Figura lírica do ano 2010

Por estas bandas, o ano de 2010 foi marcado pela afirmação da glória de Jonas Kaufmann. Por variadíssimas razões, entre as quais: esta, esta, esta, esta, esta e ESTA!

Marina Poplavskaya

(Marina Poplavskaya, como Elisabeth, em Don Carlo)

O The New York Times - que não é exactamente um jornal de deslumbrados - consagra um extenso artigo a Marina Poplavskaya, a derradeira Elisabete do Met.

Como referi, por ocasião da minha apreciação da récita, este soprano não me levou por aí além, mas - caro e fiel leitor -, no trecho Tu che le vanità, tivemos Mulher!

É muito chic desdenhar estes talentos, ditos meteóricos. Nos anos 1950 - nos inícios da década, note-se! -, em meios mais snob, havia um ar de enfado quando se falava d'A Grega... Há uns bons anitos, a Netrebko era uma "boazuda que cantava umas coisitas, e pouco mais". Eu próprio já embarquei nestas tiradas, está bem de ver!

O que importa - creio - é saber dar a mão à palmatória, reconhecendo a mestria das criaturas que se destacam.

Agora, honestamente, apontem-me dez Poplavskayas!? Eu conheço muito poucas... Esta, por enquanto, é para manter debaixo de olho... É que a última que desdenhei tornou-se - para mim e para o mundo - num monumento!

Quem desdenha...

«“The world dreams of seeing a real-life Cinderella,” Ms. Poplavskaya (pronounced puh-PLAHV-sky-uh) said in a recent interview backstage at the Met. “They hope you were washing floors when Luciano Pavarotti came by, and then a miracle happened.” If her onstage persona is opaque but impulsive, her conversation seems tinged with a very Russian fatalism, disillusionment and sense of the absurd, sometimes bone dry, sometimes contemptuous, sometimes wildly amused.

Her double-header as the Met’s reigning pinch hitter began last month in “Don Carlo,” originally directed by Nicholas Hytner two years ago at Covent Garden in London. Angela Gheorghiu had been expected as Elisabeth of Valois, a pawn in the dynastic politics of France and Spain. But late in the game she withdrew, deeming the part a poor match for her voice.

The plum fell to Ms. Poplavskaya, who accompanied the show to New York. In his review of “Don Carlo” for The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini noted that hers was not a “classic Verdi voice.” Yet he praised her “luminous singing, beautiful pianissimo high notes and unforced power,” adding, “Somehow the cool Russian colorings of her voice brought out the apartness of the character, a young woman in a loveless marriage in a foreign land.”

For her encore Ms. Poplavskaya now assays the prima donna’s Mount Everest: Violetta Valéry, the consumptive Parisian courtesan redeemed by love in “La Traviata.” Conceived at the Salzburg Festival five years ago as a vehicle for Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, whose chemistry was then at its most sizzling, the production was a triumph in the flesh and on DVD. Ms. Netrebko, in particular, riveted all eyes and ears, the epitome of star-crossed glamour in her black bob and sick-rose-red cocktail dress. For Salzburg scalpers, it was a windfall, with black-market tickets changing hands for thousands of euros.

Would the production by the German director Willy Decker work in America? There was room for doubt. Mr. Decker confines the action to a bare chalk-white arena dominated by an oversize Swiss railway clock, peppering his take on Verdi’s Paris with distasteful Teutonic touches like kewpie doll Violetta masks for a hostile chorus and a leering Popeye lookalike (yes, male) in a knockoff of Violetta’s red dress. Still, who could blame the Met for wanting to recapture the sensation? So the Salzburg “Traviata” was duly booked forNew Year’s Eve 2010. Since the production was announced, Mr. Villazón, plagued by persistent vocal malaise, has vanished from the lineup. Worse, Ms. Netrebko, 39, dropped out, leery of competing with the ghost of her younger self on DVD.

