Met Opera Sat 14th April La Traviata

[DracoM]

Why am I unable to hear the opera live via this Forum, the BBC Rad 3 website?
'Due to rights problems..............etcetc'??

Am I going mad?

[DracoM]

BUT
via the HD option via Forum links, no prob..................???
Erm...........??
Puzzled.

[Bryn]

BUT
via the HD option via Forum links, no prob..................???
Erm...........??
Puzzled.

It will most probably not be available to Listen Again via the iPlayer, but I was not only listening to it via the iPlayer's live HD Sound option ...

Where there's a will ...

[Chris Newman]

I listened via iPlayer with no problem. I thought the soloists, who were usually excellent, rather closely miked compared with the orchestra who were positively remote. Maybe the peaches and cream tone of Dmitri Hvorostovsky has frayed a bit but he is still good. Natalie seemed a little nervous tonight: not the bundle of total joy and tragedy that she produced last summer at Aix with the LSO under the stars. I watched that on Arte Live where she was fabulously partnered by Charles Castronovo. Matthew Polenzani has a pleasant voice though he tightens up when pushing it. The chorus were (shall we say, thankfully remote?) How lucky we are at ENO and ROH to have younger choral voices).

Did I hear at the end that Fabio Luisi was conducting three performances in a row including Wagner, Traviata and something else? and he is doing two Ring Cycles. I knew he had taken over Levine's work but I would have thought he would have cut the workload a bit.

[rodney_h_d]

.....Did I hear at the end that Fabio Luisi was conducting three performances in a row including Wagner, Traviata and something else? and he is doing two Ring Cycles. I knew he had taken over Levine's work but I would have thought he would have cut the workload a bit.

Yes - I agree - I heard that too! It was Die Walküre at 6:30pm last night, La Traviata at 1:00pm today and Manon at 8:00pm this evening [NY times]. I don't think three performances in two days is a good idea. Once or twice I thought he sounded in a bit of a hurry!

[Chris Newman]

That is too much. As crazy as Gergiev! It caught up with Levine>

I am flicking through the latest BBC Music Mag and see that the Aix-en-Provence Traviata is out on Virgin Classics DVD (£13.99) and gets 5 stars for Performance and 5 for Picture and Sound. Ludovic Tezier was Pere Germont and Louis Langree conducts the LSO and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I found Natalie Dessay's Violetta hugely disappointing. The modern staging is quite compelling, forcing a lot of the focus onto the singers. Review here:

http://operabritanniauk.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/verdi-la-traviata-metropolitan-opera-14th-april-2012/

[Barbirollians]

I found Natalie Dessay's Violetta hugely disappointing. The modern staging is quite compelling, forcing a lot of the focus onto the singers. Review here:

http://operabritanniauk.wordpress.co...th-april-2012/

I didn't think it was that bad . I rather liked the vulnerability .