use of microphones (although for effect in certain scenes) you can't help but wonder if this is really an opera you are attending or a music hall, or watching TV or.....but it doesn't seem to matter much. It was fun!

cast and conductor of "War with the Newts"

* publicity photos from a critical article on the opera on the Internet

Come to the Cabaret...

...or: Am I in the wrong theater?

orchestra integrated with stage set

     What to make of the performance of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld we attended last night at the Berlin Staatsoper in the Schiller Theater? I've seen reviews that hailed this production as something of a fresh breeze blowing away the stuffiness and stodginess that this operetta has become. I don't know about all this stuffiness business, but sitting in the theater I soon noticed that the sound was a little funny. It sounded canned. We were sitting in the front row of the balcony. I noticed that there was no orchestra pit. The small orchestra was at the back of the stage. When the show started, we were close enough to notice that the singers were wearing pick up microphones on the side of their faces. That accounted for the funny sound. The singers' voices were amplified by loudspeakers on the walls of the theater...and not very well mixed. Strike One!

intermission 

     This production is billed, by the Staatsoper, as “an operetta in an unusual shape - without a large orchestra, but with combo sounds and absurd wit. The absurd and witty reworking of the libretto by Thomas Pigor and arrangement for small orchestra by Israel Christoph bring the disrespect of the original work to the full extend.” This is all well and good, perhaps, if you are presenting the “reworked” operetta in a music hall or cabaret. But if, like me, you expect to hear operain a State Opera House with the music fully intact and not a cabaret night club act full of “reworked” dialogue and comic patter that you don't understand, you might not be totally charmed by this bringing of “the disrespect of the original work to the full extend.” Question: if the original work was so disrespectful, why did it have to be reworked? Strike Two!

cast, conductor and orchestra taking their bows

                   With the shrinking of the orchestra, comes the “shrinking” of the music, especially the removal of the overture. I realize the overture was added later; still, I go to hear music not a stand up comedy act. I love stand up comedy and cabaret shows, but in their proper venues. If I go to an opera I expect to hear music, too much of which was missing from this “reworking” of Orpheus in the Underworld at the Staatsoper im Shiller. Strike Three!

    If you want disrespect, get a DVD of Liza Minnelli in the great movie Cabaret.

Lasciate ogni speranza.....

January 17, 2013 - Don Giovanni cast curtain call at Deutsche Oper, Berlin

signs reads "Abandon all hope"

Michael Volle

     “Abandon all hope...ye who enter here” reads the inscription over the gate to Inferno (hell) in Dante's Divine Comedy. It was also the theme of last night's production of Mozart's opera Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. The title role played to perfection as a world-weary dissipated looking Don with strong undertones of sadomasochism by Michael Volle a veteran baritone with a perfect combination of power, depth and even sweetness in his voice.

Alex Esposito

     The stage set, in keeping with the frugal spending habits of opera companies in these economic hard times, is, at the outset, less than minimalist—it is threadbare. Costumes look like cheap, off the rack, contemporary outfits. But what the set lacks in expensive costumes and scenery, is more than made up for in the energy of the performers. This is a very kinetic opera with the chorus going through all kinds of antics and semi-dance and acrobatic actions. There is a lot of broad farcical gesturing dripping with sexual innuendo including pedophilia. Yet it is curiously mechanical, almost detached from human experience, yet uproariously funny. Alex Esposito as Leporello is especially effective as a stage comedian with just the right touch of flippancy and lechery in his voice and actions and some surprisingly agile acrobatics.

Donald Runnicles

       As the overture, ably led by Donald Runnicles, wanes, the chorus emerges slowly from total darkness downstage into partial shadow moving upstage—one at a time at first and then in twos and threes and then small groups until they fill the stage. They all represent Leporello, the Don's manservant. The question “will the real Leporello please stand up” popped into my mind. The opening lines are performed by the whole chorus instead of with a lone Leporello singing solo. Echos of this multiple male characters imagery continues throughout the production.

      Patricia Cioffi's Donna Anna was flawless in her aria Non mi dir, and Yosep Kang was one of the better Don Ottavio's who, unfortunately, had one of his arias, Il mio tesoro, taken out of this performance. I was looking forward to hearing him try this most difficult of tenor arias.

      A notable scene occurred in the final act at Don Giovanni's supper. The table, the Don (as Jesus Christ) and twelve of the chorus singers were arranged in a tableau parodying Leonardo da Vinci's painting of The Last Supper.

Don Giovanni's Last Supper

     All in all a very original, thought provoking and successful production of Don Giovanni. Mozart the iconoclast would have approved I think.