So the Met wrangled Ms. Poplavskaya, who in the meantime has scored a big hit with the Decker “Traviata” in Amsterdam, taking home the artist-of-the-year award from the Society of Friends of the Netherlands Opera.

Unlike her American counterparts, who like to insist on the power invested in the abused women they so often portray, Ms. Poplavskaya sees the world through the prism of a people who have lived through one crushing regime after another: “I’m always a victim, torn between a mad tenor and a crazy baritone,” she said. “But not only sopranos are victims. In life we all are victims.”

If this is your point of view, one answer is to expect nothing, take your lumps and keep grabbing your chances, as Ms. Poplavskaya seems to have a genius for doing. When the crown that a colleague in a recent Met “Don Carlo” had to place on her head settled at an angle, she simply straightened it. “I’m a daughter of Catherine de Medici,” Ms. Poplavskaya said merrily when reminded of the incident. “She taught me well to keep the crown on my head, not off. If someone puts it on crooked, I must crown myself. I’m ready for anything.”

It seems it was ever thus. A headstrong 9-year-old, Ms. Poplavskaya presented herself unescorted at an audition for the children’s chorus at the Bolshoi Theater and made the cut. Her grown-up career began at the New Opera Theater in Moscow, as Tatyana, the impulsive provincial of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” who grows up to become a wiser but sadder princess in St. Petersburg high society.

Returning to the Bolshoi Ms. Poplavskaya took on an eclectic repertory that included, in English, Stravinsky’s light, lyric Anne Trulove in “The Rake’s Progress” and, in German, Wagner’s gale-force Senta in “The Flying Dutchman.” Seeking broader exposure she presented herself at the Academy of Young Singers at the rival Mariinsky Theater, in St. Petersburg, but the audition she hoped for with the company’s general and artistic director, Valery Gergiev — an international star-maker — never came about.

“They always told me he was very busy,” Ms. Poplavskaya said. “I only survived at the Mariinsky a few months. The only reason I came to St. Petersburg was to sing for Gergiev. But if I had, nothing else would have turned out as it did.”

Overqualified as she was, she gained entry to the young-artists program of the Royal Opera Covent Garden. The company promptly put her on the main stage as the Third Norn in Wagner’s six-hour “Götterdämmerung,” a part that clocks in at perhaps six minutes. Then things started happening.

It was around that time that Ms. Gheorghiu reconsidered “Don Carlo” and that Ms. Poplavskaya at last got to sing for Mr. Gergiev, at the Met, while rehearsing for her house debut as Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev’s “War and Peace” in December 2007. Though originally assigned to the second cast, she was bumped up to first.

Adding octane to Ms. Poplavskaya’s ascent The New Yorker has just published a profile of her under the title “Travels With a Diva,” by Gay Talese. His account begins with a naked, feverish Ms. Poplavskaya lying motionless on the floor of her mother’s Moscow apartment, felled by heat prostration and smoke inhalation. (After the article was published she told me that she had actually suffered a heart attack.) Thousands of words later, after vignettes worthy of a latter-day Dostoevsky — Ms. Poplavskaya ferrying a luggage cart across 22 lanes of Buenos Aires traffic, Ms. Poplavskaya carefully handing a stunned maître d’ two flies captured in an empty glass — Mr. Talese signed off with the image of the five-inch, red patent-leather pumps she will wear on New Year’s Eve as Violetta.»

Em fruição...

Fidelio d'après Bieito

(cenas de Fidelio, encenado por C. Bieito - Ópera de Munique, Dezembro de 2010)

Bieito é um radical iconoclasta, provocador (gratuito), que nunca me encantou. A cada trabalho, acrescenta mais meio metro de arrojo pretenso, com que deslumbra os fanáticos do eurotrash. A Europa civilizada aclama-o. Se houver sangue, pornografia, muito fetichismo e perversão, ainda melhor!

