The Auditorium Of Palais Garnier

The auditorium of Palais Garnier.

I do not think Marc Chagall’s ceiling panels, added in 1964 and as instantly obsolete as living room furniture from the same period, are a suitable addition to what may be the world’s greatest Beaux Arts building, inside and out.

For the pasting of 1960s decoration onto one of the world’s most sublime spaces, the world has André Malraux to thank.

Civic Opera House, Chicago

The auditorium of the Civic Opera House, Chicago.

The Civic Opera House opened only days after the 1929 Stock Market Crash (Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis also opened only days after the 1929 Stock Market Crash).

With almost 3600 seats, the Civic Opera House is far too large for opera performances (a defect it shares with Northrop Auditorium, built to accommodate a whopping 4850 patrons).

And Another List

Below is a chronological listing of the opera performances Andrew and I attended in the last twelve months.

I last updated this list on June 30, 2012.

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The Shaw Festival
Court House Theatre
Niagara-On-The-Lake

Leonard Bernstein: Trouble In Tahiti

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Minnesota Opera
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Giuseppe Verdi: Nabucco

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Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Civic Opera House
Chicago

Giuseppe Verdi: Simon Boccanegra

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Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Civic Opera House
Chicago

Jules Massenet: Werther

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L’Opera Comique
Salle Favart
Paris

Marc-Antoine Charpentier: David Et Jonathas

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L’Opera National De Paris
L’Opera Bastille
Paris

Modest Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina

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Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Civic Opera House
Chicago

Giacomo Puccini: La Boheme

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Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Civic Opera House
Chicago

Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto

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Minnesota Opera
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Giacomo Puccini: Turandot

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Nine opera performances in one season: that is the highest number Andrew and I have ever attended.

A frightening prospect: we might have attended more. We skipped three Minnesota Opera productions (“Anna Bolena”, “Doubt” and “Hamlet”), we skipped two University Of Minnesota Opera Theatre productions (“Falstaff” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), we skipped two Minnesota Concert Opera productions (“I Puritani” and “Il Trovatore”), we skipped an opera offered by VocalEssence (“Paul Bunyan”)—and we might have caught another three operas while we were in Paris (“The Birthday Of The Infanta”, “L’Enfant et les sortileges” and “Street Scene”).

In addition, we had tickets for an October performance of “Otello” at the Metropolitan Opera, but we had to cancel our New York trip because of Andrew’s influenza.

The best thing we saw and heard last season: “Khovanshchina” at the Paris Opera. Everything else, more or less, was pretty feeble.

The quality of the four performances we attended at Lyric Opera Of Chicago was not high, and we shall not return. Despite its pretensions (and high prices), Lyric Opera Of Chicago is not an international-level house—and Lyric Opera Of Chicago certainly does not have anything approaching an international-level audience. (At a “Rigoletto” intermission, Andrew turned and asked his father, “Was this audience bussed in from the Ozarks?”)

No one knows whether Minnesota Concert Opera remains a going concern. Minnesota Concert Opera cancelled its final scheduled presentation of the 2012-2013 season, and has yet to announce a 2013-2014 season—although it has announced, at least on its website, two performances of an abridged, four-hour “Ring” for September (with Jane Eaglen and a chamber orchestra). I doubt whether anyone believes the potted “Ring” performances will actually occur—but, at least on paper, the whole notion sounds totally hilarious.

The 2013-2014 season for Minnesota Opera: “Manon Lescaut”; “Arabella”; “Macbeth”; “The Dream Of Valentino”; and “The Magic Flute”.

Wisely or no, Andrew and I bought a subscription . . .

And, depending upon our schedules, we may try to catch the new production of “Prince Igor” at the Metropolitan Opera next season. We have been listening to the Tchakarov and Gergiev recordings of “Prince Igor” for the last month or more (each recording uses a vastly different edition of the score), and I love the opera—despite the fact that all available editions of the work are problematic if not corrupt.

Rearranging Calendars

Andrew and I have been scratching things off our calendars left and right.

We have been warned off Park Square Theatre’s production of “Or”, a pseudo-Restoration Comedy by Liz Duffy Adams. We have been told that the play itself is the problem—Duffy apparently has rewritten and watered down Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Compleat Female Stage Beauty”, itself a work unworthy of emulation—and we have been cautioned that the text of the play is so gruesomely bad that the production must be avoided at all costs.

