Don Carlo. Met broadcast 9 March

[johnn10]

Is it just me ,or did anyone else get the impression that Lorin Maazel had, to quote from his opera, 1984, been cast as something of a non-person in tonight’s broadcast? No interview, no mention of the fact that it was his 83rd birthday earlier this week and as far as I could tell he was not even mentioned in the solo curtain calls at the end . Very strange.

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

I didn't pick up on this in the broadcast, but Maazel certainly put his stamp on the orchestra - that has to be the worst Met broadcast I've ever heard. His tempi were so ludicrously slow that his singers were severely taxed. Even Dmitri Hvorostovsky, famed for his legendary breath control, was gasping in between phrases in his ballata; by the time of Posa's death, you could clearly hear him thinking 'S*d it, I'm dead in a few pages anyway,' and set his own faster speed for 'Io morro'!

Barbara Frittoli and Anna Smirnova are vibrato-laden at the best of times (a pity in Frittoli's case as she used to be very decent), but Maazel's dragging speeds led to a veritable wobble-fest. Ramon Vargas was no better.

By the time of Posa's prison scene, I wanted to suggest to the Inquisition's hitmen that they train their muskets on the pit instead of Posa...

A friend who was there this evening (afternoon) suggested to me just now that it worked slightly better in the theatre, but is still thankful that we'll have Pappano in the pit when the production returns 'home' in May.

[DracoM]

I can confirm that live in the Met it felt even longer, even slower, and even more tedious. IMO and that of many round me Maazel should never have been entrusted with this show.
Posa and Phillip were the only two to survive.
Don Carlo - Ramon Vargas - disappeared without trace, sounded way out of his depth, and stumbled about the stage in ongoing distress and was I imagine ever more aware as we were that he wasn't cutting the mustard. .

[Flosshilde]

Not specifically relating to the performance (or perhaps it is), but it struck me last night just how much the music during the auto d fe scene, especially that accompanying the reading of the heretics names, and the chorus, sounded like a brass band entertaining Sunday strollers in the park. But then, I suppose that's more or less what the crowd were (give or take a burning heretic or two)

[underthecountertenor]

Not specifically relating to the performance (or perhaps it is), but it struck me last night just how much the music during the auto d fe scene, especially that accompanying the reading of the heretics names, and the chorus, sounded like a brass band entertaining Sunday strollers in the park. But then, I suppose that's more or less what the crowd were (give or take a burning heretic or two)

Good observation, flossie, and it leads me to wonder whether Bernstein and his various lyricists had this scene in mind when they wrote the auto da fe scene in Candide. ('What a day, what a day for an auto-da-fe, what a sunny summer sky....it's a lovely day for drinking and for watching people fry' etc)

[Prommer]

I only caught the (usually) great confrontation between Philip and Posa, and Maazel absolutely MASSACRED its climax, so that it appeared leaden and stodgy. With its wonderful pausen, it should be electric! Just awful...

[johnn10]

It reminded me of his recording of Otello where he does something similarly weird and unsuitable at the end of act 2 at the climax of the normally highly dramatic Otello and Iago scene.

[Flosshilde]

Good observation, flossie, and it leads me to wonder whether Bernstein and his various lyricists had this scene in mind when they wrote the auto da fe scene in Candide. ('What a day, what a day for an auto-da-fe, what a sunny summer sky....it's a lovely day for drinking and for watching people fry' etc)

I'm not sure if it's Verdi expressing his distaste (to put it mildly) for organised religion, or it it's one of his sudden descents into 'rumty-tumty' tunes.

I don't know Candide - I'll have to look for it on YouTube.

[underthecountertenor]

I'm not sure if it's Verdi expressing his distaste (to put it mildly) for organised religion, or it it's one of his sudden descents into 'rumty-tumty' tunes.

I don't know Candide - I'll have to look for it on YouTube.

I'm not suggesting that it's a musical pastiche of the Verdi, incidentally, only that the inappropriately cheery spirit is the same: in Candide the tone is unequivocally satirical of course, whereas as you say, in the Verdi, the intention is not so clear.

[Flosshilde]

I'm not suggesting that it's a musical pastiche of the Verdi,

No, I understood that

It's strange how Verdi could write music that is deeply passionate & dramatic, & the next moment break out into rather superficial jollity.