Aliás, da Catalunha, nem bom vento, nem boa encenação… Os compatriotas La Fura, ainda o superam, em matéria de asco. Os pategos veneram-nos…

Porém, desta feita, parece que Bieito se conteve, pervertendo Fidelio de modo mais contido: ensanduichou-o com excertos de Borges e Kafka (!?). Lá civilizado é, mas bem despropositado… Também podia ter optado por intercalar o último andamento da 9ª, não?! Sempre apela à Liberdade…

Enfim, por Kaufmann, essa criatura mitológica, que nem Wagner conseguiu criar, esta notícia já mereceria destaque. O resto, é mero potpourri!

«Calixto Bieito no ha sentido necesidad de ampararse en ningún mítico renovador de la dirección de escena para sacudir el mundo de la ópera en la última década. Pero no duda el director de escena español en elogiar la modernidad del Wieland Wagner cuando habla de su propia versión de Fidelio, que acaba de estrenar en la Ópera de Múnich,uno de los grandes teatros líricos de Alemania y del mundo, con las entradas agotadas para todas las funciones desde hace meses y con 15 minutos de aplausos sazonados con algunos abucheos, pocos para lo que se auguraba que el conservador y rico público del coliseo muniqués regalaría al enfant terrible de la escena lírica en el estreno.

Quien se llevó la bronca fue el director de orquesta italiano Daniele Gatti, cuya dirección musical, de contrastados tempi que a veces recordaban a Rossini, a no gustó a una audiencia que, como todos los alemanes, conoce a la perfectamente y venera la única ópera de Beethoven.

Discusiones hubo entre el público de la Ópera de Múnich en el entreacto y al finalizar la representación de la noche del estreno a propósito si el teatro debía haber presentado la obra no como Fidelio sino como una versión a propósito de Fidelio. Y es que Calixto Bieito transforma el canto a la esperanza y a la fidelidad que Beethoven plasma en su ópera en un espectacular y desasosegante laberinto por el que transitan, perdidos física y mentalmente, los personajes de la obra, y a su juicio también la sociedad actual.

Borges y Kafka

Pero además del concepto, que no siempre permite reconocer a los personajes del argumento original -una mujer que en el siglo XVIII se disfraza de hombre con el propósito de trabajar en la cárcel en la que presume está encerrado su marido por motivos políticos para poder liberarlo-, el director de escena suprime los diálogos hablados de la ópera por añadir los dos poemas sobre el laberinto escritos por Jorge Luis Borges, uno de los cuales es recitado justo cuando se levanta el telón antes de que suene la obertura Leonora III -15 minutos de puro sinfonismo beethoveniano-, fragmentos de uno de sus cuentos y textos de Kafka.

"Tenía claro que no quería hacer una ópera política. De hecho, la trama política de Fidelio es débil, en realidad más que política es una ópera filosófica, de emociones", cuenta Bieito. Pero pese a tener claro qué es lo que no quería hacer, no lograba acertar con la idea de cómo pasmar todo ello escenográficamente. Junto a la alemana Rebecca Ringst, su escenógrafa, trabajó en varios proyectos con la idea de reproducir una prisión americana, desechados por ser una imagen demasiado vista, sea en reportajes televisivos o fotografías de prensa.

Al final dio con lo que buscaba: "Personas prisioneras de sus pasiones y emociones". Y esa prisión emocional y física se ha traducido en una gran estructura de metacrilato y neón en forma de laberinto vertical, de nueve metros de altura, por la que sube y baja el espléndido reparto de cantantes que encabezan la soprano Anja Kempe -muy creíble en el personaje de Leonora/Fidelio-, y el mediático tenor Jonas Kaufmann -un deprimido Florestán deambulando en pijama de hermoso timbre y perfecto estilo-, tratando de encontrarse o liberarse del laberinto mental en el que están encerrados.

