I went to hear a production of Don Giovanni at the Met. I love the opera, and though the critics had deemed the production "drab", I went anyway. It was fabulous! Once again I was perched in a seat above the orchestra, and the performance by Fabio Luisi and the Met Orchestra was as exciting and nuanced as you could want. In my next incarnation, I want to be the conductor of the Met Orchestra. (Though, please, when I am on my way there, I ask my survivors not to try to hasten the process by scattering my ashes in the orchestra pit.) The singers all had their good and great moments, and the acting and staging were in general good. And again, I came away in awe of Mozart's genius. It's hard to add anything to what's been said about Don Giovanni over the years, other than to say I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Within the relatively constrained parameters of late 18th century musical style, Mozart's music is extraordinarily expressive and constantly inventive. And sometimes downright perverse and subversive.
So why was the production called "drab"? I did some internet searching, and it seems that many critics expect directors to bring something new and different to a production. The worst thing you can do is set it in Seville, as this production did, instead of updating it, say, to be set in a fish canning factory or whatever. (I remember seeing Suzanne Osten's film, "The Mozart Brothers", which is a comedy about a crazy director with outlandish ideas about a production of Don Giovanni. He wants it set in a graveyard filled with mud, and the entire opera takes place during the moment that a dying Don Giovanni is falling to the ground. He was killed in the opening duel, it seems. What seemed like pure satire when it was made (1985) now seems rather tame compared to some newer takes on opera staging.)
One thing that struck me about this production is that the singers spent a great deal of their time at the very front part of the stage, with the set right behind them. Which meant that their voices and stage presence were very immediate to the audience, something that many opera directors are unconcerned with. Mr. Trelinksi in particular might be happier if his singers were kept off the stage entirely.
I should say that what bothers me in opera productions is not when they change the setting or details of the plot. It is when the production violates or negates what the composer has written, and reduces the music to an incidental element in the director's concept. I remember seeing Peter Sellar's production of Don Giovanni many years ago. It was set in Spanish Harlem in the 1950's, and everything Sellars did was a reflection of the music. It was the best production of Don Giovanni I have ever seen.
I went with our friends Jane and George to hear the Canadian jazz pianist Rene Rosnes at the Village Vanguard. It was surprising when I realized that the last time I was in the Village Vanguard was around 1972, when I went with my friend Istvan to hear a performance of the Mingus band. The performance is still vivid in my memory. I also remember that, when the last set was over, we got in my VW bug and drove back to college in Vermont, arriving as the sun was rising. Oh to be young!
Rosnes's band was excellent, with vibes, bass and drum. Though to be honest, there were problems with the balance of sound. The Vanguard is a small room, and we were close to the piano, but the vibes and drum consistently drowned out the piano. Rosnes is a composer as well, but unfortunately she didn't always announce the names of the tunes she was playing, so I have no idea which, if any, were her tunes. In any case, she is an excellent pianist, and it was a pleasure to hear her play. My sense is that she could be more original in her sound; a lot of her solos were played with fairly conventional right-hand virtuosic solo lines, with the left hand doing the usual chord changes.
With the genre of music I hear seemingly shifting constantly, our next events were two concerts in Carnegie Hall by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Simon Rattle. The first was a performance of Boulez's "Eclat", followed by Mahler Symphony 7. We were up in the highest reaches of the balcony. The concert was extraordinary. The Boulez, for fifteen instruments, was a delicate weave of sonorities. The instruments included a cimbalom and mandolin. The performance was beautifully balanced and all the sounds came through, even in the vastness of Carnegie Hall. For some reason the Boulez (composed in 1965) made me think of some of the more delicate abstract expressionists, with little flashes of color and unexpected shapes and formations. Rattle's point in programming the Boulez became clear after we heard the Mahler 7, which is also an intricate weave of orchestral sonorities, only on a vast, vast scale. The performance of the Mahler was vivid and enlightening. It made me think that Mahler's 7th is his most radical and modern symphony. Shards and fragments of all kinds of melodies constantly reappeared in different colors and tonalities, all as if in some kind of giant kaleidoscope. Mahler's ear for orchestral sonorities is so original, and the Berliners made everything sound that way, abetted by the splendid sound of Carnegie Hall.
The next night, we were back for more. The first half was what Rattle described as "Mahler's 11th symphony". There is no such thing, of course; the program consisted of early orchestral works by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern (Schoenberg's Five Pieces op. 16, Webern's Six Pieces Op. 6b, and Berg's Three Pieces Op. 6). Rattle had the idea to play them as one continuous piece, with no interruptions or long pauses in between, thus making a kind of invented 14 movement symphony. And Rattle's intention was also to show how the pieces developed out of Mahler's work. (The three composers were great admirers of Mahler's music.) This was a fascinating idea, though in practice, I found it somewhat difficult. The music is extremely concise, dense, and concentrated; maintaining a high level of focused listening over that time (more than forty minutes) is not easy. But, with the previous night's Mahler in our ears, the point worked. Although the differences were striking as well. Mahler relies on so many pieces from his musical scrap pile, bits of waltzes, sentimental melodies, marches, etc. whereas the other's allusions are very sparse or nonexistent. And Mahler wants huge chunks of time, and the others, especially Webern, were busy compressing events into shorter and shorter durations. The performances were stunning; I have never heard these pieces played with such musicality and beautifully realized details. What has often sounded like mush in other recordings or performances I have heard was crystal clear in these performances. You really heard all their newly imagined sonorities. It was a revelation; I may never ever again hear these pieces played so well.
The second half of the program was Brahm's Second Symphony, in a beautifully realized performance. The Berlin Philharmonic is one of the best in the world; they really play like chamber musicians, with all the orchestral timbres balanced and details clearly audible. What a treat!
When I was young, my grandmother used to take me to concerts at Carnegie Hall. We were always in the balcony, where we were for these concerts. It's astonishing to think that I have been going to Carnegie Hall for over fifty years!
I was amused to see that some of the people sitting next to us, most likely orchestral neophytes, had little idea of what to make of the first half, and left at intermission, thus missing the Brahms, which undoubtedly would have pleased them a great deal more. And I give great credit to Rattle and the people at Carnegie Hall who create such programs; luckily, the appeal of the Berlin Philharmonic to New York audiences is so great that they can be guaranteed a sellout without having to feature flashy big name soloists (which is how many orchestras need to market their concerts.)
Speaking of orchestras, I haven't been to any regular NY Philharmonic concerts this fall. I think perhaps financial circumstances have forced them to be quite conservative in their programming; an endless parade of Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and violin concerto warhorses is what they do, along with a few ill-fitting stabs at something contemporary. A sad end to the promise of the Gilbert era.
