Opera Chic

Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor Club at Teatro alla Scala

Milan last greeted Verdi’s final opera Falstaff in 2004. Nine years ago, Teatro alla Scala was closed, pending restoration, so the Giorgio Strehler production curtained under Muti's baton at Teatro degli Arcimboldi on the city's outskirts, dedicated to Tito Gobbi's death-year 20th anniversary for his enduring, late 1950s whiskered Falstaff with Herbie von Karajan and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

It was also the year of OC's inaugural Milan visit, and over summer break, she visited La Scala's museum, its collections temporarily housed in a stunning palazzo on Corso Magenta that overlooked Santa Maria della Grazia. The Northern Italian city of understated, un-boastful elegance struck OC as one who never tried too hard -- the very definition of cool -- and instantly reverberated with New York-based OC. Aaaand you guys pretty much know the rest of the story.

Falstaff (tonight in its penultimate replication) is the only Robert Carsen- stamped production in Teatro alla Scala’s 2012-13 season (in coproduction with Royal Opera House and the Canadian Opera Company) and as Carsen Crusaders, we weren’t going to miss it. We find his b-side, hidden track of ripe sexuality -- never vulgar or desperate (unless it has to be) -- and his fashion title familiarity a winning match for Milan, and since we’re not convinced that Falstaff needs a traditional Shakespearian director to stage it, we loved it.

We've never supported a buffo Falstaff staging and feel that it needs a delicate balance between commedia lirica and opera seria -- a fat knight mocked in his twilight, a bittersweet glimpse of flawed man too arrogant to realize it until everything converges in absolute absurdity -- tutto nel mondo e' burla -- and that's where a lot of lazy directors get it wrong.

Scala Futures: Daniele Gatti To Conduct "Falstaff", Directed By Robert Carsen, in 2013

Daniele Gatti will conduct "Falstaff" at Scala for the "Anno Verdiano" of 2013; the production will be directed by Robert Carsen.

We're so there.

Robert Carsen's Alcina at Teatro Alla Scala

Canadian director Robert Carsen's decade-old production of Haendel's Alcina, to celebrate the 250th anniversary to Handel's death was dusted off from Opéra National de Paris (which also traveled to Chicago Lyric Opera in the Fall of 1999 and starred Natalie Dessay as Morgana and Renee Fleming as Alcina) but should have probably been kept under lock & key, left to gather mold. OC is on the record as being an ardent Robert Carsen fan & devotee, having seen half-a-dozen Carsen productions since her three years in Milan -- his Scala Candide was brilliant but hammy-handed, his Teatro Regio Torino Salome was earth-shattering in its emotional and artistic impact, his Wiener Staatsoper Manon Lescaut was kind of meeeh, his Scala Kát'a Kabanová was completely off-the-hook, and his Opernhaus Zürich Semele was elegance squared -- and OC's DVD of Carsen's Dialogue des Carmelites is a prized possession of a perfect -- yes, perfect -- staging, but the production we saw last night was Carsen in derivative form, action distilled to a meager slice of remembrance, static, tenuous shadows of his Semele without most of the wit or tongue-in-cheek social commentary that Carsen has perfected like a rebellious teenager. He is not Ingmar Bergman, thank goodness, and he shouldn't pretend to be -- he's usually not bashful about being an opera director.

Seen at Milan's Piermarini for the first time last night, la prima was dampened by two meager, tepid curtain calls, mercifully abbreviated to spare poor Patricia Petibon's Scala debut further scorn from the thorny logginonisti who hurled boos at her (in addition to a conflagration of booing at the end of Act I). 

Heavy cuts (at least half-a-dozen arias, the chorus -- Maestro Casoni's peerless chorus -- reduced to a much smaller role, no ballet, and Oberto chillingly mutilated) peppered this almost-4-hour (including scene changes) production. Carsen used the desaturated, ivory walls of a palace to cage-in the action (ripped off by Claus Guth for his 2006 Nozze, with mold added here and there, and that unwritten Cupid), doors that slid open to reveal a garden -- touchingly Rousseauian in its dashing greens. The furniture consisted of, like, four Chippendale chairs, and a wheeled dinner cart. Lights -- very beautifully designed, obviously -- can not always compensate for that kind of spareness.

Act I opened to the all-male chorus in various states of undress slumbering on the floor (we had full-on frank n' beans -- photo above NOT from la Scala but from the same production in 2004 at Opéra Garnier)...a Spencer Tunick opening move by chess master Carsen that made us hope for much better things to come. The director chose to make the corps literally into corpses, men-turned-zombies from Alcina's charms, the ghosts of her past, the Furies of love past, and we like to consider that a Sam Raimi/Evil Dead homage -- without putrefaction -- even if it wasn't. Although there was lots of nudity, there was no sensual, sexual energy. The production, on purpose, was cold and stripped of any eroticism by that big Canadian tease.

