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Re: Hiya! (Reply to this comment)
by smorg
It's my pleasure, Arashi! :o) And now I've learned another useful Russian word I hope I'll never have to say to anyone. ;o) Cool!!
And I really like the way Franz Welser-Möst conducts the overture in this performance, too. It's very different from Herr Harnoncourt's at the Salzburg Festival (which I still like very much. They're just so different that they don't compete with each other). It almost sounds like a Viennese waltz at some points!
And that Frau Kasarova... I've gotta make it up to her, now that I had panned her latest CD. :o( Guess I'll have to review the Mahler symphony after all (I don't like Mahler much, but she is stellar as Alto 1), since I've practically reviewed everything else and still can't find a copy of the Schubert mass #6.
Hugs back from San Diego (and hope you don't catch the flu). Hope the weekend is going well!!
Cheerio,
Smorgy :o)
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Feb 24 '08
1:40 pm PST
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Re: Hiya! (Reply to this comment)
by arashi-san
Thank you, dearest! *hugs smorg* I had a lot of fun writing my review, and it's nice to know someone had fun reading this bunch of letters. I like this performance very much, though for this Vitellia, with all due respect to Sra Mei, I can't offer any other epithet than 'otmorozhennaya sterva' (er... close to 'frozen b*tch'). So I rewind all scenes with her, and when she's not alone, I try to look at someone else, preferrably Sesto. Though sometimes it doesn't help, too, and makes me giggle instead. Ah, well, it's nevertheless a very entertaining performance, is it not? ;-) I call it 'La Clemenza fanfiction'.
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Feb 23 '08
3:44 am PST
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Hiya! (Reply to this comment)
by smorg
Great review, matie! :o) I think this staging has grown on me a bit since I first saw it, too (though not enough still). I guess I'm not on the same wave-length as Jon Miller is!
You know, I tried really hard not to be too hard on Eva Mei as Vitellia, but she really gets on my nerves in this DVD. As you wrote, for all her good look and shapely figure, there just isn't anything romantically desirable about her Vitellia for me and it makes the Act I duet with Sesto (with Kasarova standing there looking all 'turned on') so...er... weird...
That was when I realized that sometimes having one great thespian on the stage isn't enough since s/he was supposedly reacting to Vitellia's ruse. If I don't look at Mei, I can buy it... but when I do, I doubt Sesto's sanity! ;o)And then there are those mixed-signals during 'Parto, parto.'
So... I completely agree with ya' that the Salzburg 2003 DVD is the best for this opera indeed, though many of my friends prefer the Paris Opera one with Susan Graham and Catherine Naglestad as the partners in crime. I tried to review that one a few times but can't seem to get past the Parto, parto scene on that one. It really ruins the opera for me.
Anyhow! Thanks for another good read, matie. Hope you're having fun writing many more! :o)
Cheerio,
Smorgy
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Feb 22 '08
9:37 pm PST
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