[Itullian]

Next up.........................
March 18, 2023
Wagner’s Lohengrin
New Production
Please note: This opera starts at 9AM PT
Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Piotr Beczała (Lohengrin), Tamara Wilson (Elsa), Christine Goerke (Ortrud), Evgeny Nikitin (Telramund), Günther Groissböck (Heinrich), Brian Mulligan (Herald)

PLEASE NOTE EARLY START TIME
Looking forward to this

 

[Itullian]

Met starts an hour early today for Lohengrin!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Itullian]

One hour until Lohengrin!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Itullian]

30 minutes to Lohengtin!!!!!!

 

[RMinNJ]

This is SO good. Almost missed the early start but only missed some of the commentary. Really enjoying this one.

 

[nina foresti]

From the little I've heard of Tamara Wilson's voice, I am impressed so far.

 

[nina foresti]

Beczala was doing just fine but in this last act I am afraid his wobble is returning.
Am I the only one listening?

 

[Simplicissimus]

My station (WFMT) started at the normal time (noon), but canceled the program that usually follows. I'm enjoying this performance!

 

[Itullian]

My broadcast is delayed one hour too.
Just finished Act 2 and thought the singing was very good.
Act 3 to come.

 

[MAS]

Watched Lohengrin in HD. Not a single nice and steady voice to be found. Ugly production Lohengrin in Space. Everyone has costumes, but the title character was in street clothes.
Lots of people opening their cloaks; at one point it made me laugh. They also had lots of un-necessary movement. The chorus had dirty faces, but they sang gloriously. Those high tenor voices were beautiful. The bit after “In fermen land“ was fantastic.

If I closed my eyes I liked some of what Tamara Wilson sang, but she didn’t sound virginal. Quite a few wavery phrases. Her top was firmer and the high note in the third Act was nice.
I can’t believe Wilson sings Aida.

Beczala also had wavers in sustained notes, but he sang nicely. “In fernem Land” was given a hushed, rapt start, and continued hushed, gradually building up until he was full-voiced at the word “graal” and built to the climax. I’m glad he’s in better voice than the awful turn at Fedora, but he is not out of the woods yet. Towards the end of the big aria, his voice started to wobble when he put too much pressure on it; I think he’s a moving Grail Knight, but the role is not his yet - he needs more strength for the heroic side of it. And a rest.

The Telramund was weak (voice-wise). Both he and the Köenig Heinrich used side mounths to focus their sound (is that thing now? Scotto used to do that). As Telramund, he was too small voiced for both the high and low pronouncements. The Köenig was good and sonorous for most of the role, but lacked strength in both high and low - I don’t think anyone had a good low register; I suddenly noticed the voice disappear down low. The Herald was not commanding, except in gesture. I didn’t think he had the voice.

Goerke was a good witch physically - she is another wobbler, but she was always effective; she was very visible as a malevolent figure, bathed in red light. She was powerful in most of her scenes.

I think I can say I enjoyed the music despite the singing and the production
————————————-.

Side note: we had “previews:” of up coming productions. Lise Davidsen as the Marschallin, singing part of her monologue, very unsteady in sustained notes. Same with Eric Owens in a new opera Champrion, unsteady in his sustained notes.
There was also a snippet of Falstaff - looked like fun.

 

[Woodduck]

I'm glad I didn't see the silliness and could focus on the music. Wagner, of all composers, is the master of creating scenes in your mind, so better to have no visuals than weird ones. There were no vocal revelations today but the performance was strongly dramatic, with all concerned seeming to give their best. The main impediment to my enjoyment was not Goerke's strange vibrato or Nikitin's shouting but radio itself, which is still committing the barbarity of compressing dynamic levels to the point where soft music sometimes comes out louder than climaxes. The glorious prelude, seemingly well-conducted by Nezet-Seguin, had its buildup and climax totally destroyed by the knob-twiddling, and I realized more than usually how radically this nonsense can alter our perception of a performance. Why, in 2023, are they still doing this?

 

[ewilkros]

I'm glad I didn't see the silliness and could focus on the music. Wagner, of all composers, is the master of creating scenes in your mind, so better to have no visuals than weird ones. There were no vocal revelations today but the performance was strongly dramatic, with all concerned seeming to give their best. The main impediment to my enjoyment was not Goerke's strange vibrato or Nikitin's shouting but radio itself, which is still committing the barbarity of compressing dynamic levels to the point where soft music sometimes comes out louder than climaxes. The glorious prelude, seemingly well-conducted by Nezet-Seguin, had its buildup and climax totally destroyed by the knob-twiddling, and I realized more than usually how radically this nonsense can alter our perception of a performance. Why, in 2023, are they still doing this?

Haven't followed the broadcasts much for a long time, but as of 10+ years ago: the individual local stations compress even network shows like the Met broadcasts ar a different rate for each station, according to preference of the management of that particular station. Stations compressing a lot claim, if really really pressed, that people only listen to radio while driving and compressed dynamics make all the music audible over the constant road-noise background, and it's safer driving without sudden loud dynamics tp boot. Supposedly..

KUAT, a station associated with the University of Arizona at Tuscon, used to stream with little compression. Don't know what it's like now.