Conductor	Donald Runnicles
Production	Roland Schwab
Stage	Piero Vinciguerra
Costumes	Renée List Erdal
Choirs	Thomas Richter
Choreographer	Silke Sense

Cast:

Don Giovanni	Michael Volle
Donna Anna	Patrizia Ciofi
Don Ottavio	Yosep Kang
The Commendatore	Albert Pesendorfer
Donna Elvira	Ruxandra Donose
Leporello	Alex Esposito
Masetto	Seth Carico
Zerlina	Helzel

Note: All photos [except the top one] are publicity photos taken from the Deutsche Oper web site.

gore galore

     At the Schiller Theater in Berlin

the Schiller Theater

intermission

      The Berlin Staatsoper on Unter den Linden was supposed to reopen this year, but the facelift on the opera house is apparently behind schedule and the Staats is still using the small Schiller Theater on Bismarckstrasse. It's great for us because it's an easy walk from our rental flat.

view from the cheap seats

      We attended our second show, a Sunday afternoon matinee of Karl Maria von Weber's opera "Der Freischütz," (The Sharpshooter) based on a German folk legend. This is not a well known opera and is performed mostly in Germany where they are fond of legends: old folk legends like this one, and legends of Nordic gods and heroes as in Richard Wagner's “Ring of the Nibelung” cycle.

     They start their children on opera young here, the audience was full of kids of various ages. Being kids they probably enjoyed the gruesome scene where a wolf is disemboweled in a kind of black mass ceremony to make a deal with the devil, a Faustian bargain—fantastically well staged with red light, wet looking organs from the chest cavity of the wolf, fake blood, dry ice for an eerie underworld effect. Lot's of fun!

the conductor, cast and chorus of "Der Freischütz"

Europe and Music Beckon the Wandering Spirit

Xmas Cake

       'Tis the week before Xmas and all through our house no visions of sugar plums dance in our heads. We aren't doing Xmas this year. Here in Japan, a non-Christian nation, it isn't even a holiday. The commercial aspect is big here, and a sort of tradition of eating “Christmas cake” (a few strawberries on white icing) on the “Eve” of the 24^th has taken hold. I used to have to take a paid vacation day when our son was younger and we made an effort to celebrate a semblance of the holiday with an artificial tree and stuffed turkey dinner (once we built our own house and had an oven big enough to roast it in). 

 

Prague, Theater of the Estates

       Although no sugar plums dance in our heads, thoughts of another season of music and theater do. Our plans are coming together for another winter opera “season” in Europe. First, we'll be spending January in Berlin attending operas at the Schiller Theater (temporary home of Unter den Linden) and the Deutsche Oper in the Charlottenburg district of the city. We've rented in nice small serviced apartment in Charlottenburg within easy walking distance of both theaters. Opera buffs might be interested in our schedule: Lucia di Lamermoor, Freischutz, Don Giovanni, Maria Stuarda, Orfeus in the Underworld, Tosca and Un Ballo in Masquera. We are also attending an all-Mozart concert with the Berlin Philharmonic. Neither road buddy nor I have been to Berlin so we are both excited and looking forward to a new town and a new experience. 

 

Vienna, Theater An der Wien

       In February and March we return to our beloved Prague. We have rented a charming serviced apartment near Bethlehem Square in an old building that used to be a convent. Our opera lineup includes: War with the Newts, Otello, Orpheus and Euridice, L'elisir D'amore, Rusalka, Turandot, Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, The Magic Flute, Die Fledermaus, and Carmen. Towards the end of February we return for a short stay in Vienna, after a two-year absence, to see the incomparable mezzo-soprano, Cecilia Bartoli, in Rossini's Le compte Ory, at the Theater An der Wien. 

  

       We are also stopping off in Istanbul and Ephesus for a week or so on the way back to Japan returning sometime in early April when the cherry blossoms bloom and the weather gets warmer. 

      HAPPY HOLIDAYS 

TO EVERYONE

 

Farewell to Prague - The Last Show...

Largo al Factotum - S. Sem

La Calunnia - R. Raimondo

Una voce poco fa - Vesselina Kasarova

stage set and chorus

...and what a show it was—Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Very tight and nuanced overture by conductor Tomas Brauner. Figaro came on strong with the critical first aria Largo al factotum delivered slightly cynically in a warm deep baritone by Svatopluk Sem who played Figaro with the brio and panache needed for the scheming con-man of Seville—with just the right touch of devil-may-care cool. Mr. Sem in the title role was by far the star of the evening. I was lucky enough to find a YouTube clip of Mr. Sem singing the Largoin concert in Ceske Budejovice here in the Czech Republic. The tenor, Martin Srejma, as Count Almaviva, started out disappointingly weak but warmed up sufficiently to share a skillful duet with Mr. Sem. His singing was good, but not great, for the rest of the show.

l. to r. - Sem, Vernerova, Srejma, Brauner, Horak

A wonderful surprise came with the role of Don Basilio as expertly interpreted and sung by Milos Horak in his strong and deep baritone. His aria La Calunniawas the second aria highlight of the opera. The role of Doctor Bartolo was played for laughs and sung with the great and versatile voice of Pavel Klecka. A true comedian with a voice that ranged from a quite high falsetto to his natural baritone he stole the show for comic effects.