Petibon, whose thin voice -- with less than perfect coloratura -- is more viable in a tiny Baroque opera house environment or recording studio, and was swallowed in the crevasses of Scala despite possible ~audio enhancement~ [last night at a certain interval of the opera, there was the clear, unmistakeable high-pitched whining of classic audio feedback which was obviously amped from the Scala stage...we're dying with this one because clearly there was some sort of amplification audio system being used; we knew Berlin's Staatsoper already used electronic sound enhancement, we didn't know la Scala had followed through], struggled from the beginning of her Scala debut last night. Act II's "Ama, sospira" was a rough embark despite the ethereal violin solo, Petibon labored through the grueling aria, struggling to keep up with Maestro Antonini's speed, appearing almost as pained as she looked in her (not-so-high) heels and tight French-maid costume.

Petibon was too sporty, too distracted, and too frivolous to be effective -- she was following stage directions, O.K., but you need different acting skills to pull it off -- she probably couldn't. She hobbled around in kitten heels that could have been 8-inch stilettos considering the way she plodded across the stage. Opera Chic felt bad for Petibon, and we're still fans of the lovely redhead...this was simply the wrong production for her.

It was at the end of Act I after Morgana's Tornami a vagheggiar that the Scala audience first voiced their disapproval. Roundly booed as the curtain went down, the boos fell onto an empty stage, but there was no doubt they were meant for Petibon, whose weak phrasing and underwhelming interpretation were an easy target for the *serious businessman* loggioni. Petibon's accuti were decent with her fluttering technique, but she lacked focus.

And in Tornami we have one of the very, very few truly outstanding monents in Carsen's staging -- Morgana serving dinner to an empty jacket -- those men, aren't they just empty suits? -- and dancing a little happy dance... The problem being that Nathalie Dessay (in a production that William Christie led beautifully as always) pulled it off with humor and her sweetness and vulnerability and gusto (see video below); Petibon couldn't.

Continue reading after the jump by clicking the link below...

Petiboooooooooo: The Audio Evidence, Curtain Call @ la Scala, Alcina, March 10, 2009

***update***

Link fixed

***

Thanks to a kind reader who had the presence of mind to take digital notes, Opera Chic can offer the recorded audio evidence of poor Patricia Petibon's treatment at the hands of Scala's loggione last night at curtain call for Alcina.

Click here for the mp3 file

Petibon enters at 0:11

BREAKING NEWS: Patricia "Petibombs" Petibon Badly Booed @ La Scala in "Alcina", Carsen Booed, Too

Opera Chic is just back from la Scala where she just witnessed the premiere of Robert Carsen's staging of Haendel's "Alcina" (the old Opéra de Paris staging) where the loggione has mercilessly booed (at the end of Act I, then massively at the end of the opera) Patricia Petibon -- an underwhelming Morgana, OK, especially in Act I, but in Opera Chic's opinion not deserving of the fury unleashed on her by the peanut gallery (she took it quite proudly, smiling all the way through her exit from the wings -- that's an A for grace, at least: her singing was indeed problematic, as Opera Chic will explain in her review tomorrow).

Very weirdly, Robert Carsen, the director, got a few boos, also -- maybe for the frequent male nudity displayed on stage? Hard to say. The staging is not Carsen's best -- not sheer explosive genius as his Salome from Teatro Regio di Torino was last year, OK, but very few stagings can achieve that kind of awesomeness -- and there were a few moments that were really too static for Carsen's standards, but seriously, it's understandable that Petibon --  whose tiny, tiny, not particularly beautiful voice doesn't sound right for a theater as big as la Scala, she's probably more at home in smaller houses or, sadly, in the recording studio -- got booed. It's really quite strange that Carsen, of all people, a director whose talent is on a level not exactly seen many times in a Scala season (he's interesting even when he badly flunks a staging, and this isn't the case anyway), had to taste some of the loggione's crankiness. 

Anja Harteros, as Alcina, started out very underwhelmingly in Act I -- she had OC worried that it would be a very, very long four hours -- but then recovered  in Act II and ended  very impressively (and she got applauded heartily at the end by the whole theater).

In Opera Chic's view the show was almost stolen by Monica Bacelli as Ruggiero -- maybe Opera Chic is lucky, but every time she witnessed a Bacelli performance, she always, always rocked.

Patricia Petibon Poised to Seduce Milan in Händel's Alcina at La Scala

Teatro alla Scala unveils a new Robert Carsen production of Georg Friedrich Händel's Alcina tomorrow night, and Opera Chic will be there (you won't -- except maybe for that dude over there) to bask in the glory of the sovereign, man-eating women-folk.

Our favorite pants-lady -- Monica Bacelli in a tie with Angelika Kirchschlager -- will be singing Ruggiero much to our delight. The black-magik seductress Alcina will be shared by Anja Harteros & Inga Kalna. We're expecting great things also from French coloratura & Baroque specialist, Patricia Petibon, who will be making her Scala debut in the role of Morgana. The ethereal soprano spoke to ~io Donna~ in a small interview (photo above), where she ruminated about la Scala (she's psyched to be singing there lol), the characteristics of Morgana (she's not a bad person per se...rather motivated out of jealousy and competition with her sister), and about being a diva (c'mon...just look at her! Raawwwr!)