On Friday night, at the very last minute, Andrew, Alex and I decided to skip Theatre In The Round’s production of Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well”, our intended project for the evening. We were, at root, not in the mood that night to sit through three hours of Shakespeare—especially since the production, two weeks into the run, has generated zero “buzz” among local theater aficionados.

Owing to lack of interest, we decided to skip Minnesota Opera’s current production of Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet”. Andrew says he would beat down the doors of any theater to get into a performance of Thomas’s “Mignon”, but that the composer’s “Hamlet” is not written at the same high level of inspiration.

On Saturday night, Andrew’s parents and Alec and Lizbeth attended a performance of Minnesota Opera’s “Hamlet”—and they reported that the evening was nicht gut. Andrew, Alex and I had a much better time that evening, babysitting the kids.

Penciled into our calendars had been one March performance by the Minnesota Orchestra—but the Minnesota Orchestra remains out of session. Consequently, we shall not hear Mark Wigglesworth lead the orchestra in music of Mozart (Symphony No. 1), Stravinsky (Violin Concerto) and Shostakovich (Symphony No. 10). The soloist was to have been Leila Josefowicz.

Penciled into our calendars had been two March performances by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra—but the SPCO, too, remains out of session. Both SPCO concerts had been scheduled to be conducted by Roberto Abbado, a conductor Andrew and I rather like.

The first SPCO concert was to have featured music of Bartok (Divertimento For String Orchestra), Ravel (Piano Concerto) and Mozart (Symphony No. 38). The soloist was to have been Lisa de la Salle.

The second SPCO concert was to have featured music of Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin) and Mozart (Symphony No. 36) as well as contemporary Italian composer Nicola Campogrande, a name totally new to me. The Campogrande work had been a late substitution for a Couperin-inspired piece by Richard Strauss (Divertimento For Small Orchestra), a work that would have made far more thematic sense than the Campogrande.

This coming weekend, in Chicago, we shall encounter a late substitution of a different sort (and, again, a name totally new to me): Christian Macelaru, a conductor stepping in at short notice for an indisposed Pierre Boulez. Macelaru will lead the Chicago Symphony in music of Debussy (Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun), Stravinsky (The Song Of The Nightingale) and Bartok (Divertimento For String Orchestra, Piano Concerto No. 2). The scheduled soloist is Yefim Bronfman.

I think this coming weekend was my one-and-only chance to hear Boulez. Given Boulez’s advanced age, I doubt I shall ever have another opportunity to hear him. I am very disappointed. The appearance of Boulez was our prime motivation for planning a music weekend in Chicago.

Also on our Chicago agenda: performances of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” and Puccini’s “La Boheme” at Lyric Opera Of Chicago.

We shall take my sister to all three performances.

We shall see my sister again at the end of the month. She will be on Spring Break the final week of March, and she will fly to the Twin Cities to spend that time with Andrew and me.

In order to offer her what entertainment we can, Andrew and I plan to “bank” all local plays we want to see until my sister arrives: Shakespeare’s “The Taming Of The Shrew” at The Guthrie; Ron Hutchinson’s “Moonlight And Magnolias” at Bloomington Civic Theatre; Alan Ayckbourn’s “Life And Beth” at Theatre In The Round; and Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap” at Jungle Theater.

I suspect my sister will prefer to see a few plays rather than have Andrew and me attempt to amuse her by reenacting scenes from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”.

“Miss Peters May Have Had A Bad Night, But The Paris Opera Has Had A Bad Century”

The Grand Staircase (and I believe such is the correct proper name) of Palais Garnier, whose interior I saw for the first time yesterday.

Performance quality notwithstanding (and there was perhaps more wit than truth in Rudolf Bing’s famous rejoinder, a dose of acid flung at Paris’s music critics), the Paris Opera is a remarkable institution simply because Palais Garnier is one of its two homes (the other is L'Opéra Bastille, where we caught Tuesday night’s performance of “Khovanshchina”). The building makes a “statement”, inside and out, wherever one looks.

In fact, the entire city of Paris makes a “statement”.

Paris

I am becoming more and more excited about our upcoming trip.

I have been to Paris only once, on a whirlwind tour of Europe with my Dad when I was in high school, and we did not spend much time in Paris on that trip (two days and three nights).