Magníficos, estremecedores e intensos momentos

Es ese laberinto, magnífica creación de Ringst, que se abate a telón abierto al inicio del segundo acto, el que se erige en auténtico protagonista de la representación. Pero la metáfora visual no tarda en agotarse. Ello no quita que la propuesta de Bieito esté salpicada de magníficos, estremecedores e intensos momentos, como la negación, al inicio, de Leonora de su condición de mujer vendándose a la vista del público los pechos para pasar por un hombre; el suicidio, por ahorcamiento, de un preso mientras canta "¡Hablar bajo! ¡Conteneros!/ Nos espían con orejas y ojos"; o el descenso en tres jaulas -evocando los campos de concentración- de los músicos del Cuarteto Odeón mientras interpretan el molto adagio del Cuarteto de cuerda núm. 15, opus 132, de Beethoven tras el primer final en el que Leonara rescata a Florestán de su prisión, aquí atrapado en si mismo en una prolongada depresión.

Para el segundo final Bieito echa mano de un golpe de efecto al hacer aparecer a Don Fernando, ministro del rey en visita por sorpresa a la prisión para excarcelar a los presos, transmutado en el Joker, el achienemigo de Batman en versión Heath Ledger de El caballero oscuro. Don Fernando representa el poder y Calixto Bieito y no duda en dibujarlo como un psicópata, desaprensivo e impredecible. De hecho se carga a Florestán de un disparo justo tras ser liberado para luego, inmediatamente resucitarlo. El sueño de la utopía beethoveniana. "Nadie te puede salvar, pero siempre puede haber alguien que ayuda a vivir", concluye el director de escena.»

Cinemateca - Janeiro de 2011

Eis a minha selecção:

Seg. [03] 24:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

METROPOLIS Metrópolis de Fritz Lang

Qui. [06] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

SENSO Sentimento de Luchino Visconti

Sex. [07] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

CÉZANNE de Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet

Seg. [10] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

LA PASSION DE JEANNE D’ARC A Paixão de Joana d’Arc de Carl Th. Dreyer

Qua. [12] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

THE RIVER O Rio Sagrado de Jean Renoir

Qui. [13] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

LA RÈGLE DU JEU A Regra do Jogo de Jean Renoir

Qui. [13] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

TRÖLLFLÖJTEN A Flauta Mágica de Ingmar Bergman

Sex. [14] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

SOMMARNATTENS LEENDE Sorrisos de uma Noite de Verão de Ingmar Bergman

Sáb. [15] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

EL ANGEL EXTERMINADOR O Anjo Exterminador de Luis Buñuel

Qua. [19] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

ORDET A Palavra de Carl Th. Dreyer

Qua. [19] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

BITTER VICTORY Cruel Vitória de Nicholas Ray

Qui. [20] 15:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

SOMMARLEK Um Verão de Amor de Ingmar Bergman

Qui. [20] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

PARSIFAL de Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

Sex. [21] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

TA’M E GUILASS O Sabor da Cereja de Abbas Kiarostami

Ter. [25] 19:00 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

L’ATALANTE Atalante de Jean Vigo

Sex. [21] 21:30 Sala Dr. Félix Ribeiro

IL VANGELO SECONDO MATTEO O Evangelho Segundo São Mateus de Pier Paolo Pasolini

Disse-me um passarinho...

... que a fabulosa Didonato não resistiu a (re)interpretar os papéis travesti!

Um Werther wagneriano, touché para la main de Dieu

(Jonas Kaufmann, protagonista de Werther - Opéra National de Paris, Janeiro de 2010)

Filmado em Paris, em Janeiro último, este Werther constitui um documento absolutamente histórico, devendo figurar em qualquer dvdteca clássica que se preze.

Werther, figura ultra-romântica por excelência, condenado ao infortúnio, nesta produção, ganha uma pujança inusitada, impregnando-se de uma dinâmica wagneriana.

Benoît Jacquot assina uma mise-en-scène límpida, escorreita e altamente depurada, dominada por tonalidades afins com a melancolia. Os espaços são imensos, encontrando-se desnudos, sem ponta de excesso. Os cinzas dominam, a par de uma iluminação asceta. No guarda-roupa há um requinte contido, próximo do frugal.