Giovanni Antonini conducts this secksy Carsen production (last seen at Palais Garnier, 'tho he's made a few adjustment). We're expecting lots of seduction, naked man-butts, and gyrating o' plenty, as any Carsen without secks is naught a Carsen production. We will accept no imitations...it's ok, we can haendel it.

Zurich's Semele: William Christie Takes You To Mt. Olympus (And La Ceci Was There, Too)

The only possible way for Opera Chic to begin this Haendel year in an appropriate manner was to go to Zurich. Not simply to Starbucks -- even if the Swiss town flaunts the closest Starbucks to OC's adoptive city of Milan, an uneasy 200 miles away (and OC necessarily supports Starbucks as a show of patriotism -- freedom coffee!). Not simply to Starbucks for gallons of gingerbread latte, but on to the Opernhaus -- that pretty little mousetrap of a theater -- amid the usual paparazzi frenzy -- where Opera Chic checked out Robert Carsen's already classic production of Haendel's "Semele", with the sparkling Scintilla orchestra conducted by Uncle Bill, aka Maestro William Christie, Membre de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, honorary French citizen with a cool Legion d'Honneur to show for it, helluva guy.

That's what Opera Chic did last night. A full review is forthcoming, if you behave.

But since Semele was Cecilia Bartoli (the DVD of this production, recorded in 2007 during its first run in Zurich, is coming out next month: but the cool kids -- OC among them -- had already watched the satellite broadcast on Arte TV last year) la Ceci, having the pop-art tendency to paint everything around her in the brilliant rainbow of her coloratura -- and the review will have to be mostly about her and her explosion of talent -- that's what divas do, face it -- the least we can do now is to dedicate a small separate post to the musical engine of the evening: Maestro Christie, la Scintilla's Konzertmeister aka the flawless Ada Pesch, and the professori of Scintilla's period instrument orchestra.

Christie's greatness -- what makes him so radically, even anthropologically different from so many unworthy prophets of the HIP movement, peddler of a scorched sound -- is that he's not only a scholar -- he knows Rameau better than old Jean Philippe knew his own stuff -- but that he infuses every work he tackles with a delicate, elegant sound, as natural as breathing. Nothing to do with the hard strings, jarring brass, unsubtle phrasing and threadbare sound of so many HIP conductors. Christie's magic lies in the fact that he can be witty or sad, but he's always so elegant, and deeply human.

Beethoven studied Haendel -- the greatest composer who ever lived, he said -- respectfully trying to "unravel" his mysteries. Maestro Christie (in the photo below, his workstation in the pit at the Opernhaus last night) attacks Haendel's secrets with a smile: and we thank him, and la Scintilla, for this. 

OPERA CHIC BEST OF 2008: What Rawked, What Sucked, What F*@#ed Our S#'t Up

CONDUCTOR OF THE YEAR
Fabio Luisi

Surprise choice? If you think so, you have never heard him conduct. Fabio Luisi is Opera Chic's Conductor of the Year 2008 because he has a German brain and an Italian heart. Because with the Dresden Staatskapelle – “Dresden’s gold”, wrote the following day august Corriere della Sera newspaper -- he appeared at la Scala, in a benefit concert, and showed those of us who were ready to listen that Heldenleben (with the original finale, and Konzertmeister Kai Vogler teaching how you play the violin) is a masterpiece of subtlety and even irony far different than the usual windbaggy, sappy, irony-free piece we’re accustomed to hear (and that includes Herbie, genius as he was, photographed with his airplane and his Porsche, triumphant over his enemies). Luisi can do Wagner, he can do Italian opera (AND he recorded “Jerusalem”, that forgotten Verdi masterpiece). Because he once conducted in a Pink Panther costume (long story). Because his website seriously rules. Because he published his autobiography in Germany and Austria, and he isn’t even 50. He went so native that now he even speaks Italian with a faint Teutonic inflection. He has two cute pugs. Luisi downright rawks.

SINGER OF THE YEAR, FEMALE
Diana Damrau
Because if an alien race of giant rabid mutant penguins threatened to invade Earth she’d wear her Queen of the Night costume and she’d stare them into submission even before opening her mouth. Then she’d proceed to bash all their heads with a baseball bat and she’d make herself an alien penguin sandwich. On rye. With mayo.

SINGER OF THE YEAR, MALE
Ernesto Palacio
What? He retired years ago? Yes, he did – as a singer, OK. But he manages Juan Diego Florez in a way that he makes us wish he ran the careers of so many singers of great talent we see crash and burn for so many reasons. Maestro Palacio is behind Juan Diego’s decision to drop for the time being the Duke of Mantua after one preview in Lima and one run in Dresden; Palacio understands that the increased visibility that Verdi gives you is not worth damaging your voice; Verdi (except for Fenton, but you don’t really build a career on that role) is too heavy for Juan Diego’s perfectly tuned instrument. Hence, he will not push his voice to do Verdi. Better to be the king of Rossini and Donizetti, “el mejor tenor libero de la historia” in Placido Domingo’s words, than to be just another tenor who pushed his voice and crashed and burned. Opera Chic knows he’s busy but she’d like Palacio to be an adviser for her personal decisions, too – like a life coach. Fish or chicken? Ask Palacio. Seaside or mountains? Ask Palacio. Creme brulee or panettone? Ask Palacio.

DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR
Graham Vick

Because he once again fu#@ed our sh^t up by staging La Clemenza di Tito in Mussolini’s Rome (for Teatro Comunale di Torino) and La Rondine in a 1950s sophisticated comedy setting like a Jean Negulesco film for La Fenice, spoofing in the second act his nemesis Franco Zeffirelli’s Boheme Cafe Momus scene, and Vick came up with a truly heartbreaking idea for the ending, where love ends and the sky – literally – falls. As soon as OC takes over a major opera house in a coup, she's giving Vick absolute artistic powah.

OPERA PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR
Salomé, with Nicola Beller Carbone, directed by Robert Carsen, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, Teatro Regio di Torino
Salome in a Vegas casino vault? Horrible slimy old men stripping down during the dance of the seven veils instead of Salome? Salome surviving the end of the opera, in a genius plot twist? Leave it to Carsen to twist the Strauss opera on its ear finding new layers of meaning in that wonderful way of his. Whenever Carsen is on, he’s totally on. Noseda (OC did not hear him conduct when she saw Salome, it was his night off, but she's well aware of his work) may be the most underrated major conductor out there. And Teatro Regio di Torino does very interesting first class productions without the same massive amount of public financing enjoyed for example by la Scala.

COMPOSER OF THE YEAR (100 TIMES SO)
Elliott Carter
His new work sounds so fresh that he must have some seriously weird painting up in his attic getting all old wrinkly in his place.

NEW WORK OF THE YEAR
“Elogium Musicum”, Hans Werner Henze
On October 2, 2008, Riccardo Chailly conducted in Leipzig Hans Werner Henze's latest work, Elogium Musicum Amatissimi Amici Nunc Remoti, the 25-minutes elegy Henze wrote -- with prominent Classics professor Franco Serpa's Latin text -- in memory of Henze's companion of more than 40 years, Fausto Moroni, who died unexpectedly in April 2007. It's the story of two falcons always flying side by side, until one of them disappears from the sky; the music begins as a heartbreakingly beautiful string quartet, in quiet and serenity that gets increasingly animate -- then the second movement, "Nox", Night, becomes dissonant and chaotic and upsetting, a tempest of sorrow.

It's a stunning work by a man who had to endure a crushing blow and nevertheless turned it into art, a work made even more heartbreaking by the fact that, as the music in the finale seems to resign itself to disappear into nothingness, an alto saxophone appears, faintly at first, then stronger: it's Fausto. And Hans Werner Henze's dark night of the soul ends in the warm light of an Italian dawn. 

Well, what to say of a work of such power? In the indifference of the blissfully distracted American media, German opinion immediately understood that we are dealing with a historic work here: Neues Deutschland called the elegy Henze's "Opus summum", the pinnacle of his work. The economy and precision of Henze's writing reminded Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Verdi's Quattro Pezzi Sacri. "History is being made again, finally, in Leipzig", exulted the Leipziger Volkszeitung.

This is just a silly blog of a silly girl somewhere on the Internet; and our calling Elogium Musicum the new work of the year 2008 is nothing. But our admiration is real -- as is the timeless beauty of that elegy.

DUMBEST DECISION OF THE YEAR
La Scala unions' strike for 3 nights of Dudamel's Boheme.
The winner, hands down, is the Scala unions who senselessly -- and masochistically -- chose to sink the first three nights of Gustavo Dudamel's "La Bohéme" at la Scala. A hot young conductor, an interesting young cast (among them the really cool James Valenti) and Franco Zeffirelli's super-famous staging of the work, all at la Scala, made for a really cool event. The cancellation created a flurry of reimbursements for the three sold-out shows, didn't do anything to advance the contract drama that was protracted to this month a few hours before la prima and is probably not entirely over yet anyway. What it did, it punished the audience and disrespected a conductor who had already conducted an interesting Don Giovanni at la Scala -- but who won't appear in another opera here in Milan for a while now. The opera had the eventual greenlight by the unions in the second half of July, in the semi-deserted city, in the silence of the international media -- despite Dudamel's prominence -- and even hometown paper Corriere della Sera relegated the show to a small notice. But then la Scala's leadership in shooting themselves in the foot is a well known fact.

Below, Dudamel's triumph in Berlin with the same opera.

"Don't Look Back In Anger": Robert Carsen Shanks Zeffirelli & Maazel

The most dangerous hitman, as we all know, is the ninja.

Invisible, he sneaks up behind you and presses that special nerve ending at the base of your neck and you drop dead in an instant -- and you never knew what hit you.

This is the Robert Carsen way, when he has to dispatch an enemy of his.

Graham Vick, Denis Krief, Giorgio Battistelli reacted to Maazel's and Zeffirelli's accusations of vulgarity and incompetence with counterarguments -- Lorin & Franco are "provincial", "ungenerous", "old", "pitiful", "pathetic".