On this trip, we have available only eight full days (not including travel days)—but eight days in Paris is better than no days in Paris, and we have prepared an itinerary that interests us and, by and large, is not dependent upon good weather.

On Saturday, we intend to remain out and about all day, weather permitting, in order to ward off fatigue. We intend to explore six churches: Eglise Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais, Eglise Saint-Louis-en-I’lle, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, La Sainte-Chapelle, Eglise Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre and Église Saint-Séverin.

On Sunday, we shall spend the morning in Le Marais. We plan to attend Sunday Service at Église Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis (which recently completed a multi-year restoration) and explore the church afterward. We intend to spend the rest of the morning at Musée Cognacq-Jay. After the museum visit, we plan to assemble a lunch at the many excellent Jewish delicatessens and bakeries in Le Marais.

On Sunday afternoon, we have tickets for a performance of Charpentier’s “David et Jonathas” at l'Opéra Comique, which performs at Salle Favart. (Charpentier was for many years Master Of Music at Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis, the church we will have visited that morning.) After the opera performance, we intend to explore two more churches: Eglise Saint-Eustache and Basilique Notre-Dame-des-Victoires (the latter is Lully’s final resting place; Opera Of The French Baroque is definitely the theme of our day). Our Sunday dinner will be at Chez Chartier—Andrew says everyone must go to Chez Chartier at least once, and I have never been to Chez Chartier.

Monday is built around Les Invalides. We shall first explore two nearby churches: Basilique Saint-Clothilde and Eglise Saint-Francois-Xavier. At Les Invalides, we shall visit the two Invalides churches, Église du Dôme and Cathédrale Saint-Louis des Invalides, and then spend the rest of the day exploring Musée de l'Armée.

Early Tuesday morning, we shall visit two churches, Eglise Saint-Sulpice and Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and afterward spend the rest of the day at Musée d'Orsay. On Tuesday evening, we have tickets for a performance of Mussorgsky’s “Khovanshchina” at L'Opéra Bastille.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday shall be devoted to Musée du Louvre. According to Andrew and Alex, we should be able to visit approximately forty per cent of the Louvre in three daylong visits. (In 2004, during a spate of very bad weather, Andrew and Alex spent six consecutive days at the Louvre, from open to close, and managed to see approximately eighty per cent of the collection. During those six days, there were portions of the Louvre Andrew and Alex visited over and over and over, and we probably shall do much the same on this trip: lots of backing and filling.)

Andrew and Alex have a system for visiting the Louvre, and we plan to observe the formalities on each of the three days.

We shall have breakfast at our hotel promptly at 7:30 a.m., and leave for the Louvre promptly at 8:15 a.m. On our way, we shall stop at a particular bakery/café Andrew and Alex like, and sit down and have a hot chocolate and a warm chocolate muffin fresh from the oven, both of which apparently are to die for. From the bakery/café, a short walk will place us at the Carrousel du Louvre entrance at 8:50 a.m., and we can get in line at the underground portal and be among the first persons admitted to the museum once visitors are allowed in at 9:00 a.m.

Our first two hours every day will be devoted to painting, an art form that requires maximum attention and concentration. Around 11:30 a.m., after two hours of viewing paintings, we shall take a break and go have an early lunch (to avoid lunchtime crowds) at a very specific restaurant near the Louvre. The restaurant is geared toward Parisian office workers, offers only half-a-dozen fixed menu selections each day and features lightning-quick service, all of which is precisely what we require. For our 11:30 a.m. lunch, we shall order soup and a “plate”.

After our 11:30 a.m. lunch, it will be back to the Louvre for another two hours. For this segment, we shall explore antiquities. After two hours viewing antiquities, we shall head back to the very same restaurant for a second lunch at 2:30 p.m., once again avoiding the lunchtime crowds. For our 2:30 p.m. lunch, we shall order salad and a “plate”.

After our 2:30 p.m. lunch, it will be back to the Louvre for a final two hours. On our last visit, we shall explore sculpture until the museum closes.

Leaving the Louvre, we shall go back to the very same restaurant we have already visited twice and have an early dinner. On our third and final visit to the restaurant, around 5:30 p.m., we shall order a “plate” and dessert.