Jacquot privilegia o drama, sublinhado pela interpretação dos artistas. Os gestos e movimentação cénica são muito doseados e ponderados. O canto e a interpretação falam mais alto, neste trabalho sublime. Cenários e demais adereços constituem meros suportes.

Kaufmann e Koch, ossia Werther e Charlotte (Tristan und Isolde…) operam um milagre, sob o olhar paternal de Plasson (Kurwenal, Rei Mark…), figura mítica da lírica, injustamente tratada en dehors de la France.

Jonas Kaufmann, de voz solar e baritonal, com uma elegância pujante e um sentido lírico deslumbrante, propõe-nos O Werther wagneriano definitivo: dilacerado, corroído por um amor impossível, entrega-se voluntariamente à morte libertadora, derradeira saída para o seu desmesurado infortúnio. A dicção e o francês são modelares. A figura e presença fazem o resto. Estamos diante de um sonho…

Sophie Koch compõe uma Charlotte ímpar, com um sentido dramático arrebatador. A nobreza da sua interpretação é transbordante: de gestos finos, coração escravo do dever, abnegada e conformada, também ela, com o fado que a une ao desamor…

Permito-me sublinhar a colossal lição de teatro e canto que constitui todo o terceiro acto, a começar com a cena de cartas (onde Koch está inexcedível). A progressão dramática é soberana, bordejando os dois intérpretes o paroxismo.

O resto do elenco não destoa: Vernhes (Bailli) soberano, Gillet (Sophie) soubrette, comme il faut, e Tézier (Albert) aristocrata.

Plasson, como adiantei, constitui o terceiro vértice deste génio. Domina este repertório como poucos – escute-se o seu Faust, com as forças orquestrais de Toulouse. Sob a sua majestosa direcção, a orquestra da Opéra Nationale de Paris oculta as suas inúmeras fragilidades. O fosso orquestral transpira poesia!

Cinco estrelas, adornadas por três outras adicionais: a grandeza de Kaufmann, a pathos de Koch a soberania de Plasson…

Direitinho para a coluna do Best of 2010!
_______________
* * * * * ( * * * )
(8/5)

Salonen & Lemper!

(Esa-Pekka Salonen)




Começarei o ano musical com duas figuras de relevo: a 6 de Janeiro, no Ministério da Cultura, Salonen dirige Da Casa dos Mortos (ópera que muito aprecio e já me fez correr semi-mundo); a 16, pela enésima vez, escutarei a superlativamente camaleónica Sra Lemper, entre o Cabaret e Brel...

Feliz Natal!

Aos caríssimos leitores - e animadores! - deste blog, desejo um FELIZ NATAL!

Este ano, a generosidade do Pai Natal manifestou-se, também, por via cinéfila: Subitamente no Verão Passado e The Glass Menagerie foram dois dos mais destacados presentes com que o senhor das barbas brancas me brindou!!!

O Triunfo d´A Matos

(Elisabete Matos)

Simpaticamente, o Paulo (Valquírio) inteirou-me sobre a prestação de Elisabete Matos, na sua estreia no Met, como Minnie (La Fanciulla del West - G. Puccini).

A entrada de La Matos no Met é o corolário de uma carreira absolutamente notável, conquistada passo a passo, longe da Lusitânia. A partida foi um imperativo, condição sine qua non do sucesso, sejamos honestos.

Tive a felicidade de assistir à sua memorável Tosca, ao nível das top - top. Pelo caminho, foi conquistando terreno, nos mais respeitáveis palcos líricos do mundo. Por fim, chegou ao cume da montanha mágica, sediada em NYC.

Doravante, só há que manter o nível e... assumir os papéis que são seus: Lady Macbeth, Abigail, Isolda, Turandot, Gioconda, and so on!