Carsen instead, in today's Corriere della Sera, in the fourth episode of the Old Skool vs New Skool debate, chooses a different way. The way of the ninja.

Carsen spoke out in defense of the arts, "in this era of deep cuts to public funding", explained how in his own work he tries to mix thought and emotion just like the composers creates an union between text and music, and then he silently went for the kill:

"Artists should support their fellow artists because if they attack them, in a way they attack themselves, too, cheapening their own contribution to the art. I hope that, if I'm lucky enough to live and work as long as my distinguished colleagues Zeffirelli and Maazel have, I will not look back in anger, but I'll have the generosity of spirit to try to understand, and offer guidance, and help".

Those sneaky ninjas, as we said above, can be more deadly than Godzilla, can they.

Maazel's Wrath: Salzburg "Boring", "Trashy", "Enough With Those Weirdly Provocative, Arrogant Directors". "Audiences Not Offended, They're Simply Bored"

In today's Corriere della Sera Lorin Maazel goes nuclear, in a huge interview (not online), on the Salzburg Festival and, in general, on "provocative" directors.

Let's read a few choice bits from what the august Milanese paper calls "Maazel's Wrath".

The Maestro is currently conducting a Beethoven cycle in beautiful Taormina and he calls that Sicilian festival "a serene oasis" where many young people attend the concerts:

"I spent a lifetime in Salzburg, my debut there was in 1963 and I conducted there 109 times in all, between operas and concerts. Now I've had enough: enough with weirdly provocative stagings of arrogant directors who think innovation means boring the audience using public funds".

"I feel like speaking up for the people who buy tickets and go to the opera and are subjected to the wrongheaded reinterpretations of great operas; that's what I told Gerard Mortier when he ran the festival"

"Often those directors are simply uneducated. Like that guy, I don't even remember his name, who was directing A Midsummer Night's Dream in Salzburg while bragging that he despised Shakespeare. They only care about scandals. But the audience do not get offended, they're simply bored. At that premiere, this big wealthy Swiss man stood up and told his wife, 'Elisabetta this is so boring! Let's go have some dinner instaed'"

"I get things done the way I want them because I have a name, and a history. Other conductors simply adapt themselves. Until one day I blew up, disgusted, nothing in Salzburg was about the music anymore, but we should always respect the great composers"

Maazel also slams La Fenice and Hamburg, "where the great texts get defaced".

And attacks Robert Carsen:

"During Traviata's preludio, he wanted to see a bunch of men approach Violetta's bed throwing a lot of money around. 'Traviata is sex and money', he told me. He reduced Verdi to trash. I had to work a lot to reach a compromise. The men left quickly and Violetta threw the money away, spitefully. I wanted to save her sensibility, La Dame Aux Camelias has a pure heart. All the opposite of the picture of depravity they wanted to force upon the opera. It was as depraved as that Otello directed by Peter Zadek in Hamburg where a naked Ophelia was hung out to dry on a rope like laundry, her ass in the air. I have nothing against nudity. At the Lido or the Moulin Rouge beautiful girls look great with their t*ts hanging out. But the only thing a lady with her vocal folds in order needs to expose is her voice. People go to the opera for that".

Zing!

Robert Carsen's Kewlest Salome Locks it Down in Torino

(above: Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva) 

ok, there are 2 versions of Salome: the kewl one (Carsen) adn the boring one (every1 elses) and we must unite teh two salomes so there can be a final showdown of level bosses with Carsen 4 the win! OC was treated to the kewl one on Sunday afternoon in Torino, where director Robert Carsen wowed the audience like clearing 4x4x4x4x4x Tetris rows with Korobeiniki blasting on the stereo.

The curtain rose on Herod’s palace, which was meticulously visualized as a sterile and commanding Las Vegas casino vault, excellently realized via floor to ceiling safety deposit boxes, and a gigantic, thick circular vault door on the right wall. Imposing walls covered in a grid of safes, and polished marble slabs covered the floor like a Manhattan mecha office lobby. On the left was a floor-to-ceiling escalator bank (but sadly, non-mechanized stairs). In front of the escalator was a security station, which consisted of a brushed metal banquette with nine plasma screens broadcasting eye-in-the-sky transmissions from around Herod’s casino. As Narraboth (sang by an excellent, light, and emotive Jörg Dürmüller) waxed poetic on the beauty and paleness of the princess, he simultaneously stared at her visage reclining on a lounge, unbeknownst to the security camera that was transmitting her every action to the plasma screen display.

Soldiers were updated as security personnel. Extras disguised as lounge waitresses were in 70s disco Egyptian garb, gold wedge sandals and short sparkling Cleopatra skirts wrapped around their hips, while the men went topless in Roman battle costume and the occasional helmet.

   

(above: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva) 

Enter Salome, sung by German soprano Nicola Beller Carbone, who again, was physically and vocally on point, but was lacking an overall charisma. Dressed in black Reeboks, black spandex capris, and a long black tank, she appeared to have just cruised in from a low-intensity workout at the gym. She was the perfect bored teen -- stormy, emo, and petulant, lounging carelessly on the security banquette.