On each of our three Louvre days, we have tickets for evening orchestra concerts, two at Salle Pleyel and one at Théâtre du Châtelet. Between dinner and concert, we intend to explore Eglise Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois on one day, Palais-Royal on another and Palais Garnier on yet another.

On our second Saturday in Paris, we intend to visit three churches: L'église Saint-Augustin de Paris, Eglise Saint-Roch and L'église de la Madeleine. After our church visits, we shall spend the rest of the day at Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, housed at Petit Palais.

In the early evening, we shall return to Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris to hear the Saturday evening organ recital, which according to Andrew lasts only 35 minutes. The evening’s recitalist will be an organist and organ professor from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

After the organ recital, we shall go to the Latin Quarter and have dinner at Alex’s favorite Paris restaurant, Café Procope, an ancient and very historic establishment. In 2004, Andrew and Alex had dinner one evening at Café Procope, and they loved the place, probably more for its history and atmosphere than for its food.

We shall go to Café Procope in order to convene Alex’s birthday dinner. Alex will turn 35 the following day, when we shall be on our way back to Minneapolis and unable to conduct a proper celebration—so we shall be exceedingly pleased to hold Alex’s birthday dinner in Paris.

It should provide a fitting conclusion to our trip.

On The Calendar

Sunday, January 20, 2013, at 3:00 p.m.

L’Opera Comique
Salle Favart
Paris

William Christie, Conductor
Les Arts Florissants

Charpentier: David Et Jonathas

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Tuesday, January 22, 2013, at 7:00 p.m.

L’Opera National De Paris
L’Opera Bastille
Paris

Michail Jurowski, Conductor

Mussorgsky: Khovanshchina

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Thursday, January 24, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Orchestre National De France
Theatre Du Chatelet
Paris

Colin Davis, Conductor
Arabella Steinbacher, Violin

Mozart: Symphony No. 35 (“Haffner”)
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5
Sibelius: Symphony No. 3

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Friday, January 25, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Orchestre De Paris
Salle Pleyel
Paris

Paavo Jarvi, Conductor
Krystian Zimerman, Piano

Schumann: “Genoveva” Overture
Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 (“Pastoral”)

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Two five-act operas: I can hardly wait!

However, I want to see Salle Favart and L’Opera Bastille.

Getting tickets for the “Khovanshchina” performance was not easy: January 22 is opening night of a new production, and tickets are scarce. (January 22 was the only night we could attend.)

Since we decided only yesterday to go to Paris, very early this morning Andrew called someone he knows at the Wiener Staatsoper and Andrew’s father called a European conductor he has known for years.

We got tickets.

Andrew says Colin Davis will probably cancel the Orchestra National De France concert. Davis is very old, and has been infirm of late, and has been canceling about 80 per cent of his appearances the last year or so, often at the last minute.

I had wanted to see the Paris Opera Ballet, but the Paris Opera Ballet will not be performing the week we shall be in Paris.

Off The Calendar

Friday, January 4, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Edo de Waart, Conductor
Eric Owens, Bass

Mozart: Serenade No. 12
Adams: The Wound Dresser
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4

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Friday, January 11, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Edo de Waart, Conductor
Peter Serkin, Piano

Mendelssohn: The Hebrides (“Fingal’s Cave”) Overture
Hindemith: Kammermusik No. 2
Mozart: Symphony No. 29
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 19

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Friday, January 18, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Edo de Waart, Conductor

Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1
Weill: Violin Concerto
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

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Friday, January 25, 2013, at 8:00 p.m.

Minnesota Orchestra
Convention Center Auditorium
Minneapolis

Osmo Vanska, Conductor
Roberto Diaz, Viola

Janacek: Suite From “The Cunning Little Vixen”
Bartok: Viola Concerto
Dvorak: Symphony No. 7

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Sunday, January 27, 2013, at 3:00 p.m.

Minnesota Concert Opera
The Cowles Center
Minneapolis

Craig Fields, Conductor

Verdi: Il Trovatore

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Today the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra cancelled concerts through the first week of February.

The 2012-2013 SPCO season, on paper, was an exceptional one. Andrew and I had penciled in twelve concerts this season as holding some interest for us, three in January alone. The January concerts in which we had an interest are now kaput.

