Mozartean Bliss This evening at the Metropolitan Opera Gala September 22 2014 Le Nozze di Figaro KV 492 “ ….All the original performers (in Nozze) had the advantage of the instruction of Mozart, who transfused into their minds his inspired meaning. I shall never forget his little animated countenance, when lighted up with the glowing rays of genius. It is as impossible to describe as it would be to paint sun-beams.” The tenor Michael Kelly, recalling Mozart in a rehearsal for Le Nozze di Figaro, in Kelly’s Reminiscences. Tonight, with James Levine back on the podium – with Amanda Majeski, Peter Mattei, Isabel Leonard, Ildar Abdrazakov, and Marlis Petersen, and with the exceptional Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, it was indeed bliss. The cognoscenti, the glitterati, and music lovers of all stripes, turned out tonight in full force,as they all always do, for the Metropolitan Opera’s annual opening night performance gala. The Red Carpet was at 5 PM and Jimmy’s downbeat to the opera’s extraordinary overture (music that is heard once in the overture and never again in the whole opera- amazing, as we know) was at 6:30 PM, so as to allow for the post-opera dinner under the tents at a respectable hour of 10:30 PM. The event was also simulcast on a jumbotron screen to several thousand in Lincoln Center Plaza, as well as in Times Square. Yay for Mozart! Yay for Nozze! Yay for momentarily democratizing culture ! Yay for NYC! Even if it is for one night, it is always a grand, hopeful and uplifting moment for the Arts. Needless to say, it was a thrill, as it always is, to be at the Met Gala. You feel the energy of opening night and, tonight in particular, the excitement of being in the hall with hundreds (check that, thousands), who love this opera as no other. And there is good reason for that: Since Peri and Caccini’s Euridice of 1600 and Monteverdi’s Orfeo of 1607 and to the present day, it is Mozart and Da Ponte’s Le Nozze di Figaro which is THE operatic ideal and paradigm: a seamless and integral marriage of drama, lyrics, narrative and music – each part foundational, and each part essential to the whole. There is no other opera, in my view, including any of Mozart’s other 20 other efforts (many of which are masterpieces and many of which I adore) , including the operas of Wagner, Verdi, Rossini, Handel and Puccini, which reaches this empyrean of perfection. The term Gesamtkunstwerk distilled to its essence of a marriage of music, drama and theater, is usually ascribed to Das Reingold and Die Walkurie , or , as I have written before, to Die Zauberflote. But the concept most certainly applies to Nozze as well. (Yes, I am prepared for comments about this point). Whenever I have the privilege to experience this opera, and certainly to experience it live, and whenever I sit through its seamless 3 hours and 20 miniutes of beauty and harmony, and whenever I hear that exquisite finale in Act IV, I know, I KNOW, there is hope for humanity and for civilization. I said last Thursday, when I was in Boston, at Symphony Hall, listening to the BSO in Mozart’s sinfonia concertante KV 297b and the LvB fifth symphony, awash in that sublime music, that certain days are more blessed than others. Tonight, at the Met, with Le Nozze di Figaro, was another of those days, crowned by incredible music, and that music, as is often the case, is Mozart’s. Would that every day were so sublime. Sic transit...... (Here, for your enjoyment is the 1986 Ponelle production under Karl Bohm, with Te Kanawa, Freni, Prey, Fischer-Dieskau, Ewing and company, for you edification and delectation https://youtube/watch?v=fef03047ZX8
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:57:26 +0000
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