Don Opeatico's "Reviews"
Date: February 22, 2001 11:05 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Bad news
It stank. The singers stank, the
conducting stank, the quiz stank,
the audience stank, all the posts
on the b'cast stank, the prima
donna's perfume stank ...
Date: February 23, 2001 12:28 AM
Author: Jennifer Anderson
Subject: Così b'cast
Sounds like the guy I sat next to
at the ballet.
Date: February 24, 2001 04:38 PM
Author: Linda Cantor
Subject: Così b'cast
Now that your question was used,
it makes your post even funnier.
I loved it. The opera isn't over
yet, and the 'critics' are
starting already.
Linda
Date: February 26, 2001
08:36 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Manon b'cast
I listened to the Manon b'cast
while operating a pneumatic drill,
but the performance was so bad I
turned it off after 30 seconds.
They shouldn't do Manon till they
get the singers who can sing it.
Actually, there should just be a
moratorium on opera till we get the
singers who can sing it. Meanwhile,
we can listen to rap or
something.
Date: February 27, 2001 10:57 AM
Author: Odeen
Subject: Manon b'cast
Hear hear! Or is it here here? Why
can't English be like all
normal languages and not have
words that sound exactly the same,
but have different meanings and
different spellings? There their
anyone? Sheesh. Moving
on..."Manon" was crap. What are they
thinking?
Date: March 04, 2001 09:45 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete: Almost
bearable
This broadcast was almost bearable,
except that Mary Dunleavy's Fs
in altissimo (or whatever) were one
128th note flat. Sheesh, I sing
Fs in altissimo all the time, and
I'm a baritone! (A baritone
practically untrained, at that.)
Speaking of baritones, Keanlyside
was good -- but why should I be
satisfied with "good"? Is not an
absolutely flawless performance my
birthright? AND he didn't hold a
candle to Schikaneder's performance
(although Schikaneder did go off
pitch once). The less said about
whoever the blazes sang Tamino, the
better. As for the Sarastro, when
he came on I just had to turn off
the radio and visit my favorite
medium for a séance, so I could hear
some *real* singing. Sylvia
McNair's Pamina was pretty, but I was
longing for a REAL singer (a Nooedl
or a Millabout) to just belt it
out. Cleavage is not enough, Sylvia
(and yes, I could see it through
the radio waves with my
extra-sensory perception). Opera is Noise!
Date: March 05, 2001 07:54 AM
Author: Wendell Eatherly
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
> Cleavage is not
> enough, Sylvia (and yes, I
could see it through
> the radio waves with my
extra-sensory
> perception)!
But what I don't understand is
why was McNair made to look like
Hei-Kyung Hong? Were there any
notes from the Director in the
program to explain that?
Date: March 06, 2001 08:07 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
It has to do with othering the
self, or something
Date: March 05, 2001 09:27 AM
Author: Alan Bromberg
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Don O., your advance reviews are
as perceptive as they are
helpful. May we have the word on
the rest of the season's
broadcasts so I can plan which
Saturday afternoons I can find
something else to do?
Date: March 05, 2001 09:36 AM
Author: JUDSON
Subject: Zauberfloete
b'cast
Skip the ARIADNE, Alan. The
sopranos will not be nearly so good
as the sopranos who sang the
last broadcast.
Date: March 05, 2001 10:15 AM
Author: Alan Bromberg
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Thanks for the tip. I'll be
out of the country and would have
missed that one anyway, but
now I won't feel so bad about it
(although I really would love
to hear Dessay's Zerbinetta).
Date: March 06, 2001 08:09
PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete
b'cast
The Lulu will be good; the
Boheme will, of course, stink;
the spirits I've been
channelling lately aren't giving me
any more info at the moment.
Date: March 06, 2001
10:24 PM
Author: Becca
Subject: Così b'cast
We're waiting for the
spirits to tell you about NEXT
season!
Date: March 07, 2001
08:24 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
The spirits charge
extra for that; but the signs look
pretty ominous. I see a
blind tenor singing in a
production sponsored by
Phillip Morris. If you would
know more, you must
cross my palm with silver.
Date: March 08, 2001
09:24 AM
Author: Vincenzo
Subject: Zauberfloete
b'cast
Phillip Morris? Well
then, the opera must be Il
Segreto di Susanna!
Date: March 08,
2001 08:54 PM
Author: Don
Operatico (don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject:
Zauberfloete b'cast
With Bocelli as the
Count (or whatever; the husband
guy)? Thought that
was a baritone role; but since
Bocelli isn't
really an opera singer, it makes
little difference
...
Actually, it could
also be Carmen (see Tenors,
Tantrums and
Trills).
