Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#0Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 9:19am
The new head of the Met has announced that he's scrapping all those gorgeous Franco Zeffirelli productions in favor of minimalist stagings of the Verdi and Puccini canons.
HOW DARE HE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Zefferelli staging of Puccini's LA BOHEME is the most ravishing
production of that beautiful opera. The sets, costumes and lighting are absolutely perfect for the story. Besides, it's already paid for itself 10 times over. Is this man crazy?
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
#1re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 12:39pm
Did he say why Dollypop? The Met is the Met, and you expect big, lavish stagings. If you want minimalist stagings of these shows, you just go next door to City Opera. I am going to the Met on Thursday to see Anglela Gheorghiu in "La Traviata."
My mother always used to say, "The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana." - Rose Nyland
Updated On: 2/11/06 at 12:39 PM
#2re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 1:23pm
I thought the opposite was going on.
I thought they were going to get rid of the minimalist German productions and concentrate on more traditional crowd-pleasing stagings, including Zeffirrelli.
Where did you see this, DP?
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#3re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 3:52pmWho's the new head of the Met? Minimalist stagings accross the board seems a good way of killing off audience numbers.
#4re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 4:02pm
Is the Franco Zeffirelli you speak of the same Franco Zefferelli responsible for the 1968 movie version of Romeo & Juliet?
If so, I really want to send an angry letter to the head of the Met, and inflict some pain upon him as well. I've always wanted to see La Boheme and other operas at the Met when I had the chance, and this would just ruin it for me.
"A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing." - Thomas Jefferson
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#5re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 4:13pmand the rest! The man behind "Endless love" as well as Sutherland's first "Lucia". Write them a letter!
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#6re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 4:13pm
And a double post. I'm excited thinking about "Endless love" and that boxing movie with Rickie Schroeder he directed.
Updated On: 2/11/06 at 04:13 PM
#7re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/11/06 at 4:58pmthe new head of the met is peter gelb who happens to be the son of arthur gelb former editor of the new york times. arthur and barbara gelb wrote the definite biography of eugene o'neill. it is the same zefferelli who directe romeo & juliet.
oh, what a beautiful mornin!
#8re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/12/06 at 8:11am
In case curly deletes his non-cowboy-sounding post above:
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Curly3
Chorus Member
joined: 2/11/06
re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted On: 2/11/06 at 04:58 PM
the new head of the met is peter gelb who happens to be the son of arthur gelb former editor of the new york times. arthur and barbara gelb wrote the definite biography of eugene o'neill. it is the same zefferelli who directe romeo & juliet.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#9re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/12/06 at 3:28pmOh well. End of another era. I'm sure Franco is having a good time, wherever he is.
MasterLcZ
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/12/03
#10re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/12/06 at 6:25pm
The Met lost more money this season BECAUSE of the offbeat non-audience favorites (big exception the Julie Traymor MAGIC FLUTE, which sold out).
I really can't imagine the Zefferelli favorites will be retired ANYTIME soon.
"Christ, Bette Davis?!?!"
#11re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/12/06 at 8:49pm
I saw angela gheorghiu in Traviata Feb 4th, opening night.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH amazing! The set was magnificent, it's why I love the met. Needless to say, Angela was a revelation, just wonderful!
~And let us try, before we die, to make some sense of life~
MasterLcZ
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/12/03
#12re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/13/06 at 7:50am
Well, whattaya know...He may not be retiring the old favorites, but he is giving ample room to new composers, including Tesori and LaChiusa...and Rufus!
"In a recent interview, Mr. Gelb said that contemporary opera could use a jolt from composers who have worked in musical theater, jazz and popular music. He also said that the opera world had much to learn from the Broadway model of working on a show for months in advance, with members of the creative team bickering and bartering, revising, throwing out songs, writing new ones, jiggling the book, trying to get things right.
So he is inaugurating a collaborative program with the Lincoln Center Theater. Nine composers of diverse profiles will initially take part, ranging from the elegant musical theater composers Adam Guettel and Jeanine Tesori, to the brash (some would say crass) contemporary classical composer Michael Torke. Wynton Marsalis has been tapped from the world of jazz. The gifted pop singer and songwriter Rufus Wainwright, a passionate opera buff, will try his hand at writing one. Scott Wheeler — who, in the interest of full disclosure, is a good friend of mine — is a more proven choice. His "Democracy," commissioned by Plácido Domingo for the Washington National Opera, had a successful premiere there last year.
Mr. Gelb's idea is that as these operas are written, they will be developed in workshops, where problems can be assessed and changes made. Some will make it to full productions at the Met. Others may be found more suitable for the smaller stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Then again, a work may be deemed unsuccessful and not produced at all."
"In a sense, the Met's collaborative program with the Lincoln Center Theater is an experimental side venture. The world of musical theater has become dismayingly commercial, Mr. Gelb said. It is not a hospitable place for composers with complex musical voices.
Maybe so. But is it the Met's responsibility to rescue the Broadway musical? Besides, whatever the problems in the worlds of opera and musical theater, I'm not sure that the solutions will come by combining the traditions. A case in point was Michael John LaChiusa's pretentious hybrid "Marie Christine." Its haplessly melodramatic score seemed to have been force-fed pointless musical complexities. Mr. LaChiusa is one of Mr. Gelb's chosen. I can only hope that Mr. Wainwright, whose songs I love, will not lose his musical identity in boosting his compositional voice to operatic dimensions."
(B*itch, B*itch, B*tch)
Big Changes At The Met
"Christ, Bette Davis?!?!"
#13re: Metropolitan Opera
Posted: 2/13/06 at 7:52am
Dollypop--maybe this is what you were talking about:
From that same article by Anthony Tommasini:
"Still, through this program Mr. Gelb will at least keep essential questions about the nature of contemporary musical drama before the public for years to come. Meanwhile, in his quest to shake up the Met, he is skewering sacred cows. He plans, for example, to replace the Met's hugely popular production of "Tosca," a Zeffirelli extravaganza, with something grippingly modern for the incandescent soprano Karita Mattila, possibly directed by George C. Wolfe. I can't wait."
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