Posted on 08/10/2022 9:18:45 AM PDT by Captain Jack Aubrey
It started with soprano Anna Netrebko.
In March, the superstar failed to condemn the war in Ukraine in terms explicit enough to satisfy Metropolitan Opera General Manager Peter Gelb.
It did not matter that reciting the Met’s required denunciation in coercive conditions would likely be false and worthless.
It did not matter that critics within Russia, where Ms. Netrebko remains a citizen, can now be punished with up to 15 years imprisonment for criticizing the government.
It did not matter that her family members in Russia could be made to suffer if she complied with the Met’s diktat.
It did not even matter that she did ultimately condemned the war in terms so strong that she is now banned from performance in Russia.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
WGAF. I’m shocked anyone who isn’t a hostage goes to NYC for discretionary entertainment under any circumstances.
The Met sucks and has sucked for many years. It’s been PR and nothing but for ages there. Also, that’s the ugliest theater, perhaps, in the world.
Puerto Rican?
I hate opera—I am proud that I have lived many decades and managed to avoid ever getting dragged into one.
I enjoy classical music, btw—just hate opera.
(Oops—I guess I just told the Democrat’s Gaystapo how to torture me. :-) )
On the Met streaming channel they still have a lot of operas featuring Netrebko, including Aida.
How do you know you hate opera if you’ve never been to one?
As a classical music fan I have watched part of operas on television over the years—enough to know I want nothing to do with them.
Opera is an acquired taste for sure. If you are a fan of classical music as I am, you will mostly likely be able to appreciate opera, if only for the music. Start with Mozart’s “Le Nozze de Figaro” or Monteverdi’s “Orfeo” as I believe those are the easiest ones to start with. I don’t even look at the libretto on an opera until I’ve heard the music all the way through a few times.
In Hollywood, it’s the performers thinking they’re political preferences are so important. Here instead, it’s the production manager. Let him have his pure but empty auditorium.
It is madness, and its not just the Met. It is the entire Classical music subculture in the US. These people have become as “woke” as their sources of funds, which is where the problem lies (mostly).
The canary in this coalmine was the tenor Andrea Bocelli, a good friend of Trump, and politically active on the Italian Right, who was set to sing Trump’s signature “Nessun Dorma” at Trumps inauguration in 2017. I was really looking forward to this, as an embrace, by American populism, of Opera, could only be a good thing all around!
But it was not to be. Bocelli was forced to cancel when he was threatened, via his agent, with the loss of all US gigs forever.
There is nothing like this politicization in Europe. Bocelli can sing wherever he likes there, whatever his politics.
This all is a manifestation of the US political/spiritual sickness.
I love me some Anna Netrebko.
Levine was accused of, among other things, propositioning and groping several 16-year old boys. And the Met covered it up. The guy really was given to criminal acts.
Don Placido was just the usual tenor, and Spaniard, in “propositioning”, or exhibiting over-familiarity, with lots of adult women. In Spain thats normal. One is weird if one does not flirt. I blame it on cultural disjunct between healthy European customs and American neuroticism.
I started listening to classical music in 1976 about a year after graduating high school. I liked romantic music like that of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Dvorak. I did not like classical era music like Mozart and Haydn, didn't like baroque, didn't like chamber music, and didn't like operas or oratorios. I swore I'd never get into them. Now I listen to all those types of music, and I think opera is the height of musical and theatrical expression.
I don't think I would recommend Mozart or Montiverdi as a starting point. Mozart repeats a lot in his operas, rather like a symphonist inserting repeats in a symphonic movement. It's funny when Leporello lists some of Don Giovanni's conquests in an aria, but less amusing when he repeats the list all over again. Some arias don't stand up to repeats very well, IMO.
The first opera I watched in its entirety was Bizet's Carmen. It's got one hit after another. The first opera I listened to in its entirety was Puccini's Turandot. Puccini is the composer I most recommend that someone start with in opera.
One day, an attorney friend who knew I loved classical music offered me an orchestra seat that he couldn’t use for a production at the Met of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. My preconceptions were utterly demolished! There is absolutely nothing that could have prepared me for watching a live opera.
I have spoken over the years with several other classical music aficionados with similar backgrounds and preconceptions, and without exception all have had the same reaction to their first live opera. If you ever get a chance to see an opera live at a world-class theatre, I strongly recommend you go.
“ Puerto Rican?”
Or Newyorican.
Both the Levine and Domingo issues go beyond there general public appearances. In Domingo's case, he was basically abusing his position to coerce sex, as the AGMA investigation has shown.
See: "American Guild of Musical Artists Finds Plácido Domingo Guilty of Sexual Misconduct"
Source: https://operawire.com/american-guild-of-musical-artists-finds-placido-domingo-guilty-of-sexual-misconduct/
Saw her at the Met in La Traviata. Singing and projecting while writhing about on the spine of a sofa that’s being carried across the stage takes a special kind of talent : )
I like the duets she does with Elina Garanca.
***Opera is an acquired taste for sure. ***
I must have acquired it for sure back when TV cartoons had lots of it on and making fun of them. I suddenly found I liked the music! (Kill the Wabbit!) I now have a large collection of opera music.
About the only music I hate is rock, rap and later crap. I will space out my CD set with Mozart, Grieg, Wagner, Bob Wills or Spade Cooley and Fats Domino.
Without sounding like a Heretic I even like some disco!
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