The January concerts we had earmarked were of interest not because of conductor Edo de Waart, hardly an important figure, but because of the music.

With reference to the Minnesota Orchestra concert we have removed from our calendar, the Janacek-Bartok-Dvorak program was one of only six Minnesota Orchestra programs Andrew and I had noted for the entire 2012-2013 season. Although the Minnesota Orchestra has yet to cancel January concerts, Andrew and I shall be in Paris the week of the Janacek-Bartok-Dvorak program—so that concert is now off our list, too.

Minnesota Concert Opera’s “Il Trovatore” will also be presented while we are in Paris, so we shall have to miss “Il Trovatore” as well—not that I am complaining.

Not According To Plan

This week has not proceeded as planned.

Andrew and I were supposed to go to New York on Tuesday. Andrew was to attend a conference on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and I had received permission from my firm to go to New York, too, and to work out of the firm’s New York office.

On Sunday afternoon, Andrew took ill. As things turned out, he had come down with influenza.

Andrew has not yet decided who is to blame for his travails: my sister, visiting us last weekend from Chicago, where influenza has stricken; Tim, several of whose first-grade classmates have taken ill with influenza; or pianist Simone Dinnerstein, whose Sunday afternoon recital, according to Andrew, would have made anyone ill.

Andrew has been bedridden since Monday morning. In almost seven years, I had never seen Andrew sick until this week.

Andrew’s mother has come over every day this week to stay with him while I am at work, always to be at hand in case he needs something. She brings the dog, and she stays all day—and, late each afternoon, she even prepares dinner.

All week, when I have come home from work, my dinner has been ready—and Alex (who lives next door) joins us for dinner, as does Andrew’s father. As soon as dinner is over, everyone returns home, leaving me to look out for a patient who does little else but sleep twenty hours a day and drink a cup of hot tea now and again.

Andrew and I had tickets for several New York performances, and on Monday we gave the tickets to a friend able to make use of them.

Our friend had already arranged to take vacations days for this shortened workweek in order to resurface the floors of her condominium. When we had asked her whether her sister (who lives and works in New York) might want some or all of our tickets, her response was, “Let me see if I can use miles to get a reasonable last-minute fare to New York—if so, I’ll take the tickets myself, and go and visit her.”

And that’s precisely how things resolved themselves.

We had tickets for a Metropolitan Opera performance of Verdi’s “Otello”. The scheduled conductor was Semyon Bychkov, whom some persons believe has become good in the last ten years and whom we were eager to hear. The scheduled Otello was Johan Botha, a singer supposedly in possession of a glorious voice (but a singer not known as much of an actor). The scheduled Iago was Falk Struckmann, a fine Central European artist. The scheduled Desdemona was Renee Fleming, whom I have not heard. Although I am not an opera fan, I am sorry we missed “Otello”. I was actually looking forward to the performance.

We had tickets for three performances of New York City Ballet. It was to be our primary bout of ballet-going for the year.

One of the programs was to feature two rarely-performed high-modernist masterpieces I have never seen (current practice at NYCB is for the two ballets to be performed back-to-back on the same program): the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Momentum pro Gesualdo” (1960); and the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Movements For Piano And Orchestra” (1963).

The program also was to include the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Duo Concertant”, which I already know from a previous NYCB performance (and which NYCB will perform in Minneapolis in two weeks); a Jerome Robbins’s ballet without a musical score, “Moves” (1959), a ballet entirely new to me; and the Balanchine/Bizet “Symphony In C” (1947), which I have seen performed by Miami City Ballet.

The second of the programs was to feature a new Wheeldon/Bizet ballet, “Les Carillons”, premiered in January of this year; a repeat performance of “Moves”; and the Balanchine/Stravinsky “Stravinsky Violin Concerto” (1972), a seminal Balanchine masterpiece I have never encountered.

The final program involved three Balanchine/Stravinsky ballets: “Apollo” (1928), which I know from a Boston Ballet performance; “Agon” (1957), another high-modernist masterpiece I have not seen and which Andrew says is one of the most important works of art from the last 60 years; and “Rubies” (1967), which I have seen danced by Boston Ballet and Miami City Ballet.

Eight vital, essential Balanchine works, danced by the world’s finest ballet company: we shall miss everything. We both are very disappointed.

