I’m not even sure whether to praise the Metropolitan Opera or criticize them. They have a new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, and this year they are showing it exactly once in a live broadcast on April 26 and exactly once in a recording on April 30, and only in select theaters worldwide. They offer recordings for a fee, but never from the current season—well, for obvious reasons. So, Figaro will only be added to their library next year.
Our local cinema failed the live broadcast—they apologized, sent us home, and promised a refund. Four days later, a recorded session was shown in the same theater. That went almost smoothly, if you ignore the severe sound issues during the first 30 minutes. Since I can’t tell if both were issues with the specific theater or poor organization by the Met, I dropped them a support line just in case.
And support apologized on behalf of the theater and, as a nice bonus, sent me a link to a video 1280 × 720, 3h37m, asking me to watch it by Monday because after that the carriage turns back into a pumpkin. Well, okay, not quite an mp3 file, but it streams via m3u8, and yt-dlp manages to convert it into a 6-gigabyte mp4 file in 3 minutes.
Interestingly, this recording starts with the opera artists singing the Ukrainian anthem on stage before the curtain is even raised. This introduction was not shown at the cinema.
I am honest, and of course, I won’t give the file to anyone. I will watch it myself when convenient, and then I may delete it, or might keep it on my personal laptop for personal use. And I might even buy a subscription to the Met this weekend. In short, they’ve done well, though, there is a small nuance 🙂
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I feel a lack of a service where I could periodically add what I want to listen to live, within reach from where I live, and where I would receive proposals to buy a concert ticket with dates — mainly based on what I indicated, but I wouldn’t mind getting recommendations sometimes either.
It would also be interesting to see how this model would work: selling tickets on the basis of “I queue up for a ticket costing N dollars, ready to dash on the day of the concert if a ticket comes but also prepared to lose the money if a ticket is available but I can’t attend”. The idea is that, one day before the concert, all the seats not normally sold are distributed to those in this queue starting with those who placed a higher amount in their bid, and if the amounts are the same, then those who applied earlier, and so on until the tickets run out. Meanwhile, the application includes consent that the money will either be charged on a specified day or not at all if no seats are available. Ultimately, the entire venue fills up, and the day before the concert brings in much more money than it would have without this system.
If, like us, you train a dog to ask to go outside by tapping the window with its paw, and to ask for food by tapping the refrigerator similarly, you quickly notice an interesting effect. Ignoring these requests becomes unpleasant: not because you urgently need to go walking or feed them, but because the tapping turns into something more — into a voice, and teaching the dog to understand the reason for refusal is much trickier. You might want to reinforce — well done, let’s go, I’ll do what you want, you’ve learned to communicate with us, we’ve learned to understand you, but on the other hand, the dog begins to control you, realizing that tapping with its paw actually produces a tangible effect.
The real problem is that if I don’t react, my dog doesn’t think: “Ah, probably not the time right now.” It decides that it’s just not loud enough or persistent enough. In its world, the absence of a response is not an argument but a reason to increase the pressure.
Well okay, it has learned to understand and accept a verbal refusal, after all. But occasionally it doesn’t work. Apparently, in its world, an insufficiently justified refusal is not seen as a refusal.
When we watch movies, we slice cheese for the wine. Yuka knows that when the projector turns on, the smell of wine will soon be accompanied by cheese, and settles nearby. And interestingly, it very clearly senses when the cheese is finished. It can’t see that it’s finished, but apparently, its sense of smell replaces its vision. And as soon as you eat the last piece with it, it stands up and leaves.
A KGB officer came to check the symphony orchestra before their trip abroad. He watched the rehearsal. Sharing his impressions:
– Overall, not bad, you can feel the team spirit, especially those with the bows. But there are some shortcomings: that guy at the back, during the whole rehearsal, only hit with his stick about three times – he was mostly slacking off…
– Well, that’s our drummer, that’s his part…
– Don’t give me that, there’s only one Party for us, and he needs to hit more often! (C)
Anna Artamonova, this relates to your question about how we work 🙂
Nadya says, write about contemporary composers, not just about contemporary artists. Well, of course, she means classical, not pop music ones.
Here’s a good one for today – Mexican composer Arturo Márquez with his piece Danzon No. 2. Director Guillermo Ortiz Pichardo made a small short film about it, slightly nonsensical, but very much in tune with the music. By the way, the composer himself appears at 5:19.
In the comments, I’ve left a piano rendition of a segment performed by Yuja Wang. It might even be worth listening to these three minutes first. A really cool performance.
Today, I was reading about dissonances and decided to see if there are any compositions where dissonances are deliberately used as the main material. And I stumbled upon György Ligeti’s Atmosphères.
Listen, it’s very unusual and hardly resembles music at all. He used something called micropolyphony, creating dense webs of chromatic notes moving at different speeds and at various distances from each other.
If you feel like you don’t understand such music and don’t find this assembly of sounds beautiful, imagine instead of an orchestra playing it with solemn faces, a Stanley Kubrick film, for example. Suddenly, everything falls into place.
