As much as I wanted to express all the negative and scournful impressions I gathered during the televised Le Cid(Massenet) then the live production of it I saw at Marseille Opera House at the end of my season here, I did not manage to actually write about it. It is the biggest 'down' of my season. I would not like to be unfair towards artists like Beatrice Uria Monzon who was actually a very moving Chimene. Roberto Alagna praised himself before hand when he explained in the local press and on tv that he was the only tenor who could make the revival of this role, the scores being so hard...He did not convince me at all, but the House was his as usual. (same reactions of blind admiration when he sang Marius, but not from me.)
Time is running fast, even faster especially when my grandchildren are around, and this summer they came earlier than usual, for our greatest pleasure. So, opera vanished in my mind, a bit... All I can say is that the hype made on this Le Cid revival was not worth what I heard from the orchestra and the cast on the whole; as for the setting it was dreadfully unimaginative and old-fashioned even if it was meant to be Spain in the thirties, under a pseudo franquist regime. I would have prefered a classical atmosphere truer to Corneille's verses with less hints to that kind of fascist period with ridiculous religious and army choirs never on time with the pit somehow on the sunday afternoon I was there.
What I saw in Nice opera house for Elektra was fantastic and worth a televised evening !
I came back from my trip from Salzburg and Munich four days ago to discover the saddest news of all about Salvatore Licitra who was such a generous artist. I never heard him live but any time I listened to him he reminded me of Luciano Pavarotti quite a lot.
I ended my trip in Munich by visiting Dachau under pouring rain, and realised it would have been an unbearable visit in bright sunshine. The emptiness of the site is filled with the memories of all the sufferers, and it is well explained on boards. The museum also gives worthwhile documents which can help younger people to apprehend this utmost human crualty. Still even if the concentration camp is softened by the three religious buildings and the garden of ashes, I felt icy and cold when I crossed the ditch to the two crematoriums.
There it is icy and cold whatever the season is I think.
I was relieved to be on my own.
My stepfather saw the liberation of the camp and witnessed the bombing of Munich by the allies.
In fact, I was not really on my own that afternoon in Dachau.
I had so many childhood memories to confront to the crude reality.
Time is indeed running too fast but will keep the traces of this past because it has to be so. Never to be forgotten, therefore, never again anywhere..
cara
ReplyDeletethanks you for this post - I saw Auschwitz I and II under bright sunshine and believe me it was as chilling - particularly the emptiness at Camp #2. Both Dachau and Auschwitz are sad reminders of the inhumanity of man and lesson not learned.
Some humans can do more harm than imaginary gods and monsters combined indeed, Yvette. I'm afraid it is an ongoing thing (though now mostly in Sudan's region of Africa). :o(
ReplyDeleteI guess the closest thing we have to such memory of monstrosity here in America is the 9/11 WTC site, though I'm not sure if it has as sobering an effect on us. I've been wading through 9/11 related articles and other media coverages since late August... Sometimes I wonder if we hadn't already commercialized the thing. :oP
Sorry to hear Le Cid was a big bust for you! I have a grainy television recording of a performance of that opera with Placido Domingo in the lead. I have trouble listening through Werther at times (especially if the Werther is being so badly sung that I wish he'd cut his death scene short by about 10 minutes), and I haven't a prayer at Le Cid. It does have a couple of spectacular arias, though. :o)
Good to have you back in the Blogosphere, bien amie! Hope September is treating you and yours well!
Dear friends Willym and Smorgy,
ReplyDeleteI hesitated about finishing with a question mark after anywhere.( well aware of this wishful thinking). You are both realistic in your comments. Ethnic massacres occur too often, and terrorism is to be dread almost everywhere. So, right you are. It is hard to be optimistic.'the lesson is not learned' ... Smorgy there is a massacre I have in mind when I think of the 'new world': the Indians... (Bury my heart at Wounded Knee D. Brown)