It was when Mark S. Doss's plastic Jochanaan was summoned from the depths of the bank vault (via the vault door) that conductor of the evening, Roberto Fores Veses, really p00ped his frac, and his weakness was almost offensive. There was no attention paid to the leitmotifs or corresponding orchestral cues. There was no suspense, terror, or fire. Only big noise via the exaggerated gestures of a young conductor who flung his arms for a wall of sound. No shape, no dynamic, and forte to piano was managed by pure circumstance rather than technique. Overall the timbre of the orchestra was overbearing and effectively drowned-out all nuance of singing. The only goose bumps of the night were powered by Carsen's spot-on direction and vision.

After Jochanaan retreated back into his hidey-hole, Carsen's Jews appear in the guise of Herod & Herodias’ guests, dressed in cocktail party mode...rich silk dresses on the trophy wives and tuxedos on the retired lawyers and bankers. It was so refreshing not to have the stereotypical rabbinical Jews rushing around in circles mashing their spiny fingers together, tallit and payis flying about.

We met Herod, sleazy nouveaux riches and casino owner, who orders refreshments served by topless waitresses. Herodias was a washed-up Las Vegas showgirl, sporting an auburn wig, a gold sheath dress, and gold stiletto heels, while Herod was a slumlord dressed in a gaudy grey salesman suit and pink shirt.

(above: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva)

Tanz für mich was the apex of brilliance. We will always have a love/hate relationship with Robert Carsen. He is bursting full with such original ideas and revolutionary concepts, but sometimes goes astray in a heavy-handed, rebellious approach, slamming down genius with such forceful hammyfists that it becomes derivative, eye rolling drama...like a sullen teen who thrives on negative attention. We saw it in his Scala Candide last year as a prime example, and he went astray again in his Vienna Manon Lescaut (we did however love his Scala Kát'a Kabanová, but we saw that before we started blogging sucks 4 u!).

When obstinate, moody Salome finally agreed to dance her famous "Dance of the Seven Veils", she strutted out on stage dressed as a xerox copy of her washed-up, attention-whore  mother (sung by a screeching, trashy, but excellent Dagmar Pecková) in the same red wig, golden cocktail dress, and too-high heels, looking just as ill fit and age-inappropriate as her mother.

Manfred Voss's innovative lighting killed the stage floods and bathed the entire scene in gorgeous glittering gold, warm and sensuous, a pulsating, dynamic backdrop for the sickest Dot7Vs that OC ever saw. Salome strutted over and confronted her shocked mother doppleganger, jauntily mocking her and threatening her with overt sexuality.

(above: curtain call, the party guests)

Salome began dancing a cabaret-style seduction, plucking the retirees from the audience of her parent's party guests and grinding against them, pulling away the cashmere scarves of old men and leaving them stunned and breathless on the floor. Herod and Herodias were seated apart, stage front, and while her mother looked away uncomfortably, Herod was gleefully tantalized. Salome began a chair dance, and the retirees got up and danced around her, their clothes beginning to molt off their gyrating bodies. They took their handkerchiefs from their pockets and placed them over their faces, twirling around the oversexed Salome in anonymous frenzy. The whole dance built to a literally climatic finish, and Herod followed his stepdaughter's every erotic thrust with a large video camera, simultaneously broadcasting the action on the nine plasma screens at the security desk. wtf? Taking incest to a whole new level, this generation to be broadcast on YouTube or released for profit.

(above: curtain call, Jochanaan)

The dance is so unforgiving, so sexual -- she mimes fellatio on one of the men (old enough to be her grandfather), mimes sodomy from another, and even fellates her gold stiletto when her secksual appetite cannot be sated by the men. Salome dropped her dress to her ankles and finished the seduction in a cream silk slip. The men were literally rolling around on the floor at her feet in pure secksal ecstacy, air humping and pulling off their layers as quickly as their feverish hands could manage.

The end scene, and the men have shed all their clothes, all writhing around stark naked on the stage, white old man butts polarized as the gold lighting faded away and became an intense, harsh wash of white light. The plasma screens recorded all the action, close-ups of Salome's thrill of seduction, interplayed with x-rated shots of a women’s naked bits. At the end, she attacked her mother, grinding her lips against hers in a victorious struggle for matriarchal power. The Dance of the Seven Veils never gets me hawt, like not even close *yawn yawn* but this one was insanely suffused with raw eroticism and over stimulated incestuous taboo between father and daughter. It was off the higgety. ok pls dont start the rapture before i lose my virginity yae gawds.

(above: curtain call, Nicola Beller Carbone)

As the audience settled down and everyone tried to imagine garbage men on the toilet, nuns baking cookies, and homeless men playing chess, the scene segued into Ich verlange von dir den Kopf des Jochanaan, Salome turned haughty and absolutely unyielding, a girl suddenly aware of the powerful wield of blooming sexuality, and the manipulation over her father. Herod, still holding the video recorder, zoomed in on her face when she asked for Jochanaan's head. When he offered to bribe her with jewels, he plucked safety deposit keys from a ring, which his shallow party guests snatched and rushed off to capitalize on. Gold sand and glitter spontaneously poured from half a dozen of the uppermost boxes, raining down the background for a glorious effect.

