To my chagrin, I had to miss the New York Metrolpolitan’s international streaming of Verdi’s Trovatore on Saturday. For some people it remains the most ramshackle an incomprehensible of operas. For others it is a masterpiece of the choicest sort, perfectly easy to follow. I am one of the latter, which does not prevent me from enjoying the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera as the most comic of all operatic spoofs.
With Anna Netrebko as Leonora and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who underwent treatment for a brain tumour in June, as the nobly baleful Count di Luna, it was enticingly cast. But having recently bought the Berlin State Opera’s new Trovatore, again with Netrebko and with the now baritonal Placido Domingo as the Count, along with Daniel Barenboim as conductor, I allowed myself to be too complacent about missing the Met’s version.
The shadowy abstraction of the Berlin production is wonderful. But so, quite clearly, is David McVicar’s Napoleonic updating of Verdi’s great costume drama in New York. I was mad to miss it.
Even the wittily abrasive Martin Bernheimer in the Financial Times gave it the full force of his praise, declaring that he hardly missed the Marx Brothers.
No doubt the performance will be issued in the end on DVD, when I shall certainly buy it. But the live streaming on Saturday, celebrating the tenth anniversary of such events at the Met, and watched by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, must have been something very special. If, like me, you failed to see it, don’t let the opportunity go next time.
5 October 2015
With Anna Netrebko as Leonora and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who underwent treatment for a brain tumour in June, as the nobly baleful Count di Luna, it was enticingly cast. But having recently bought the Berlin State Opera’s new Trovatore, again with Netrebko and with the now baritonal Placido Domingo as the Count, along with Daniel Barenboim as conductor, I allowed myself to be too complacent about missing the Met’s version.
The shadowy abstraction of the Berlin production is wonderful. But so, quite clearly, is David McVicar’s Napoleonic updating of Verdi’s great costume drama in New York. I was mad to miss it.
Even the wittily abrasive Martin Bernheimer in the Financial Times gave it the full force of his praise, declaring that he hardly missed the Marx Brothers.
No doubt the performance will be issued in the end on DVD, when I shall certainly buy it. But the live streaming on Saturday, celebrating the tenth anniversary of such events at the Met, and watched by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, must have been something very special. If, like me, you failed to see it, don’t let the opportunity go next time.
5 October 2015
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