I used to know somebody who listened at home straight off the satellite feed (so no compression), but then he owned a few radio stations.

 

[MAS]

I'm glad I didn't see the silliness and could focus on the music. Wagner, of all composers, is the master of creating scenes in your mind, so better to have no visuals than weird ones. There were no vocal revelations today but the performance was strongly dramatic, with all concerned seeming to give their best. The main impediment to my enjoyment was not Goerke's strange vibrato or Nikitin's shouting but radio itself, which is still committing the barbarity of compressing dynamic levels to the point where soft music sometimes comes out louder than climaxes. The glorious prelude, seemingly well-conducted by Nezet-Seguin, had its buildup and climax totally destroyed by the knob-twiddling, and I realized more than usually how radically this nonsense can alter our perception of a performance. Why, in 2023, are they still doing this?

I noticed that even the sound on the HD transmission was glaring and glassy and in some of the more distant choruses (say, like after the “here comes the bride” music) were very - I don’t know what the word is, but whatever the electronic equivalent of “crowded” is, like digital noise over digital noise. With the state of the art equipment I imagine they have, this shouldn’t happen.

 

[nina foresti]

I was waiting for Beczala's "In fernem land" with bated breath. As far as I am concerned he deserves a big BRAVO! He came through despite a wee bit of wobble beginning. It happens with him when he gets tired near the end of the production.
I will get to see this live and am already steeled for a Robert Wilson-like production. (that's not good! I require eye contact.)

 

[MAS]

I was waiting for Beczala's "In fernem land" with bated breath. As far as I am concerned he deserves a big BRAVO! He came through despite a wee bit of wobble beginning. It happens with him when he gets tired near the end of the production.
I will get to see this live and am already steeled for a Robert Wilson-like production. (that's not good! I require eye contact.)

This is far from Robert Wilson-like. It’s crowded. It’s supposed to be “post-Apocalyptic,” and I found it really ugly. I won’t describe it so as not to spoil it for you - I often find that people‘s reaction differ from mine. Plus, seeing it the house is very distinct from the HD in cinemas.

 

[FrankE]

I knew there was something I had to this evening but totally missed it.
Listen again on BBCR3

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Wagner's Lohengrin

From the Met, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Wagner's Lohengrin.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[nina foresti]

This is far from Robert Wilson-like. It’s crowded. It’s supposed to be “post-Apocalyptic,” and I found it really ugly. I won’t describe it so as not to spoil it for you - I often find that people‘s reaction differ from mine. Plus, seeing it the house is very distinct from the HD in cinemas.

I only meant from the point of static body language and lack of eye contact. This is what I heard. Is it not true? Say nay and I will be happy.

 

[ScottK]

I only meant from the point of static body language and lack of eye contact. This is what I heard. Is it not true? Say nay and I will be happy.

Lack of eye contact is a major problem Nina! The production deserves all the things people are saying but I’d have cut the stage director at least a little slack if he had succeeded at directing 101…. get us to believe these people are saying things to each other and responding to what’s said!!! Maybe convince us that Lohengrin and Elsa actually like each other!! I thought Beczala in particular accomplished a lot given what he was up against in terms of direction.

 

[wkasimer]

Watched Lohengrin in HD. Not a single nice and steady voice to be found.

I had intended to go to the local movie theater for this, but other things came up, so I recorded the radio broadcast and just finished listening.

I hate to be a curmudgeon, but I'm with MAS - the singing was problematic, to put it mildly. Everyone seemed to be pushing their voices for maximum volume; I'm not sure if that's because the orchestra was too damned loud or because everyone was overparted. It was particularly distressing to hear what's happened to Beczala and Groissböck, two singers who once possessed beautiful voices. The former clearly should not be singing Wagner, not even Lohengrin - he's developed a wobble any time he sings at a volume greater than mezzo-forte. And Groissböck's voice sounds liike a dried out husk of what it once was. Early in her career, Goerke would have been a wonderful Elsa (the first time I heard her was in Boston, as Donna Elvira), but that's impossible to imagine now.

What's especially alarming is that when I saw this opera when the awful Wilson production was new, every single cast member was vastly superior to this year's group.

 

[VitellioScarpia]

I did not see the HD but listened to the broadcast. I concur with @MAS' and @wkasimer's comments. Very sad state of singing in general so count me as another curmudgeon. The conducting was OK but as @wkasimer says, it was perhaps at the root of all the forcing by the singers. It has been a while since I have listened to a Met broadcast and enjoyed the vocalism. I listen less and less often to their broadcasts. Thirty plus years ago, I used to listen religiously, as it were, to them.

Also, as others have said, I cannot understand in this day and age to have broadcasts compressed so badly that rob the music of any impact. Should stick with listening to records instead.

Both he and the Köenig Heinrich used side mounths to focus their sound (is that thing now? Scotto used to do that).

You can see the sideway grimacing by Groissböck in the Don Carlo scene with the Inquisitor in the Met snippet of this year. Scotto's gesturing was much more subtle than Groissböck's. The exaggerated gestures are distracting and it is certainly a coping technique to overcome his increasing malaise de la voix in order to focus the voice. Videos of a couple of years ago show him singing with the sideways grimaces — less exaggerated — and better vocal state.