Kaufmann in Parsifal, live from the Met 2.3.13

[ARBurton]

The Met`s website gave approximate times for the intervals (US time, of course), but they weren`t particularly accurate (!)

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

The New York Met, for me is a very exciting opera house. I remember, me and mrsBBM cioming back from Lancashire listening to Borodin's Prince Igor. What made light of our journey back home!

Your memory's playing tricks on you, BBM. The Met hasn't staged Prince Igor in nearly 100 years. However, it is doing so next season, so now's your chance!

[kernelbogey]

My local Picture House (Southampton) carried the live relay last night and is showing a repeat tomorrow (Monday) at 1230. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to attend this. Perhaps other Picturehouses will be doing the same.

BTW, for the avoidance of doubt, my rebuke in my post 30 to RM over his post 29 - deliberately using his language - was about its transparent racism.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Gurnemanz,

Thanks for the information re MET programmes on the web - I'll pick these up next time round. We did go outside for a breath of fresh air and trough - quite a nice March evening down our way, but also caught much of the interval talks and thought they were quite good. The backdrop of the scenery changing was interesting in that it showed just the remarkable number of staff the MET employ back-stage. We liked the style and voice of the presenter.

[Flosshilde]

Actually, from my POV, the reason that premature applause over the closing bars of a given opera act at the Met is not a reflection of the Met audience 'culture', but IMHO is the result of something very simple that I'm surprised no one here has caught. The Met has the habit, as I would guess is common at other houses, of starting to lower the fire curtain at the ends of acts while the last music of the act is still playing. That visual act sends a subliminal message to the audience that the act is about to end, so that it's time to start applauding. (Rest assured, I am not one of those people. I wait until the music has stopped, even if others around me start to applaud, whereever I am, the Met or anywhere else.)

From what I saw last night the curtain was timed so that it finished descending on the last note, rather than starting' then. I agree that if it did the latter the applause would hold of until the end of the music. In most live perfromances I've been to (Royal Opera, Scottish Opera & English National mainly) the stage lights go off as the last note finishes, plunging the stage into darkness, & then the curtain comes down. Result - a brief delay after the music finishes before the applause starts.

That aside, I admired this production quite a bit, all the more impressive that it was Francois Girard's first effort at directing opera. I suspect, however, that the ability of the HD cameras to focus on close-up subtle details would have made seeing this production more bearable, especially given the glacial pacing of some stretches, particularly the first part of Act III. I liked Rene Pape as Gurnemanz best of all, although all the cast was strong, even down to the smaller roles among the Grail knights and the flower maidens. High praise too for Daniele Gatti in the pit, masterfully controlling the proceedings, and without a score in front of him, i.e. conducting from memory.

It took me quite a while to get into the production. I found the unrelenting gloom (lighting, not emotion) very off-putting. It must have made watching in the theatre extremely difficult - near impossible to pick out figures on the stage. As bsp says in the cinema broadcast the close-ups (very well done) meant that one could see more, & also the very fine acting - which again must have been difficult to see in the theatre. I couldn't warm to the first act - the continual ritualistic gestures from the knights irritated me somewhat - I find that made-up rituals always look rather meaningless), and I wondered what the group of veiled women were doing - I don't think the Grail had nuns? (although they could provide the answer to the puzzle of Lohengrin - if Parsifal, King of the Grail knights, was his father, who was his mother?). Second Act much better, & third best - Parsifal's exhausted appearance was very convincing, & the stage images magnificent - I thought the grouping of the knights & the lighting at the beginning of the temple scene reminiscent of some of Rembrandt's etchings of the crucifixion (http://threes.com/cms/images/stories/art/3_crosses.jpg).

I'm afraid, though, that I didn't enjoy the experience (my first). I found the volume far too loud - at some points I had to cover my ears to mute it, especially during Parsifal's 'aria' after Kundry's kiss. I also didn't get a great feeling of it being live - I did feel that I could have been watching a film. With my dislike of the first act, & discomfort with the sound, I seriously considered going back home & finishing it on the radio. I suppose the only thing that stopped me was the thought that I didn't want to waste £15 . I don't know if I'll repeat the experience.

[kernelbogey]

Some professional proponents of theatre would contend that everything that happens within the theatre is an aspect of the performance or show. Any stage work is, after all, a communication between performers and audience: it's not one-way. I think of the tradition at the Neujharskonzert in Vienna of audience clapping in the Radetzky March. At some level I am irritated by it, but the encore is actually a traditional joint activity.

I once saw Tosca in Rome. Though the memory is now a bit hazy I recall lots of audience participation in the form of prolonged applause holding up otherwise continuous music; shouts, whistles, cat calls etc.

A relative who attended an opera at the Arena di Verona recalled a local Italian family behind where she sat, 'ordinary people with their picnic of bread, salami, cheese, olive and wine', chatting knowledgeably about the merits of the performance versus last year, the relative merits of the tenors etc.

Both good examples of a lack of elitism in opera, and treating it as part of one's life rather than as a sacred ritual to be treated with awestruck reverence!
kb

[Bert Coules]

Bluestateprommer is spot on with the point about the timing of the curtain at the end of acts. A large number of audience members - and certainly not just at the NY Met - have a built-in impulse to applaud as soon as a curtain starts to move. It's a nice notion, and requires considerable skill on the part of all concerned, to have the curtain finish closing exactly as the music ends, but in cases where the travel is slow (to fit in with the mood of the piece) that can mean starting the movement fatally early: and of course dying-fall act ends are precisely the ones where premature audience reaction can be the most disturbing and intrusive.