(above: Robert Carsen's Salome @ Torino's Teatro Regio. Photo: Ramella and Giannese/Piva) 

As the head of Jochanaan is brought to Salome via the revelers who entered the vault door, it was brought to her bloodless and rubbery. Before the final kiss, the revelers, unable to feign pity or reflect on the severity of the beheaded saint, play a round of kickball with the rubber head. As Salome slinked off into the vault wall that broke apart to reveal a desert landscape, with the head of the prophet raised over her shoulders in outstretched arms, Herod instead called for his wife Herodias to be killed, to which the bloodthirsty revelers gleefully and instantly agreed.

Lights slammed shut, and this was the best direction of Salome OC could ever imagine. For the first time, OC can visualize why the 20th century opera was banned and criticized at its inception. The juxtaposition of the Dot7Vs and Herod's final blame raised the discourse to a conceptual level that worked in so many ways. I'm gonna go start a facebook group for this...brb.

(above: Teatro Regio Torino)

(above: exterior of Teatro Regio Torino)

(above: exterior front of Teatro Regio Torino)

(above: Downtown Torino)

(above: interior of Teatro Regio Torino)

Bi Bi Baby: Carsen's Salome, Lipstick Thespian

Moah images from Robert Carsen's Salome in Turin.

Also, below, the dance of the seven veils -- she stays dressed while the rich h0rny dirty old men (a classic Carsen touch, with the usual subtle political undertones) who warship her, literally lose their pants.

Ocean's Salome: Robert Carsen Locks Strauss In A Vault

Robert Carsen, nowhere to be seen these days around Milan since his problematic Candide last season (the one with George W. Bush, Silvio Berlusconi and other world leaders dancing in their underwares that underwent a bit of a rewrite before it was introduced to la Scala audience's delicate sensibilities), is about to introduce his Salome (his second, actually, since he already did one in the early 1990s with Kent Nagano using the French language libretto) to audiences in Turin.

One week from now the Teatro Regio di Torino will be turned, Ocean's 11 style, into a luxury casino's vault, complete with big screens with the "live" footage of security cameras around the casino's floor, for Carsen's Salome.   

Among Carsen's ideas, besides the Ocean's 11 casino thing, the fact that Salome won't get n4ked but a bunch of lewd onlookers will -- Nicola Beller Carbone will stay clothed, random old fat maen will drop trou. Grammy winner Mark S. Doss, as Jokanaan, in a rare concession to orthodoxy, will indeed lose his head.

Gianandrea Noseda is conducting; he has already introduced his Salome, in concert form, with the Turin cast, in Manchester. Audio of the performance is still here, for another 48 hours courtesy of the BBC

Carsen's Manon Lescaut with Wondertwins Fabiela Dessabio at the Wiener

Showing to a perplexingly lukewarm Viennese audience at the Wiener Staatsoper last tonight, Puccini's Manon Lescaut was a pure delight stemming from the warm, rich, practiced voices of leads Fabio Armiliato (Renato Des Grieux) and Daniela Dessi (Manon Lescaut). In all honesty, OC passed half the performance with her eyes half-closed, bathing in the fabio-lus duets of Fabiela Dessabio, and relegating Carsen's chaotic direction as an abstract turkey leftover to the overstuffed, graying audience. We do love Carsen, a man-child filled with such polished, retro, big-spender ideas, but when he's bad, he gets it all wrong. And this Carsen production is all sorts of wrong. He steam-rolled over the libretto and infused the direction in his own lofty, updated, modern visions, while leaving the poetic corset to flounder hopelessly on stage. The most glaring detraction was setting the majority of action not in a public square, but instead in a half covered luxury mall, gleaming windows displaying retro ladies evening wear.

By Act IV, when Manon is supposedly dying in the desert, it just doesn't make any sense as she begs Des Grieux to find water sprawled on the faux marble floor in front of the opulent window displays. I mean, break into Applebees or CVS or something...or better yet, drag your dying a$$ over to Starbucks and get a frap. whatevs. it was too difficult to suspend belief, and it just didn't work. Carsen was so far from the libretto and mainstream conceptions that I almost thought again he had liberally altered the libretto himself to suit the new action as he did with Lenny's Candide at La Scala earlier this year.

Act I opened with the chorus mercilessly pruned of any members over 30, dressed as rejects from those GAP commercials that ran a few years ago and loitering about the half-covered mall area. A homeless man loitered in the back on his makeshift cardboard bed, and trash littered the marbled pavement. Des Grieux swaggered out in a black leather coat and a hoodie underneath. ick. Armiliato's supreme skillz thankfully made the costume melt beneath his creamy voice, and his wardrobe thankfully wasn't a gigantic detraction. "Donna non vidi mai" was exceptional, a clear and powerful delivery.