Date: March 05, 2001 04:14 PM
Author: Linda Cantor
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Please keep this up, guys. I love
it. And your advance criticisms
are as good as the actual ones that
are posted. At least you have a
sense of humor, which is more than
I can say for some others. gggg
Linda
Date: March 06, 2001 08:10 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete b’cast
What sense of humor? I am in
deadly earnest.
Date: March 05, 2001 04:31 PM
Author: a tenor in Holland
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Amen.....I'll have to miss the ZauberflÌoete, unfortunate for me since it
is one of my all-time favourite operas....period. The advance review
does help ease the pain a little bit and helps convince me that I won't
be missing any great event.
Doe-doei
...............................................................TiH
Date: March 06, 2001 08:11 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Skip the entire season and time-travel.
Date: March 07, 2001 11:28 AM
Author: Odeen
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
I'm sure those who get through
"Lulu" will think it good, though
Schafer is no Stratas, let me
tell you. The rest, as Don O says,
is pretty lame. I thought
"Ariadne" would be good, but who are
these ladies kidding? They were
decent the last time around
(when, of course, they did not get a
broadcast), but now they're
all wobbles, not to mention
boring and shrill. I can't believe
Domingo will be singing
Parsifal again in a few years. Judging
by his singing on the broadcast
he needs to start singing 3rd
Squire instead. Who is this
awful Russian mezzo...Violeta
Urmana? Violent Crap-ana, is
more like it. Why don't these
people go back to the cave they
crawled out of and shut the iron
curtain? And as far as
"Boheme" goes...until they get singers
capable of singing this thing
we should retire this tired little
opera. The production is awful
(what was that endless rustling
all through Act III?); the
soprano was great just a few short
years ago, but now she sounds
like she's 90 and has gained 4000
pounds. The tenor sounds like
he's really starving. Talk about
"method acting." I
hope this Musetta pulled a Wellitsch, because
there was certainly nothing to
listen to there. Well, lots of
screaming and hooting, but you
can't get far sounding like that.
(At least not if I ran the Met.)
"Zauberfloete" only featured
one good singer: Kurt Moll.
Everyone else should have been
placed under that huge kettle from the
"Macbeth" production and
then crushed under it. Until we clone
Wunderlich, Janowitz,
Peters, and Fischer-Dieskau, lock every
score of this opera in a
vault in Gringotts and let no one touch it
because Mozart has
been spinning in his grave so much that
he'll be coming out in
China
any moment now. Tony Soprano should order a hit on Joseph
Volpe for the atrocities he has inflicted
on us this past
broadcast season. I'm calling Texaco right
now and telling them
to stop paying for these broadcasts. They should
just broadcast
old recordings from now on. Recordings from
a time when people
knew how to sing. Sing! Remember singing???
Where is that arc
Beverly organized? I'm hijacking it and
leaving you all to
suffer with these &^$F#F&
broadcasts which, if I paid for them,
would cost me a lot of money.
Date: March 07, 2001 02:00 PM
Author: a tenor in Holland
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Whew! Feel any better now,
m'dear?
*ducking & covering*
..........................................................TiH
Date: March 07, 2001 08:28 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Zauberfloete b'cast
Stay tuned to this spot,
where, once a week, we will be
giving you the real slim shady
on precisely in what ways each
b'cast will stink.
The last really good singer
was Florence Foster Jenkins.
Date: March 10, 2001 09:34 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Beastly Boheme b'cast
3/17/01
This was the most outrageous insult
of a broadcast I have had the
misfortune to experience. I have
e-mailed Volpe personally to
complain. But I will give credit
where credit is due and admit that
Miriam Gauci's E# in bar 327 was
bearable, but otherwise, she was
simply incapable of producing
anything that one could, with all the
charity in the world, call a
note. Lopardo shrieked his entire part
in an unrelenting forte, turning
"Che gelida manina" into a rather
off-key "Di quella pira."
Finley could easily have been a deaf-mute;
in the words of the old song,
"O That It Were So." The only thing
more annoying than barely audible
singing is barely audible barking.
As for Ainhoa Arteta's Musetta, she
bleated, wobbled, gagged, and
vomited her way through the role
with nary an indication of even a
passing familiarity with the score.
Bernstein (Colline) and
Patriarco (Schaunard) gave a new
meaning to the phrase "green eggs
and ham." The production stank
too, as was evident from the thumping
sounds in Act II, scene 2. And what
the blazes was wrong with the
audience who kept laughing at this
appalling shtick and even
applauding it? During the risibly
(if it were not rather shamefully)
long curtain calls, I lost patience
and started yelling at the
radio, "Stop applauding, you
idiots!!!!!!!" (and would that I had
had an amplification system to yell
it at the audience). To be able
to yell that from the comfort of my
home, and be heard, would be a
deeply satisfying experience.
Mosher was a bovine Parpignol,
Thomas Hammons a ditzy Benoindoro,
Richard Pearson a glutinous
Sergeant, Garth Dawson an unspeakably
smarmy Customs Officer.