We also had tickets for two shows on Broadway: a new production of Ibsen’s “An Enemy Of The People”; and a revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, “Evita”—which, for inexplicable reasons, both of us had wanted to see.

We also were in possession of sixteen complimentary tickets to four different performances of a single program at the New York Philharmonic—we had four complimentary tickets for each night of this week’s subscription concerts.

The New York Philharmonic is papering Avery Fisher Hall like crazy these days for nights on which Alan Gilbert is on the podium. The organization is so desperate to get people into the hall that anyone and everyone can obtain unlimited complimentary tickets to New York Philharmonic concerts on Alan Gilbert nights.

We were almost certain NOT to use the NYPO tickets on account of principle. A couple of years ago, a summer music camp in Scandinavia founded and formerly run by this week’s NYPO guest artist had been quietly seized—it was first taken over, and later shut down entirely—by the musician’s national government on account of pedophilia allegations (for which the musician, his nation’s most prominent instrumentalist, has not been prosecuted). We had retained the tickets in the event we were to experience an unlikely change of heart and wished to see—and photograph—a Jerry Sandusky-like figure playing a musical instrument while Alan Gilbert beat time alongside.

Our friend who took our various tickets ended up throwing away all sixteen NYPO tickets yesterday. Her sister, who works for a Big Three Accounting Firm, had tried to give the tickets away at her office on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was not a single taker—not even for the Friday and Saturday night concerts.

Last night’s concert and tonight’s concert played to virtually empty houses, as one may see from numerous Twitter photos tweeted by concertgoers.

For instance, tonight a NYPO concertgoer tweeted a photo showing that the orchestra level was less than one-fifth occupied. A second concertgoer tweeted a photo showing that tonight’s left-side balcony boxes were occupied by only a handful of persons.

It was not a good night for Alan Gilbert.

Nor for pedophiles.

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, we were in London.

That evening, we attended a performance of the Mariinsky Ballet at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Three Years Ago Today

Three years ago today, we were in Innsbruck.

While exploring the city by foot, we saw the Tiroler Landestheater, the city’s opera house.

The Tiroler Landestheater is a very bad building.

Three Years Ago Today

Three years ago today, we were in Graz.

We were given a thorough—and delightful—walking tour of Graz by one of Andrew’s former schoolmates from Andrew’s Vienna days.

One of the buildings we passed on our walking tour was the Graz Opera House.

Three Years Ago Today

Three years ago today, we were in Vienna.

That evening, we attended a thoroughly incompetent performance of a thoroughly incompetent production of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” at Theater an der Wien.

Before the performance, we were pressed for time, so we dined at a small, modest, family-run, typical Viennese restaurant. The restaurant offered two fixed three-course-dinner options—and nothing more.

Our dinner was more than satisfactory—and we made the opera performance with time to spare.

The Ordway

The Ordway Center For The Performing Arts (capacity: 1900 persons), venue for Minnesota Opera performances.

And Another List

Below is a listing of opera performances Andrew and I attended within the last year.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte”, performed by Minnesota Opera

Jules Massenet’s “Werther”, performed by Minnesota Opera

Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, performed by Minnesota Opera

Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, performed by Minnesota Opera

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Our opera-going last season was confined to Minnesota Opera.

I have no idea how many Minnesota Opera productions we will attend next season—the 2012-2013 Minnesota Opera prospectus is not appealing to us; it is possible we will skip the season altogether—and I have no idea how many Minnesota Concert Opera presentations and University Of Minnesota Opera Theatre productions we will attend.

We WILL be going to Chicago next season, twice, to catch four Lyric Opera Of Chicago productions.

I have never been to Lyric Opera Of Chicago, and I have no idea what to expect.

I last updated this list on July 5, 2011.

A Trip Has Been Planned!

For immediately after Labor Day (and Paris as a prospect has been scratched for 2012).

Our destination:


Over five days, we shall attend eight plays, one musical and one opera.

In the order we shall see them:

Terence Rattigan’s “French Without Tears”

Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter”

George Bernard Shaw’s “The Millionaress”

Leonard Bernstein’s “Trouble In Tahiti”

Githa Sowerby’s “A Man And Some Women”

Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler”

The Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens-Terrence McNally musical, “Ragtime”

John Guare’s “His Girl Friday”, adapted from the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play, “The Front Page”, and the Charles Lederer-Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur screenplay for the film, “His Girl Friday”

George Bernard Shaw’s “Misalliance”

William Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba”


Andrew and I still have our baseball caps from three years ago!

