Finding Maazel
Reports are in. Sounds like the opening night of Lorin Maazel’s Die Valküre at The Met was pretty hot, complete with an on-stage tumble by mega-soprano, Stephanie Blythe. (C.C. regrets that she was unable to make it. You know we can’t do everything around here!)
Critics Roundup:
There isn’t much originality going on in the way of opening paragraphs, four out of four nodding to the 45 year gap between this and Maazel’s last appearance at the Met. Everyone seems to describe Maazel’s conducting as kind of academic, but they all love it. Apparently Lisa Gasteen (as Brunhilde) took the entire four hours to warm up, finally producing some hotness at the end. Stephanie Blythe was big. And Clifton Forbis gets unanimous nods for his Siegmund.
Tommasini devotes four paragraphs to Maazel before finally getting down to business. Steve Smith and Jay Nordlinger give nods to the low woodwinds. And Clive Barnes (our first post of a Post review…Sorry.) can’t get over the Gunther Schneider-Siemssen sets.
C.C. might try to sneak into one of the later performances, so don’t be surprised if we have to come back and counterdict all of the above.
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Hi CC-
It was great meeting you at Cedar Lake last night even though I realized afterwards that I don’ know your actual name!
Anyway, Lisa Gasteen is one of those ‘topless’ sopranos. It seems like every note above A comes out a semi-tone flat. It’s a chronic problem for her it ruined her Tanglewood ELEKTRA a couple years ago as she went lunging for every high note and not coming close. Speaking of flat, I’ve lately been noticing that Stephanie Blythe tends to sit below the pitch much of the time…very noticeable in her Ulrica in the Saturday broadcast.
Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about my friend Lisette; I think you would really enjoy meeting her some time.
Philip aka Oberon
Oh no you di-n’t, Oberon! If you’re talking about the Lisette I think you’re talking about, I’m going to be seriously jealous.
Last night was very cool, although I think we’ll have some pretty opposing views on CLCB. But hey, that’s what criticism is about. I should get my post up either later today or tomorrow morning.
Great to meet you. I can’t wait for our sit-down meet and greet/private preview with Peter Gelb!!! Think that will ever happen?…
Yup, Ms. Oropesa…lyric-coloratura deluxe and a living doll. I was her ‘first fan’…well, her first fan in NYC. She had lots of admirers in Louisiana before she came up to sing in the Met Auditions, won them and got in the Young Artists Program the following day.