Gratuitous Friday – JK to Appear in Meistersinger (but not till 2016)

Wow! Talk about antici-    pation!

Here's a preview of the new Meistersinger starring Jonas Kaufmann (and probably some other singers, too...) at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The new production will debut in May 2016. At least the interviews are thoughtfully subtitled auf English! I am sure we'll have a Staatsoper.tv opportunity to see this from afar, but they haven't (as far as I know) published the 2015/2016 broadcast schedule yet. 

Meanwhile we do still have the (apparently quite bizarre, but it's hard to beat the singing) Manon Lescaut to look forward to this summer:

July 31, 2015, 7.30 p.m. (C.E.T.)
Giacomo Puccini: Manon Lescaut

EZ-Pass to Herheim's Meistersinger

If, like me, you are having a difficult time (particularly in the U.S) accessing this performance of Die Meistersinger at 3sat.de TV (and/or keeping it from freezing), some enterprising soul posted it You-Know-Where. Thanks to La Cieca for the tip. 

It's rumored that this production soon will be coming to the Metropolitan Opera. This announcement, in connection with the name Stefan Herheim, has already ruffled the delicate sensibilities of some regie-0-phobes. Not surprisingly, the outrage exploded before anyone has heard much about the actual production, much less actually seen and heard it. What I’ve seen so far doesn’t look nearly as freaky as, say, Herheim’s Parsifal or La Boheme; in general, I find Herheim's Personenregie thorough and convincing; so far so good, here. 

Act 1

3sat Television Online – Salzburg's Seasons and Mastersingers

Dorothea Röschmann and Michael Schade 

I was watching Haydn's The Seasons from Salzburg again. It is an über-Austrian wonder of music making, with Nickolaus Harnoncourt, Dorothea Röschmann, Michael Schade, and Florian Boesch fronting the Viennese chorus and Philharmonic. Papa Haydn would be proud! The oratorio is a hymn of praise to God and nature. The libretto is kind of hokey—maybe naïve would be a nicer way to say it—but the three soloists give it their all.

Unfortunately, the 3sat Television feed kept freezing. The good thing is the screen-cap above. When the feed froze on this image, I just knew I had to share it—two singers who love what they’re doing, and seem to love singing together. Here is the link to the Seasons feed.

Curtain Calls and Scene Changes

For some reason, when watching an opera video, I really dislike seeing the curtain calls between scenes and after each act. But I don't mind at all seeing behind-the-scenes stuff.  In the Met HD Elisir, I liked seeing the (excruciatingly long) set change between scenes in Act 1. In the Neuenfels' Lohengrin you can see the chorus getting ready for the final scene, and during the prelude to Act 3, there is a specially produced video of backstage stuff. But those are video-only bits. The audience in the opera house doesn't see that. It's part of the video production. 

This video continues past the Act 3 Prelude. 

The mice/rats singing of the Bridal Procession 

is pretty cool (and yes, a little weird.)

I guess that maybe why it doesn't bother me. Scene changes don't take me out of the drama, because changing the scenery is part of the production. I enjoy the mechanics of theater. Sometimes you even get to see the scenery changes right on stage (e.g., the wonderful Minghella Butterfly) and those changes really are part of the show.  Somehow that artificiality is not distracting to me.