With considerable regret I have to pan the performance of soprano Ludmila Vernerova in the important role of Rosina. I had seen her previously in a disappointing interpretation of Micaela in Carmen. Unfortunately she was just a bad in Barber. To my ear, her voice didn't sound like that of a trained opera singer, but more like that of a musical comedy star. In fact, I've heard better voices in musical comedy singers. Apparently the rest of the audience must have shared my opinion since applause for her was lukewarm at best. The irony, perhaps, of this performance was the wasted talent of mezzo soprano Sylva Cmugrova in the role of the maid Berta. She would have been much better in the role of Rosina, which is often played by a mezzo such as Vesselina Kasarova in a DVD of The Barber of Seville that I have at home.

Overall, though, the show was great fun for our last show of the season. We leave Prague a little wistfully with a wonderful opera season under our belts to return home on Saturday. Alas! I am going to miss this place.

l. to r. - Cmugrova, Klecka, Sem, Brauner, Vernerova, Srejma

Walking the last mile

Aria Martern Aller Arten - Jana was as good as Malin

Charles Bridge - Lesser Town gateway

We are into the final countdown of our stay in Prague and the feeling is becoming a little bluesy. Tonight was our last show at the Theater of the Estates and walking home felt like a man on death row's proverbial “last mile”. The walk to this particular theater has been unique in that we have to walk (no convenient trams) through the most beautiful areas of Prague to get from our apartment in Lesser Town to the theater in Old Town across the river--especially at night in winter when the streets are nearly empty and quiet. You can hear the sound of your own boot heels clicking and clacking on the cobblestone streets and sidewalks or, if you're really lucky, fresh falling snow crunching under those heels.

principal cast

best singers - baritone and soprano

Tonight we attended a rather mixed (but the soprano Jana Srejma Kacirkova was superb and baritone Zdenek Plech was excellent) performance of Mozart's Escape from the Seraglio and we were not raving about the show as we walked back across the Charles Bridge to Lesser Town. Our mood was somber and the streets were crowded with the Friday night testosterone rush of the college break crowd. I remarked to road buddy that I was feeling a little sad and lonely and she just nodded her head in agreement. Funny how you can feel lonely in a crowd when you're nearer the ending than the beginning of the journey. But it's easier when two people share the same loneliness.

conductor David Svec - the orchestra was very good

We have two more shows and a couple get togethers with friends and then it's T-Day on March 31. Those shows won't be so nostalgic since we reach the State Opera house by tram and subway—efficient and convenient but somehow not as, I don't know, romantic?

Road buddy says I'm a hopeless romantic.

Well, I've been called worse things!

In the Temple of Music

Temple of Music - Rudolfinum

Temple of Music - Rudolfinum

In a 1948 movie about ballet titled The Red Shoes the director of the ballet company, Boris Lermontov, is bored at a post performance party and declines to see a dance by the promising young niece (Vicky Page) of the wealthy hostess. The hostess hovers and whines and cajoles a little, but Lermontov asks her how she would describe ballet. She answers that she supposes you could call it the "poetry of motion". To which he retorts that yes, you could call it that, but that to him it is a religion that one doesn't like to see practiced “in such a place as this.”

Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

Jakub Hrúša

We attended a concert by the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of a very promising young conductor named Jakub Hrúša. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was impressiveto look at and a dynamite dynamic conductor—cut a lean rakish figure in white tie and tails and had the orchestra in the palm of his hands...or on the end of his baton.

They played three pieces culminating in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, one of my favorite symphonies. It was simply perfection. Hearing this symphony and Mozart's Requiem back to back it occurs to me that they are both swan songs. Mozart's Classical period optimism makes his Requiem sound like a paean to life, whereas Tchaikovsky's late Romantic period symphony seems more like the requiem of a troubled man at war with himself. Deep into the music, looking around the auditorium of the Rudolfinum, it seemed as if I were in an ancient temple to the god of Music and I was surrounded by worshippers of that deity.