Concert Exhaustion

I suffer from concert exhaustion at present, and so does Andrew.

We heard two orchestral concerts last weekend, and two orchestral concerts the weekend before that. Since January 1, we have attended eight concerts and recitals. That is a heavier dosage of concerts and recitals than I normally prefer.

So what is on our schedule for this weekend? A recital by pianist Imogen Cooper at Sundin Music Hall.

Despite our recent flurry of concert activity, I am happy to go to the recital. Cooper has announced a program of Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and Schumann. The fare is appealing.

The concert will be sponsored by The Frederic Chopin Society of Minneapolis.

Minnesota is home to countless organizations with 19th-Century do-gooder titles, such as The Frederic Chopin Society and The Schubert Club, two prominent Twin Cities music organizations. The concept of self-improvement lives on in Minnesota if nowhere else.

I have never been inside Sundin Music Hall. It is one of several concert halls in the Twin Cities I have never visited.

I continue to be astonished how many fine music venues there are in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. There are more fine music venues in the Twin Cities than there are in London—and the Greater London Metropolitan Area has ten times the population of the Twin Cities Greater Metropolitan Area—and additional Twin Cities music venues are in the works, what with a second concert hall at The Ordway now under construction.

The following weekend, I think we may attend a performance of Donizetti’s opera, “Lucia di Lammermoor”, to be presented by Minnesota Opera. Andrew and I had planned to skip this particular Minnesota Opera presentation because neither of us is fond of the music of Donizetti, but word-of-mouth from insiders privy to rehearsal results has been exceptional—and the positive word-of-mouth from music professionals has caused Andrew and me to reassess the situation.

The soprano scheduled to sing Lucia sang the role last autumn at Lyric Opera Of Chicago, a far more important company than Minnesota Opera, and she has been a regular presence at the Metropolitan Opera for the last three or four years. Andrew and I decided we would be foolish to miss out, especially since Minnesota Opera mounts only five productions each season.

The following weekend, we shall attend a Minnesota Orchestra concert of music by Sibelius, Szymanowski and Kodaly. We shall use the subscription tickets of Andrew’s parents, as they shall be in France.

Three days later, we shall hear violinist Christian Tetzlaff in solo recital at Mann Concert Hall. We bought our tickets this afternoon once we discovered that some seats had been placed on sale for $10.00. We decided that to hear Tetzlaff play solo violin literature by Bach and Bartok for a mere $10.00 was irresistible.

The following weekend, we shall attend a performance by Houston Ballet, which will be on tour in the Twin Cities. Since Andrew’s parents will still be in France, we shall use their tickets.

In the month of March, we WILL forego two concerts by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, concerts that we had earlier penciled into our calendars. Both programs are predominantly devoted to Haydn symphonies, which I love—but our recent surfeit of concert-going resulted in the two SPCO Haydn programs being removed from our list.

Something had to go . . . and the SPCO Haydn programs took the hit.

Performances

Andrew and I have not attended any theater performances since December, when we caught The Guthrie’s unsuccessful “Charley’s Aunt” on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve.

Minneapolis is a theater Mecca. On a per capita basis, Minneapolis boasts more professional theater companies, more professional theater productions, and a larger number of theater seats than any city in the English-speaking world. Given that Minneapolis, unlike London or New York, is not a tourist destination, the theater figures here are remarkable.

January is a big month for theater in the Twin Cities—the weather encourages indoor activities—but Andrew and I skipped everything. We had a new house to settle into, and other things on our plate. Moreover, the January theater offerings by and large did not appeal to us.

By intention, we skipped Theater In The Round’s presentation of Lee Blessing’s “Independence”, a play that sounded like a rewrite of “August: Osage County” (except that “Independence” preceded “August: Osage County”).

Once the reviews for The Guthrie’s “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” were published, we crossed “Cat” off our list. The reviews were mixed—and, in the Twin Cities, mixed reviews generally signify a production that safely may be missed. That we had attended two other productions of “Cat” in recent years made our decision an easy one.

Bad word-of-mouth scared us off The Acting Company’s “Julius Caesar” at The Guthrie.