If the lights remain up, leaving the tabs open until after the final note can lead to an awkward stage wait. A blackout or slow fade followed by a curtain is often the ideal solution.

There was a lot of discussion about this some years back at the ENO when they revived The Mastersingers. The music at the end of act two has a very delicate slow diminuendo followed by a moment of silence and then a forte chord. They tried a tab close timed to end just before the final chord, which inevitably didn't work. In fact it was a real mess: some people started clapping as soon as the curtain began its descent which prompted an outbreak of shushing which was actually every bit as unpleasant and damaging to the mood as the clapping itself. They changed to a blackout exactly on the final chord and the problem went away.

Whether some people like it or not, the audience and their reaction is as much a part of the performance as the contributions from stage and pit. And like other performers, audiences have their own timing and natural rhythms. If these go wrong or are mis-managed it can mar the impact of the whole thing.

Bert

[PJPJ]

I've filled in the nearly interminable report form for this.

x100

It's fixed already.

x100

[Bert Coules]

And not wishing to dwell on the negative, but am I alone in thinking that the video director spent a little too much time in close-up mode...?

I'm usually quite irritated by the over use of closeups (operatic singing is not always a pleasant activity to observe from very close quarters and even now too many opera singers' acting skills are rather more convincing from a distance) but I thought the Parsifal director - to my shame I can't recall her name, and to the Met's shame it doesn't seem to appear on the publicity for the event) had the balance between wide shot, medium and closeup very nicely judged.

There was one moment in act one where an important interaction between Parsifal and Amfortas was almost lost, but that was the only time I disagreed with the director's choices.

On this note, I wish that live opera DVDs would offer the option of viewing the whole show from a fixed camera position in the mid stalls or centre front of the dress circle for those who would like it.

Bert

[gurnemanz]

I'm afraid, though, that I didn't enjoy the experience (my first). I found the volume far too loud - at some points I had to cover my ears to mute it, especially during Parsifal's 'aria' after Kundry's kiss. I also didn't get a great feeling of it being live - I did feel that I could have been watching a film. With my dislike of the first act, & discomfort with the sound, I seriously considered going back home & finishing it on the radio. I suppose the only thing that stopped me was the thought that I didn't want to waste £15 . I don't know if I'll repeat the experience.

I can't identify with any of the above:

- I could actually have done with fuller sound. Maybe this varied from venue to venue.

- It being "live" was ultimately irrelevant, since the experience would have been the same if it had been recorded and time shifted.

- It felt like watching a film because that was presumably the aim of those adapting it as a cinematic event. I thought it was achieved very well, both technically and artistically.

- It did not cross my mind to go home early and at £12 for the evening we both thought we got a good deal.

- Having previously been rather dubious about attending these live opera broadcasts, I now have an open mind and may well repeat the experience.

[BBMmk2]

Your memory's playing tricks on you, BBM. The Met hasn't staged Prince Igor in nearly 100 years. However, it is doing so next season, so now's your chance!

Oh, really? thank you Petrushka. It was some Russian opera then

It be around 2006 IGI.

[Bryn]

Oh, really? thank you Petrushka. It was some Russian opera then

It be around 2006 IGI.

Probably that Boris. He seems to get everywhere.

[Flosshilde]

- I could actually have done with fuller sound. Maybe this varied from venue to venue.

Is 'fuller' the same as 'louder'?

Volume does possibly vary - I was at a Cineworld showing; independent or smaller cinemas might have more 'realistic' sound.

It being "live" was ultimately irrelevant, since the experience would have been the same if it had been recorded and time shifted.

- It felt like watching a film because that was presumably the aim of those adapting it as a cinematic event. I thought it was achieved very well, both technically and artistically.

Well, yes, that was my point; but a great deal is made of it being a live relay. I did think that it was very good as a filmed opera - very few ultra close-ups, & plenty of full-stage (or nearly so) shots (although I thought the side views, which showed the lighting in the wings, a mistake)

Having previously been rather dubious about attending these live opera broadcasts, I now have an open mind and may well repeat the experience.

I've been dubious in the past, & I was looking forward to this, given the good reviews, but having a luke-warm reaction to the production, & finding the sound ear-splitting at some (quite a few) points, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

(I've not actually been overwhelmed by any of the productions I've seen - it's possibly the work itself that is almost unstageable. The only one I've enjoyed & felt made sense is the Syberberg film, which of course has the advantage of all the benefits of the medium.)

[JFLL]

I'm sure I've seen the same 'premature curtain' thing elsewhere, TBF... with corresponding early applause...

Although actually, I think I can remember being very impressed once with the dexterity of the 'curtain wrangler' that they began their descent on a long final diminuendo chord, perfectly choreographed so that they fell as the sound slowly died, the bottom corners of the curtain snicking shut precisely at the instant the chord ended ppp... I don't recall any applause then.

This sounds rather similar to one of the most effective ‘curtains’ I recall, in a Sadler’s Wells production of ‘Boris Godunov’ at Stratford in the mid-60s (with Forbes Robinson – anyone remember him?). In the final scene there is only one person on stage, the Simpleton or Holy Fool, who sings a plaintive song about the woes of Russia. During the scene there was a transparent moving film of snowflakes (must be a technical term for this!) towards the front of the stage. At the end of the scene the music gradually fades away in a melancholy rocking figure played by the low strings, at the end of which the snowflakes were suddenly ‘switched off’ and frozen into immobility. After a few seconds of total silence, the curtain came down. No premature applause there!

[Flosshilde]

Presumably the snowflakes were projected onto a gauze at the front of the stage. If the lights behind are 'up' then you can see through; when the lights behind go 'down' the gauze becomes opaque & you just see the projection on it.