About a week ago, when I watched The Shining, the first thing I texted a friend was, “Notice that there’s no music in the film,” to which he replied that there is, but it’s so well made and integrated that you don’t notice it. Actually, The Shining has a very cool soundtrack, very well-selected.
So, specifically, this composition Atmosphères (as well as parts of Lux Aeterna, Requiem, and Aventures) was used by Kubrick in his 2001: A Space Odyssey. Another piece, Lontano, was used in The Shining. And Musica ricercata was used in Eyes Wide Shut. By the way, Musica ricercata is quite good; I’ll drop a link in the comments.
I finished “Theodora”. It’s a three-hour opera in a production by the Royal Opera House. About Christian saints and martyrs Theodora and Didymus, who lived in the 4th century in what’s now modern Syria. On stage – prostitutes, pole dances, a bomb, essentially, the full package.
And yes, originally it’s not an opera, but an oratorio, meaning originally on stage there is a chorus that sings for three hours, and nothing else happens. In the production, however, the oratorio is decked out like an opera, plus a bit more.
In short. The plot. Briefly. Valens, the Roman envoy, forces everyone to worship Roman gods, and threatens to execute those who refuse. Theodora, a Christian, does not comply. Her lover, Didymus, secretly converted to Christianity, tries to save her by disguising himself in her dress. In the end, Theodora surrenders to the enemies to save Didymus, and both die as martyrs for their faith. Afterwards, they were canonized by Christians in gratitude.
The oratorio is in English. That’s unusual in itself. Well.. in English. “Vouchsafe, dread Sir, a gracious ear. Lowly the matron bow’d, and bore away the prize…”. English from three hundred years ago. I understood “Carmen” in French with subtitles better. But no matter, there are translations you can hold in your hand and glance at one-eyed, plus everything happens veeery slowly there.
So, what we have here. A classic plot on a religious theme. In Katie Mitchell’s production, they decided to break all norms at once, making the oratorio into an opera and also setting it in modern times. It turned out pretty cool, actually.
Katie Mitchell situates the action in, as they called in an Alicante publication, a “Putin-like” embassy in Antioch, where rooms function as a brothel. This is the first theatre piece to involve an intimacy coordinator for sex and violence scenes (Ita O’Brien).
Valens, the Roman envoy in Antioch, wears a red sweater. He hasn’t heard of the #MeToo movement, hence the brothel accommodates “comfort women” for him and his bodyguards. They in red lingerie dance on poles in the red room (kind of a striptease; Holly Weston and Kelly Vee).
Next, we are introduced to Septimius, Valens’ head of security. His task is to ensure that all citizens publicly worship Roman gods as a sign of loyalty. Otherwise – death.
Here comes Didymus, one of the bodyguards. Didymus used to believe in Roman gods but secretly converted to Christianity. He’s in love with the Christian Theodora, the head of the household staff at the embassy.
Theodora plans an assassination attempt on Valens with a homemade explosive. They actually assemble it on stage with duct tape and some stuff.
Septimius uncovers the conspiracy and defuses the bomb. Theodora’s punishment – she becomes a “comfort woman”. For this, they dress her up as Marilyn Monroe. Oh, actually, it seems more like Louise Brooks, but never mind, they look alike.
Then the drama continues with an escape, Didymus saves Theodora, then the other way around. But ultimately, as in all operas, things end up not very well, but specifically in Mitchell’s production, good prevails over evil.
The role of Didymus is played by Jakub Józef Orliński. He has a beautiful scene where he changes into heels and a shimmering dress, in which he continues to perform until the end of the opera.
Jakub has a rather unusual voice. He is a countertenor. It’s the highest male voice. After castrati fell out of favor – quite rare. Google it, his voice is very beautiful. I’ll leave a few links in the comments.
One of the scenes towards the end reminds me of the café scene from “Pulp Fiction”.
The first performance of “Theodora” was in London, at the Royal Theatre in Covent Garden in 1750, and this production 272 years later comes from there too. Quite symbolic. True, back then it flopped – almost no audience. But now, it’s a classic.
I am listening to the opera Cosi fan tutte, half-watching the libretto in another window. Suddenly, I notice a whole section isn’t translated. And they completely skip it in the opera. That is, after “O ciel”, it jumps straight to “Ei parte”. I go to Google to figure out what’s going on. Seems there were many cuts, but in the entire libretto, only this aria is untranslated. Everything else is translated. I find another version of the libretto with a side-by-side translation, and there, Aria No. 24 by Ferrando “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella” is missing altogether. That’s precisely why it is also missing from the parallel translation—because the translation is from the booklets of various productions, and in them, the aria is omitted.
I started digging deeper, it turns out that Aria No. 24 is feared and not included in most productions and even studio recordings because it is very difficult to perform. “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella”. However, of course, if you wish, you can find a few performances from different theaters on YouTube.
UPDATE: Suddenly, ChatGPT has developed a sense of humor. It replies to me, “Although Mozart can no longer participate in the staging 😄, his music is sometimes subject to adaptation”. It even added a smiley face! And this was a reply to the third question with no Personalization message, and all the questions were serious.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 