The Good, the Bad, and the Anal

1. PS. I neglected to note that the General Director showing such commitment to American opera with the San Francisco Opera is David Gockley. Perhaps a reader from Houston, Texas would like to list here the two dozen American operas commissioned by Mr Gockley before he accepted the invitation to bring his commitment to American opera to San Francisco.

2. “Has there ever been a professional production in NYC of Messaien’s St. Francois di Assisi, Saariaho’s glorious L’amour de Loin, Reimann’s Lear, Ades’ Powder Her Face, Dove’s Flight, Rouder’s The Handmaiden’s Tale and so on, among the many worthy operas written in the last 20 years or so?” [H. Holland]

   Henry, interestingly, it was the San Francisco Opera which outpaced the New York City Opera (and the LA Opera, I assume) by staging Reimann’s “Lear”, Henze’s “The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea”, Ligeti’s “Grand Macabre”, Messiaen’s “Saint Francois”, and other contemporary works (including Imbrie’s Angle of Repose in 1976; and Glass’s Satyagraha sometime later. The company’s present commissions to American artists are for Glass/Hampton’s “Appomattox”, this autumn; and Stewart Wallace/Amy Tan’s “The Bonesetter’s Daughter,” a season later).

   And having just glanced at Alex Ross’s youtube link to Birtwistle and his hecklers at the Covent Garden Opera in London, in 1994, will the Sequenza21 community split on whether a Birtwistle opera is worthy of being produced in New York City — either at the MET or NYCO?

   [I also expect that Mr Mortier may soon bring Philip Boesmann and Luc Bondy’s “Wintermärchen” [A Winters Tale] to NYCO. In my opinion, this attractive opera straddles the modernist-postmodernist divide quite nicely, and features wonderful accordian solos which you don’t hear often, if at all, in contemporary American operas.]

   [[Apologies for misspelling L’amour de Loin earlier.]]

3. And “L’Amour de loin,” as restrained and beautiful a show as you could imagine. I’m excited at the idea that Peter Sellars will finally have a New York home.

4. In fairness to Mr. Mortier, he was also the person who brought stunning productions of “Saint Francois d’Assise” and “Grand Macabre” to Salzburg (I worked on both shows) as well as championing Esa-Pekka Salonen with the LA Philharmonic in the early 90’s before anyone else had figured out what was percolating in Los Angeles.

5. Sign up Alex Ross! Mr. Ross, apart from writing great articles about Schreker, obviously has a bright future in Regietheatre. I mean, he could probably even write a 3 page programme note explaining how his production illuminates the hoary old G&S chestnut for The Youth Of Our Time.

   It’s been hilarious to read some of the clutching-ones-pearls reaction to the Mortier’s hiring. From the reaction, you’d think this man was coming in to a vibrant, cutting-edge institution, one that has been doing stellar work for years. Would anyone seriously argue that’s the case with NYCO?

   I live in Los Angeles so I’ve only been there a couple times in the last five years (the highlight being a wonderful Die Tote Stadt a few years ago) but it seems it’s a house desperately in need of a boost. For one, it should quit competing with its neighbor in the standard Italian rep. It should position itself as the cutting-edge alternative to the stuffy old Met. And by cutting edge, I mean in the choice of operas it does, not the G&S production by Alex Ross. 🙂

   The repertoire should be the first priority, I’d say. All of the interesting things that Christopher Keene did are gone. Has there ever been a professional production in NYC of Messaien’s St. Francois di Assisi, Saariaho’s glorious L’amour de Loin, Reimann’s Lear, Ades’ Powder Her Face, Dove’s Flight, Rouder’s The Handmaiden’s Tale and so on, among the many worthy operas written in the last 20 years or so?

   It’s often surprising to me how conservative New York opera and symphony audiences are. If Gerard Mortier shakes that up, a few penises swinging around the stage of the State Theatre is a small price to pay.

   Mr. Bowles, is it possible to add a preview feature to the comments?

6. The City Opera bio also has no accent:

   http://www.nycopera.com/about/press/detail.aspx?rid=38

   But it’s a small point. The big question is how Mortier is going to present “Pirates of Penzance.” I suggest a production set in Auschwitz. The Major General should be dressed as George W. Bush, and will receive a blow job from his aide-de-camp as he sings the Major General’s Song. In Act II, the scene shifts to Golgotha. Jesus is a black woman on the cross. A great flood represents the melting of the polar ice caps. And so on.

7. Hmm. His current bio at the Paris opera has no accent:

   http://www.operadeparis.fr/Accueil/GerardMortier.asp

8. Never trust Belgians speaking French:

   http://www.belgium.be/eportal/application?languageParameter=en&pageid=contentPage&docId=18522

9. There’s actually no accent on Gerard. He’s Flemish. I suppose one pronounces it GHAIR-ard mohr-TEER?

10. “Mortier has been a champion of the modern, creating solid audiences for 20th-century masters like Janacek, Schoenberg and Berg” (quoted by Charles T. Downey at the ionarts citation given by Jerry above).

    And I thought that James Levine and the MET — since the mid 1970s! — had been champions of the modern, creating solid audiences for 20th-century masters like Janacek, Schoenberg, Berg, Weill, Busoni, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and several other modernist masters! I, in fact, saw my first modernist masterpieces by Berg, Janacek, Stravinsky, and others (if not Schoenberg) beginning at the MET in the late 1970s.

    (True, Moses und Aron had to wait for the NYCO in 1991 or 91; and the MET will follow the NYCO in producing Janacek’s From the House of the Dead; Tippett’s A Midsummer Marriage; and the two Hindemith masterpieces).

    I suggest that readers here make sure they catch revivals of the MET’s 2002 Lulu, or this season’s Wozzeck (Mark Lamos), and not wait for the NYCO beyond 2009.

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