«At least as heard over Sirius, Elisabete Matos made a completely WOW debut as Minnie in the Met's "Fanciulla" tonight. Matos' entrance was very nicely done, the voice firm, plush, warm, even pretty much from top to bottom, and well we have a Minnie that actually SOUNDS like Minnie! She capped the "Laggiu nel Soledad!" with a thrilling High C, though she sounded almost unsure about it for a nanosecond. The other high notes, rang out clear, with a force that Voigt simply cannot muster - at least as Minnie, and at least right now.

Further, while Voigt sang Minnie with sort of one "sound" all the way through (often curdled at that) Matos brought an old-school type of shading to the role, with all kinds of colors and effects in the voice, managing those triplets in Act II beautifully - with an even weight distributed through all. Very nice. She also brought a "chill" type of sound when addressing Rance that sounds most uncommon these days, which contrasted brilliantly with the "doe-eyed" sound she often sang to Johnson with. Also very nice.

The poker scene was - even in audio only - high drama that found my heart racing. The only thing missing was that maniacal laughter singers of yore used to throw in to end the act on a note of grand hysteria. (Was Neblett the last to do this?) The audience cheered lustily at the end and I wondered if she might come out for a curtain call. (Question: what is the Met's criterion for whether or not an opera has curtain calls between acts?) Her final pages of music were exquisitely sung, rich with emotion and rock steady tone.

(...)

"I cannot think of a soprano who could sing any better this demanding role, which requires luscious legato phrasing, a powerful top range and stamina. . . . she has found a way to soften the sometimes harder edges of her voice and sing with lyrical pliancy while still cutting through the orchestra for big climaxes, including a fearless high C in Act I."

I can think of one: Ms. Matos! I'll probably be stoned for this, and I wish Ms. Voigt no ill will (hey, I'm a fan), but it would be really nice if Matos got the upcoming HD cinecast as THIS is how Minnie should sound and it would be, overall, a a more impressive record of the Met celebrating Fanciulla's centenary.

Whatever happens, this night will stick in my head for a long, long time. Viva La Matos!»

«I was in the house for Elisabete Matos' debut at the Met. It was a definite triumph for her. The standing ovation began when the three principles came out in front of the curtain. The screams for her (mine included) were plentiful and everyone seemed delighted with her debut's success.

Her middle voice was a bit light at first in Act I, but warmed up and filled out to project well early in Act I. The top voice was beautiful and the high notes were thrilling and powerful with great intonation throughout. Her acting is very believable and quite comfortable for someone doing this production for the first time.

She, Gallo, and Giordani were absolutely white-hot for Act II! Again, her comfort with riding the horse, the business of the act, and the role are remarkable for someone's first performance in this production.

For Act III, the set swallowed her voice making her sound much more distant than for Acts I and II. However, when she got off the balcony, the voice was at 100% again. If I were Voigt and Matos, I'd demand they have Minnie do that entrance on the ground rather than on that balcony.

I have to say that Lucio Gallo has improved greatly since the earlier broadcasts or we are not getting the quality of his voice on SiriusXM. It sounds as if he is "covering" more and not forcing so much.

Giordani was in his usual good form. The low notes vanish, but he has that brilliant top voice! It crowned a convincing dramatic portrayal.

It was a *VERY* satisfying evening at the Met! If I saw nothing else while in NYC, the trip was well worthwhile solely for this performance. I'm very lucky to have been able to be there.

Congratulations to Miss Matos on a magnificent Met debut!»

nota: no próximo Verão, A Matos incarnará Lady Macbeth, a 12 de Agosto... em Salzburgo!

Orgasmo...

Em 2004, entre outras actividades eminentemente clínicas, dedicava-me à tradução. Os pagamentos tardavam, mas nunca falharam. Num belo dia quase primaveril, um dos gordos cheques, enfim, chegou ao seu destino.

Corri para a net, reservando bilhetes para NYC. Na bagagem, três libretos me acompanhavam: Salome, Don Giovanni e Rigoletto.

À minha adorada mulher, apenas lhe disse que havia uma intérprete dotada de algumas qualidades, enfim... Ocultei o fascínio que já nutria pela chama finlandesa.