By the way, what was wrong with the
quiz contestants? How could
these self-important ignoramuses
have failed to identify 17 sopranos
singing a demisemiquaver
"ah" in high F? I knew without even
listening that they were Nilsson,
Tetrazzini, Tebaldi, Callas,
Milanov, Battle, Racette, Giordani, Streisand,
Arteta, Bush,
Clinton,
Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail (Bernheimer should at least have
been able to get those), Xena the
Warrior Princess, and Charlotte
Church respectively. Pitiful!!
I almost forgot to mention what
a crummy overrated composer Puccini
is -- what disgusting schlock! What
is wrong with these so-called
composers anyway? Are we not all
sick of Rossini's
spaghetti-and-meatballs stuffola,
Mozart's powdered-wig confections,
and Verdi's UPN sensationalism?
Date: March 12, 2001 07:31 AM
Author: Alan Bromberg
Subject: Beastly Boheme
Other than that, how did you like
the performance?
Date: March 12, 2001 09:43 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Beastly Boheme
Apart from that, it was great!
Date: March 20, 2001 02:20 AM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: TWO NAUSEATING NABUCCHI (3/20/01 and
3/24/01)
I made the mistake of attending the March 20 Nabucco, and have to regretfully report
that my foray into live opera was a failure. There are, in fact, no more performances
worth attending, and they should just fire all opera singers, cancel all performances, and
close down the voice departments in all the conservatories until they get people who can sing.
This will not happen in our lifetime.
Maria Guleghina’s adorers, who would not recognize a flat note if one screamed in their ear, will
no doubt be disappointed to learn that several of the so-called singer’s flat notes DID indeed scream
their way into the ears of all and sundry. I don’t know whether these applauding imbeciles were
merely stupid, or whether they were also masochists. All I know is that in the Golden Age, such an
appalling performance would have been laughed off the stage of any elementary school auditorium.
Pons was non-entity. He did not exist. Title role schmitle role, I saying. I can’t remember the names
of the other singers, but they didn’t exist either. As for “Va, pensiero,” yes it was encored. Rumor has
it that one of the choristers has been bribing Levine to continue these insults to artistic integrity. But
as I was saying, I’ve never understood why such a big deal is made of this little organ-grinder piece.
I got bored to death during the encore and called up my girlfriend on my cell phone and my
neighbour had the nerve to complain! I valiantly tried to explain that this wasn’t part of the opera,
being an encore, and furthermore, at least I wasn’t coughing, and she had been coughing (I distinctly
heard her; it was at .00065 microbels) during “Tremin gl’insani.” Why didn’t she asphyxiate? I
would have. The ushers came and dragged me out at that point so I missed the rest of the
performance; but that was no loss, as it stank. Nearly forgot to mention that the production made De
Mille’s The Ten Commandments
look like Great Art.
After that experience, I had to fortify myself to listen to the b’cast, for I was painfully aware
of exactly how crummy it would be. But I persevered, knowing how very
valuable my
opinion is and what a catastrophe it would be if I did
not inform the entire Internet
world of precisely how bad the b’cast was. I also had a lingering hope that it would not be
as bad as
I expected. Not as bad as I expected? It was worse, far worse.
The only plus is that I slept
through most of it. I did succeed in staying awake for the quiz, which stank. They should fire all
the quizmasters and quiz panellists and play recordings of
quizzes from the 1950s.
My posts do not necessarily
represent my own opinions, let alone
those of my institutions.
Date: March 20, 2001 06:45 AM
Author: Alan Bromberg
Subject: Nauseating Nabucchi
It's obviously fiction, since
ushers would never have the temerity
to remove someone using a cell
phone!
Date: March 21, 2001 03:16 AM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Nauseating Nabucchi
Rats; my deception has been
unmasked!
Date: March 26, 2001 10:12 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Obligatory Gambler Review
Now I know next to nothing about
The Gambler, and from what little I
know, I won't like it or, indeed,
take the slightest interest in it.
At least Lulu and Wozzeck are
*about* something. But gambling ...
who cares! But enough of this real
stuff; on to the review.
Galouzine is far too fat to be a
great artist. It is, of course,
well-known that corpulence, not
anything so pedantic as actual
singing, is the proper criterion for
judging a singer's performance.
The only even acceptable
performance was that of Eduardo Valdes in
the role of Second Croupier.
The Quiz Kids were admittedly
rather better than the adult
panellists, not that that is saying
very much. But it did help that
they had heard of Verdi.
Peter Allen's performance was disappointing in the extreme. He was
consistently flat, and he made Russian
sound like bad American.
