Dance of the Seven Hundred Craning Tourist Necks
So I went to see the Berliner Staatsoper last night. Richard Strauss' Salome. It was a really good performance. I think I inherited a biological fear of bad tenors from our mother, but the dude singing Herod was actually quite good. The brass in the pit, as per usual, took the R. Strauss at the top of the page as an invitation to blow the shit out of their instruments, which is, of course, wonderful to hear, all those horns and trombones on the edge of proper intonation, playing so loud its hard to keep from distorting. Wunderbar!
My stated dislikes, in the musical world, include Romantic-era Opera and Richard Strauss (with the caveats of Tod und Verklarung, the last 4 Lieder, and Metamorphosen), so the fact that I didn't fall asleep during this concert attest to its goodness (and maybe also its shortness?). One of my great claims to fame is sleeping through all but about 30 minutes of The Flying Dutchman once (Wagner, not Strauss, I know, but bear with me...) which included sleeping through an intermission (so so proud of that), so really, not sleeping is a big complement. Or maybe I'm just all growed up now.
Before yesterday, my last opera was Pittsburgh's 2004 production of Dead Man Walking, so I think Berliner Staatoper's Salome is a bit of an upgrade for my last opera to have seen.
My stated dislikes, in the musical world, include Romantic-era Opera and Richard Strauss (with the caveats of Tod und Verklarung, the last 4 Lieder, and Metamorphosen), so the fact that I didn't fall asleep during this concert attest to its goodness (and maybe also its shortness?). One of my great claims to fame is sleeping through all but about 30 minutes of The Flying Dutchman once (Wagner, not Strauss, I know, but bear with me...) which included sleeping through an intermission (so so proud of that), so really, not sleeping is a big complement. Or maybe I'm just all growed up now.
Before yesterday, my last opera was Pittsburgh's 2004 production of Dead Man Walking, so I think Berliner Staatoper's Salome is a bit of an upgrade for my last opera to have seen.
1 Comments:
Should I assume from your "craning tourist necks" comment that the less worldly, non-German members of the audience took a prurient interest in the Dance of the Seven Veils, however it was performed? It reminds me of the Wiener Staatsoper production of Strauss' "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" that we went to, where various tourists in attendance started taking flash photographs when the vision of the attractive young man appeared, as that role was filled full-frontally by a strapping young supernumerary.
That was an odd performance to be at since it was full of tourists -- buying an opera ticket is the cheapest way to actually see the grandly appointed interior of the hall -- who were noticeably disengaged from the opera's late-Romantic lushness and borderline unintelligible psychosexual import. I remember one couple who walked out of the standing room section about three minutes before the end of the first half -- you couldn't wait? -- as well as the friendly American backpacker dude next to us who left at intermission and, when we told him about the Vienna Philharmonic performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth that we were going to, said he would "totally stay all the way through that".
Post a Comment
<< Home