Na récita da estrondosa Salome, não houve contenção possível e, finda a dita, explodi, diante de uma sala em estado de choque.

Nessa mítica noite, havia câmaras espalhadas pelo Met...

Eis o resultado, que será comercializado, já em Janeiro. Interdito a menores de 18!

7/12, encore!

(cena de A Valquíria - Teatro alla Scala, 7 de Dezembro de 2010)

Ainda a propósito da première de A Valquíria, no alla Scala, o Le Figaro considera que as vozes - as femininas, sobretuto - levaram a melhor, triunfando sobre a mise-en-scène, por demais criticada, so far...

«En ouverture de saison de la Scala de Milan, Daniel Barenboïm et les chanteurs volent la vedette à un metteur en scène peu inspiré.

(...)

On a connu des metteurs en scène partis en fanfare avec un Or du Rhin très réussi qui déçurent dans La Walkyrie. C'est ce qui vient d'arriver à Guy Cassiers, à la Scala de Milan. L'univers poétique et visuel qu'il avait développé dans le prologue du Ring ne suffit plus dans le deuxième volet: quelques belles images (la forêt de pieux du deuxième acte) ne suffisent pas dans cet ouvrage, où l'humanité remplace la mythologie. L'homme de théâtre belge s'est désintéressé de la psychologie de personnages qui restent plantés là sans prendre vie.

La Sieglinde de Waltraud Meier met dans sa voix toute l'incandescence frémissante dont cette bête de scène est malheureusement privée par la production. Nina Stemme se révèle la grande Brünnhilde du moment, avec une classe et une dignité décuplées par le fait qu'elle n'a nul besoin de forcer ses moyens. Ekaterina Gubanova est une Fricka glorieuse, à la voix incroyablement riche et prenante. La défection de Dennis O'Neill a permis de découvrir en Frank van Aken un ténor à la puissance naturelle et jamais criarde: un nom à retenir. Seul le Wotan de Vitalij Kowaljow, engagé pour pallier l'annulation du grand René Pape, nous laisse sur notre faim: le timbre est de belle étoffe, mais le chant monochrome et l'incarnation peu expressive.

L'inquiétude d'un chef

Le soir de la première, Daniel Barenboïm avait fait sensation, s'adressant au président de la République italienne et au public pour faire part de son inquiétude pour la culture en Italie, allusion voilée à la très contestée loi Bondi, ministre de la Culture du gouvernement Berlusconi. À la deuxième représentation, il se contenta d'empoigner l'Orchestre de la Scala pour un prélude fulminant. Il ne tint pas toujours ce grand arc tendu, ralentissant parfois au point de mettre l'orchestre et les chanteurs en péril: on est habitué chez lui à ces baisses de régime et de finition, prix à payer pour d'époustouflants sommets d'intensité.

»

Pelléas et Mélisande - Met Opera House

(Kozéna e Dégout, em Pelléas et Mélisande - Met Opera House, Dezembro de 2010)

O Met, em reprise, apresenta a famosa produção de Pelléas et Mélisande, assinada por Jonathan Miller. À frente de um elenco absolutamente ímpar, Simon Rattle estreia-se na sala nova-iorquina.

«It took until he was 55, but Simon Rattle finally made his Metropolitan Opera debut on Friday night. Mr. Rattle, who has been a major conductor for 30 years and the artistic director of the Berlin Philharmonic since 2002, led the season premiere of Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande,” a revival of Jonathan Miller’s gothic 1995 production. At the end of this four-hour evening, some of the most ardent participants in the ovation for Mr. Rattle were the musicians in the orchestra pit, who stood and heartily applauded.

In perhaps the most impressive performance I have heard Mr. Rattle give, he drew lush and plangent yet clear-textured and purposeful playing from the great Met orchestra. He was blessed with what he described in an interview on “Charlie Rose” on Thursday night as a “dream cast”: the elegant French baritone Stéphane Degout as Pelléas, the alluring Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozena (Mr. Rattle’s wife) as Mélisande, and the intelligent Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as Prince Golaud.