Date: April 02, 2001 09:57 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Pestiferous Parsifal
B'cast
Everything about this broadcast,
down to the tiniest detail, was
wrong. Take, for example, the
flower maidens. One glance at the old
photos from Rhinegold (of Flopsy,
Mopsy, and Cottontail, for
example) will make it quite evident
that female pulchritude is not
what it used to be.
Donna
Racik's prompting is the worst I have ever heard -- even worse
than Taupe's.
Jay
David Saks' audio direction has hit a new low.
You
know the old joke, repeated ad nauseam by so-called opera-lovers
who gush over Donizetti-pop but
don't have the requisite attention
span for a real musikdramatisches
Gesamtkunstwerk? The one where the
performance begins at 6 p.m.,
you look at your watch three hours
later, and it's 6:20? Well, thanks
to Levine's languorous
conducting, it was true today.
Indeed, for about half an hour the
conductor fell asleep and the
orchestra played the same few motifs
over and over again...
Why,
you ask, do I have nothing to say about the singers? Well,
frankly, because the subject is so
depressing. The least bad of the
lot was Wlaschiha's Klingsor,
who sounded as though he truly had
been castrated. Dramatic values, if
not musical values, were thus
well served (in a sense) by his
performance. Domingo's taking a
four-second rest where a
three-second rest is called for, is simply
unacceptable in anything purporting
to be a professional
performance. Someone needs to
explain to Urmana the not-so-subtle
distinction between a quarter-note
and a quarter-note followed by a
dot. As for the others: where did
the Met get these guys? Are they
so desperate that they're
dragooning stagehands to sing such
important (nay, vital) roles as
Anfortas and Gurnemanz? And speaking
of the stagehands, I know several
seventh-graders who could do a
better job than these slobs. They
could at least sweep the stage now
and then.
I
nearly forgot to mention that the intermission features, however
interesting the subject may be in
itself, were rather a waste.
Bernheimer, Crutchfield, and the
rest would clearly be better
employed as high-school
cheerleaders.
Date: April 11, 2001 11:36 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Boring Ariadne and the Betrayal of Opera
Well, this Ariadne was note-perfect
in the boringly pedantic way
that characterizes so many
"performances' of the present. In
Mentzer's hands, the Composer's
hymn to music might have been an
accountant's financial report --
and, given current directorial
"liberties," very
probably was. There was no soul in this broadcast
-- none. Is this not a fundamental
betrayal of the passion which is
the very essence of opera? Properly
programmed robots could have
done as well, if not better.
Betrayal. That is the only possible
explanation for the unacceptable
"performances" that the
Met has inflicted upon us this season.
Today's singers, conductors,
directors, etc., are not merely
appallingly incompetent or
else simply boring, as I once thought in
my naïveté. They are EVIL. Critics
are likewise EVIL. This explains
the brutality of their nefarious
schemes, wherein they differ so
much from the online amateur
critics like myself, who alone possess
the Truth and whose reviews are
sweetness and light. Even faced with
such disgraceful performances as
Carfizzi's, whose mangling of the
Lackey's (too often underrated)
role shows a total lack of personal
worth, I have been merciful.
Of course, there are online amateur
critics and online amateur
critics. Some of them, alas, are
collaborators who conspire with the
singers, conductors, directors,
critics, and ushers to betray the
operatic art-form from within.
Everyone who disagrees with this
review is EVIL.
Date: April 12, 2001 10:19 AM
Author: Odeen
Subject: Ariadne
I thought it sucked, too.
Especially that Russian singer. We
should have bombed those Russians
when we had the chance.
(Actually, we can still bomb
them. Let’s do it. The vibratos in
their voices are annoying also.
Phew!) Voigt...Lord. Look,
overweight people can't sing,
act, move, nothing. She's good for
the recording studio, if she's good
for anything at all. Margison
should be taken out back and
shot. Actually, don't bother taking
him out back. The ONLY person on
stage worth anything was Waldemar
Kmentt. Oh, that voice, the
training (you can immediately tell
he's from the old school of
singers.) Okay, so it's a non-singing
role, but you could just tell how
great this man is. Let’s clone
him in the soprano and tenor
versions and stage this opera again
with him singing all the
roles!!!! Now that would rock!
Date: April 12, 2001 09:16 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Ariadne
Write to Bush and ask him to do
it. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
We should bomb the rest of
Europe while we're at it.
The Kmentt experiment sounds
interesting; and his name is v.
intriguing. But does he
have the Bjoerling? That's what it
takes.
Date: April 16, 2001 09:01 PM
Author: Don Operatico
(don_operatico@my-deja.com)
Subject: Lustful Lulu b'cast
Tha guy that usually does these
couldn't do it today so I'm doin it
instead. I rilly liked Christine
Schafer's cleavage. With loox like
that, who carez about anything so
pedantic as her singing?
I think it wudda bin better
if they'd had that Bachelly guy in it.
The muzak was good, almost az good
az Snoop Dawggy Dawg.