The musical, “Ragtime”, recently mounted at Park Square Theater, mildly intrigued us—but we have decided to give the production a pass. No one in the family has seen a staging of “Ragtime”, and Park Square Theater is said to have done the show justice: $300,000 was budgeted, making “Ragtime” the costliest show ever for Park Square Theater, and a cast of 35 actors was assembled after more than a year of auditions, unprecedented in the Twin Cities. Nonetheless, there is something about “Ragtime” that rubs us the wrong way—it may be the “American Pageant” quality to the show that is off-putting—and we have decided not to bother to make a trek to Saint Paul.

We had tickets for Torch Theater’s production of Christopher Hampton’s “Dangerous Liaisons” for Friday night, but we turned in our tickets after Andrew’s aunt passed. We did not feel like attending “Dangerous Liaisons” two days after a funeral—and the production closed after last night’s performance.

There were other theater productions in the Twin Cities during the month of January, but none of the other productions held any interest for us (the same may be said of the touring Broadway shows that regularly play the large theaters downtown; we invariably ignore the touring shows, most of which are musicals).

Next weekend, however, there are two plays we intend to catch: “Dial M For Murder” at Jungle Theater; and a play about Judy Garland at The Guthrie.

When The Guthrie season was announced, we had rolled our eyes at the notion of a play about Judy Garland. However, the production recently opened—and received rave notices. The production is supposed to be stupendous, mostly because the actress playing Judy Garland gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance.

The Judy Garland play at The Guthrie is a London import—the director, the designers, the lead actress all recreate the London production—and the production will move directly to Broadway as soon as The Guthrie run ends.

Consequently, a play that at first blush had seemed ridiculous to us now has us eager to see what all the excitement is about. According to those who have already seen the production, the Judy Garland play is the highlight of The Guthrie season (I am not sure what that says about The Guthrie).

Other than “Dial M For Murder” and the Judy Garland play, I doubt whether we attend any other plays this month—although, if the notices are good, we may consider “The Lark” at Theater In The Round, a production due to open in another week or so.

There are, however, other items on our schedule for the rest of the month of February.

We intend to hear two Minnesota Orchestra programs before the month is out, and two Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra programs. We have tickets for a recital by violinist Julia Fischer.

This afternoon, we went to Saint Paul to hear Minnesota Opera’s presentation of Massenet’s “Werther”.

“Werther” is an exceedingly beautiful opera.

It was an afternoon well-spent.

Another Updated List

The list of opera performances Andrew and I attended over the last year is, once again, a very short one. Andrew and I attended only two opera performances since I last updated this list in July of last year:

Ludwig Von Beethoven’s “Fidelio”, performed by Opera Boston

Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca”, performed by Boston Lyric Opera

Opera is a dying art form—and, further, it appears to have entered its decadent phase. Most opera performances I have experienced have tended more to destroy the works rather than illuminate them. This phenomenon suggests that neither organizations presenting opera performances nor persons attending opera performances maintain confidence in the continued validity of the art form. The situation will not change until a genius composer arises, and transforms and regenerates the art form. No such figure is on the horizon.

In any case, it is a matter of indifference to me. I have never experienced a thrilling opera performance, and I do not expect to anytime soon. Opera is an art form not well-practiced in the current age.

Andrew and I have earmarked two upcoming Minnesota Opera presentations as of some interest to us: Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” and Massenet’s “Werther”. It is possible that we may also attempt to catch Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”. The other two Minnesota Opera productions scheduled for next season—Donizetti’s “Lucia Di Lammermoor” and a new opera about the Christmas truce between British soldiers and German soldiers in 1914—elicit no interest from us.

I actually rather enjoyed the performances of “Fidelio” and “Tosca” we attended last year. I enjoyed “Fidelio” and “Tosca”, not because of the productions or performances, which were not good, but because the works themselves were so strong. I can envision thrilling productions and performances of both operas—and both operas certainly come alive on disc if not in the theater (at least under current conditions prevailing in the world’s opera houses).

The Vienna State Opera: An Artist’s Rendition

Another view of the Wiener Staatsoper—the front façade, on Vienna’s Ring—may be seen in this clumsy watercolor from the early 1900s.

The artist: the man responsible for the building’s destruction nearly half a century later.