Debussy’s mysterious opera, first performed in Paris in 1902, is an elusive and unconventional music drama. Adapted from the Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the troubled family of an aged king in an imaginary realm, “Pelléas et Mélisande” is a masterpiece of ambiguity. Some conductors bring out the Wagnerian harmonic textures and dark orchestral colorings of the work. When called for, there was Wagnerian richness and impressionist fluidity in Mr. Rattle’s performance.

Yet, in the manner of Pierre Boulez, an acclaimed exponent of this work, Mr. Rattle kept the textures lucid and focused, even when Debussy’s chords were thick with notes. Debussy tucked some piercing dissonances inside these milky harmonies, and Mr. Rattle brought them out through the pinpoint accuracy he elicited from the inspired Met players.

For all his intelligence, though, Mr. Rattle is an intensely dramatic musician. I have never heard a “Pelléas” in which the extremes of the score came through so vividly. You could sense the simmering below the deceptively subdued surface.

In the first scene the melancholic middle-aged Prince Golaud, who is lost in a forest, chances upon Mélisande, a weeping young woman full of fears and secrets. Mr. Rattle conducted the parallel orchestra chords that open the opera and the modal themes that slowly unfold with haunting serenity at a daringly slow tempo.

In an impulsive act that is neither depicted nor explained, Mélisande marries the older Golaud. Yet, from the time they meet, Pelléas and Mélisande are drawn to each other, a sensual current that runs through this restless score. In Act IV, when they can no longer constrain their illicit attraction and confess their love, Mr. Rattle brought out all of the music’s teeming intensity and fitful shifts.

Mélisande is a good role for the lovely Ms. Kozena. The tenderness of her singing could not disguise the inner emotional chaos of this strange young woman: a victim, yes, but also a compulsive liar who remains an enigma to the end. Mr. Degout brought a warm, youthful voice and stylistic insight to Pelléas, conveying the character’s tragic path from the uptight younger half-brother of an imperious prince to a hopeless romantic with uncontrollable longing for his brother’s wife.

Mr. Finley, who triumphed at the Met in the title role of John Adams’s “Doctor Atomic,” was superb as Golaud. While not overpowering, his voice is dark, virile and generous. He is that rare operatic artist who even when singing lyrically, sounds like he is speaking with the directness of a great actor.

The bass-baritone Willard White made a poignant Arkel, the old king. The mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer gave a wrenching performance as Geneviève, the mother of Golaud and Pelléas who is helpless to prevent their fratricidal passions. And the excellent boy soprano Neel Ram Nagarajan was heartbreaking as Yniold, Golaud’s son by his first wife, whose is forced by his bullying father to spy on his Uncle Pelléas and his new mother Mélisande.

Mr. Miller’s production, with sets by John Conklin, fashions a visual symbolism to match the thematic symbolism of the opera. This royal family, in vaguely Victorian dress, lives in a run-down mansion, which rotates onstage to reveal stuffy rooms, forbidding exteriors and marbled arcades.

The Met has scheduled only five performances of “Pelléas et “Mélisande” with this cast and Mr. Rattle. Now that he has arrived at the Met, he must come back.»

Fartoooooooo

Jorge Rodrigues, o saudoso autor de Ritornello, uma das glórias maiores da Antena 2 (de outrora) está na blogosfera, não há muito tempo! Em Fartooooo, Rodrigues, com a elegância habitual, humor e corrosão, disserta sobre o mundo e a a podridão que reina na dita Antena 2.

O que é referido sobre a direcção de João Almeida é absolutamente inacreditável (vide post A IGNORÂNCIA ANDA À SOLTA NA ANTENA 2) !

Os filhos da puta, já neste século, tiraram-nos o Acontece, do recentemente falecido Pinto Coelho. Pouco depois, outra estirpe de filhos da puta rebentou com o Ritornello.

Que agrado ter Jorge Rodrigues na blogosfera, à falta de melhor espaço!!!