[Itullian]

June 4, 2022
Dean’s Hamlet – Network Broadcast Premiere
Nicholas Carter; Allan Clayton (Hamlet), Brenda Rae (Ophelia), Rod Gilfry (Claudius), Sarah Connolly (Gertrude), William Burden (Polonius), Jacques Imbrailo (Horatio), John Tomlinson (Ghost), David Butt Philip (Laertes), Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (Rosencrantz), Christopher Lowrey (Guildenstern)

Uh oh

 

[Woodduck]

Hamlet starts in an hour. Gird your loins.

 

[Itullian]

15 minutes to curtain

 

[Woodduck]

After an hour and a half of relentless turbulence without a tune in sight, I leave the theater and hit the nearest pub. Well, OK, I hit my kitchen for some comfort food.

To listen or not to listen. It's no longer the question.

 

[Itullian]

Sounds like a bunch of horror/sci fi sound effects to me.

 

[Woodduck]

Sounds like a bunch of horror/sci fi sound effects to me.

Skillfully done, too. The ghost was really spooky. So was everyone else, unfortunately. Mr. Dean should send his resume to the movie studios.

 

[Seattleoperafan]

I listened to Hamlet a bit and I know some of you think Thomas's Hamlet is junk music.... but I'll take it anyday... With Sutherland or Callas!!!!! God what a racket. Can't imagine anyone wanting to buy that opera and listen to it again.

 

[Woodduck]

I listened to Hamlet a bit and I know some of you think Thomas's Hamlet is junk music.... but I'll take it anyday... With Sutherland or Callas!!!!! God what a racket. Can't imagine anyone wanting to buy that opera and listen to it again.

I suspect that now that we can do almost anything with technology, opera will become more and more a stage show, and there will be little incentive to write music that's either singable or memorable. And yet, to judge by photos on the Met's web site, the production doesn't look all that interesting, with modern dress of indeterminate vintage and some anonymous, drab-looking interiors. The music itself summons up a dark, turbulent, nightmarish world. I guess you have to be there to get whatever there is to get. Anyway, I won't be seized wih curiosity come the morrow.

Hamlet

www.metopera.org

 

[Seattleoperafan]

I suspect that now that we can do almost anything with technology, opera will become more and more a stage show, and there will be little incentive to write music that's either singable or memorable. And yet, to judge by photos on the Met's web site, the production doesn't look all that interesting, with modern dress of indeterminate vintage and some anonymous, drab-looking interiors. The music itself summons up a dark, turbulent, nightmarish world. I guess you have to be there to get whatever there is to get. Anyway, I won't be seized wih curiosity come the morrow.

Hamlet

www.metopera.org

Not to disagree, but here Parsifal was staged with great use of hi tech background imagery that greatly added to the drama, but the difference was that in the case of the Wagner opera the music was sensational, not like the music score of so many of these modern operas with great staging that no one will be listening to on purpose a decade from now. Call me old LOL

 

[MAS]

I purposely stay away from any new operas because I’m always disappointed with the music and/or the vocal line. I don’t go to the opera for the staging, having seen that aspect of the presentation deteriorate over the years, just as the voices have.

 

[Tsaraslondon]

A propos of modern operas, I remember an old friend of mine (sadly no longer with us) going to a modern work at Covent Garden, which he found cacophonous and confused. Describing his experience, he said to me, "At some point in the middle of the second act, this woman came down to the front of the stage and started to scream with all her might. I turned to my friend and said, "I know exactly how she feels.""

 

[Woodduck]

A propos of modern operas, I remember an old friend of mine (sadly no longer with us) going to a modern work at Covent Garden, which he found cacophonous and confused. Describing his experience, he said to me, "At some point in the middle of the second act, this woman came down to the front of the stage and started to scream with all her might. I turned to my friend and said, "I know exactly how she feels.""

In this Hamlet, it seemed the people onstage were doing the screaming. Or was it the orchestra screaming? Or was it my beleaguered brain cells? I knew I had to shut it off before Ophelia showed us all how awful it could get with her mad scene, assuming she was scheduled to have one. What most impressed me about the score (and not in a good sense) was not its constant dissonance or the tuneless vocal writing - those we've come to expect - but the incessant churning of the orchestra. I remember reading an early critic of Wagner commenting that his orchestra never seemed to shut up but came at you constantly like the waves of the ocean, and we know how busy Strauss's music can be. Well, those composers' scores are positively restful compared to this piece by Brett Dean, after three hours of which, I can only imagine, the whole longsuffering band of musicians must have gone out to the nearest pub and gotten thoroughly smashed. It would seem humanly impossible to play so many notes, and the sheer excess of it must have been as wearing to the musicians as it was to my nervous system.

I found the following a respectful but critical review:

Brett Dean’s Hamlet Is Too Mad for Its Own Good

Yet there is method in ’t.

www.vulture.com

It's possible that somewhere between this nightmare and the French pleasantries of Ambroise Thomas is a great operatic Hamlet waiting to be written, but given the state of music I suspect the warming climate will kill off all life on earth except for cockroaches and tardigrades before that happens.

 

[MAS]

Thanks, but no, thanks!

 

[Itullian]

Next up and last of the season.......

June 11, 2022
Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress
Susanna Mälkki; Ben Bliss (Tom Rakewell), Golda Schultz (Anne Trulove), Christian Van Horn (Nick Shadow), Alice Coote (Baba the Turk), James Creswell (Trulove)

 

[Itullian]

^^^^^Anyone gonna listen to this?

 

[Woodduck]

^^^^^Anyone gonna listen to this?

Of course. A trip to the Met from here would cost me $1000 easily. I'm a sucker for a freebie.

 

[Itullian]

Reminder^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[Itullian]

15 minutes to curtain.........

 

[marlow]

Heard a bit of it last night. Didn’t bother.

 

[Itullian]

I thoroughly enjoyed the broadcast. i liked The Rake's Progress more than i thought i would and the singers sounded great.
The opera has moments of genuine beauty in it and held my interest.