This must be the kind of place Lermontov was talking about, where one would like to see one's religion practiced. I have to say I never saw more rapt attention on the faces of worshippers in any “church” I ever attended.

Think maybe I should change my religion....or maybe I already have!

Good Value for the money...

.... or (good bang for the buck)

the voice of God

Tonight I heard voices of the gods...or so it seemed.

There was a memorial concert at the music school just around the corner for the victims of the monster earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan a year ago. The choice of music, Mozart's Requiem,inspired us to attend the concert. That and the fact that it is just a 2-minute walk from our apartment. This Requiemis one of my favorites of Mozart's many compositions, but I didn't really understand why until I heard it played in this particular venue and with this particular group of fine musicians.

The concert hall struck me immediately for its visual impact. It was rather small and intimate and the interior design looked as if it had been done by a professional interior decorator in muted earth tones offset with blue and accents of wood and metal in the the organ pipes. It was a very pleasant space. But it didn't prepare me for the quality of the musicians and the acoustics in the auditorium. Words are inadequate except to note that it felt like being immersed in a bath of sound.

It was Mozart's Requiemwithout any doubt, but it occurred to me that this composition isn't really a dirge for the dead, it is a clarion call to the living. It is Mozart's final legacy to us, his final tonic bang. He seems to be saying: “Look , (or more accurately, listen) this is what it's like among the immortals.” In the Milos Forman film Amadeus (above link) the aged semi-demented Salieri admits that, in his music Mozart had heard “the voice of God”, but that he himself can not, and can only bear witness to the existence of (and assist in the link below) the godlike creative spirits who perhaps give definition to our idea of Creation.


the process of creating Mozart's Requiem in the movie "Amadeus"

Hearing this outstanding performance sounded and felt like being in a small moment of that ongoing Creation.

We had been informed before the performance that there would be no applause since it was a memorial concert. Instead, there followed a moment of thunderous silence which, to my mind, sounded louder than any standing ovation could have.

Not bad value for about 500 Czech Kronas—for two.

“Bravo” free evening

The Queen's aria O Zittre Nicht as it should be done

I am humbled. I've been singing the praises of non-mainstream opera “shows” compared to those of “top tier” houses, but the bubble has popped. I am no longer batting 1000; i.e., consistently better than average to wonderful performances in the “minor leagues” of the opera world. But, I was also reminded that with familiarity can come a kind of contempt, of taking things for granted, of being overly critical. Here's what happened.

We met a new friend (that my road buddy had met a couple days ago) at the Estates Theater here in Prague. We had a box that still had an empty seat and the lady bought it and met us at the theater. It was my first time meeting her. She was new to the opera world and we all talked about The Magic Flute that we were about to see. Soon enough, the performance began.

The orchestra seemed off somehow, not quite Mozart it seemed to me. One expects a livelier, more enthusiastic upbeat overture, but this one seemed a little, I don't know, tired. So, my critical filters started to go up and without going into detail the singers didn't seem to have that spirit that I associate with Mozart's operas. I rarely find Mozart tedious, but this production seemed to drag here and there. The singers made an effort, but just weren't up to it, I thought. The arias lacked brio and the comedy aspect of The Magic Fluteseemed to be relatively lacking. For example, the Queen of the Night's first aria lacked the power and guile that it needs to be effective. Der Hölle Rache was better, but still missed the driving anger and hatred that drives the Queen. The other principles also lacked the divine spark, sadly. The best performances were by the Queens three ladies. Their voices blended well and their acting timing was right on the beat.

At the intermission road buddy and I started dissecting the first act, oblivious to our new friend. She said that she had had a hard time following the story and asked us what we thought. We sheepishly blushed and murmured something like don't-mind-us-we're-too-jaded. So, I went for a pee and let the ladies discuss the story in Japanese.

After the bravo-free [on my part] performance, (and I had been hooting enthusiastically at all the previous performances we have attended), our new friend had had a revelation. It was her first opera and she had enjoyed it. Suddenly, she exclaimed: “Why, it's a show!” and continued to say how it wasn't just stuffy music, but included acting and dancing and comedy as well—a “show”. Humbled, we could only respond with equal enthusiasm, that yes, absolutely, she was quite right. It was theater.

But, not every performance is a great one. Sad to say. But, hell, this is the real world. And, overall, dollar for dollar or krona for krona or euro for euro, I still think the “minor leagues” have it all over the brand name houses of international repute (sometimes ill, in my opinion). Like it or not, when you've seen and heard enough of them, your critical faculty becomes sharpened and you can't help comparing a performance with others you've heard. As a modest example (modest, right!), I linked above to the Queen's first aria, O Zittre Nicht, by Diana Damrau. Exquisite!