 

Manon entered in a blue trench, a platinum blond wig in a tight braid down her back. Dessi slammed the role, as always pumping out the exact notes in perfect control and poise, sweet color and effortless grace. And btw, although her natural brown hair suits her just fine, she looked smoking in platinum gold. I was all like damn.  daayyum! When Des Grieux and Manon absconded, they did so in a Benz that was literally backed onto the stage.  As two students (bearing the likeness of Manon and Des Grieux) reinacted the scene before Lescaut and Geronte, piles of money were emptied from a suitcase onto the body of a writhing Manon, swiftly changing the narrative of Manon from heroine to gold-digging slut. Carsen, like Puccini had been accused, cannot help pervade a tinge of mysogony that is unappealing and overt. Carsen falls into, once again, an underlying objectification of women, and the narrative turns from that of a courageous woman to one dependant on her man and his wealth.

Act II called for a costume and set change, and Manon appeared in a black silk chemise, surrounded by attendees and hang-ons, Mistress Barbie in full effect. Instead of window displays, they were in a luxury, minimalist penthouse apartment overlooking a not-Paris city center, with the only furniture appearing as large, flat couches dropped in the middle of the stage and a pile of cushions in the corner.  Dessi's "L'ora, o Tirsi, è vaga e bella" was gorgeous and touching, but the overstuffed audience was all like yea ok MOAR.

When Geronte showed-off the hawtness of Manon to his friends, Carsen decided on staging a photoshoot, with four identical flappers in magenta bobbed wigs dancing behind her, awash in a sea of magenta light. um, what? And again, the whole rapz0rs scene at the end of the act was super lame. As Geronte's Matrix-Stormtroopers emptied Manon's packed suitcases, they spilled the booty of jewels and money all over the ground, which remained on stage throughout the rest of the evening.

Act III spun further out of control, arias sung while fondling jewels and a chorus dressed in evening ewar, culminating with a parade of Manon with a dozen other incarcerated prisons participating in an evening-wear fashion show, flash bulbs popping throughout the whole moronic scene in a seizure-inducing pattern. ok, Carsen, we get it. Capitalism, his favorite pet flogging boy, is again beaten like a dead horse. WE GET IT OK? The entire event distracted insanely from the excellent singing (and original libretto), and was embarrassingly ridiculous. The only thing that saved it was the meaty duets among Dessi and Armiliato, leaving OC almost breathless at the absolute harmony between teh two onstage-offstage lovers. Their chemistry was under perfect control and gauge, scope and credibility.

Act IV was the most ridiculous of all, the desert represented as the same covered mall from Act I (and II & III). How Dessi was able to act herself through that direction was a miracle, and props to her for putting on such a professional face.  Her acting was so pristine, that it was almost too much for Carsen's perplexing direction, and came off as incongruent to the coldness of his sets. "Sola, perduta, abbandonata" from Dessi was off the hook, but again, she suffused so much emotion into the aria, while the scenery and direction was so careless and jibing.

The audience last night was cooly detacted and blase, barely breaking into applause after the most stellar duets and arias by Dessi. OC was somewhat incredulous, and thought back to the thunderous Adriana Lecouvreur that she saw last April at La Scala, where the loggioni flipped out -- and rightfully so -- after the supa-powa duo wonder twins Dessi & Armiliato rocked the Piermarini casbah. Last night, Armiliato and Dessi sang their big hearts away, and intertwined their techniques so flawlessly, but barely any shouts of brava peppered the audience. In fact, one of the only applauses inserted spontaneously into the opera last night was after the Act III intermezzo. HA!  Also: Jeff Koons. His monstrosity of a curtain "Geisha" -- a cross between Basquiat & Murakami -- hanging over the stage comes from a larger body of work called "Hulk Elvis" (the big green monstah is in teh haus in all his horrorsome fearfulness). Enough for now...more on his curtain later.

Other thoughts? The Wiener Staatsoper is a gigantic arena, feeling more vacuous than The Metropolitan Opera house, and decorated less than a high school auditorium.  wtf? Filled to the brim with grey old ladies and tourists (Americans in Vienna is at like saturation point this week, thanks to Columbus Day which must have insured enough vacation days for international travel), everyone was stuffed with too much knoedel and sacher torte to lift a hand for applause. The ghost of Puccini himself could have been conjured on the stage tonight, and the audience would have still sat back and farted. Applause was pitiful and not on the level that was deserved. At all. Yeah, the La Scala loggionisti are annoying and sometimes super lame and they may not always be in good faith, but I am thankful that they are a reliable barometer of talent, and was awakened to the mystique of Fabiela Dessabio, who are revered as sacred in their thorny hands.

Carsen's Manon Lescaut: Like a GAP Ad, Without The Swing, And With Even Lamer Clothes

Before Opera Chic decyphers her notes (hastily written in the back of a seriously chocolate-stained napkin from Demel), just a quick roundup – the review is coming later – on tonight’s production of Manon Lescaut at Vienna’s Staatsoper. We’ll write extensively tomorrow about the awesomeness of Fabio Armiliato’s and Daniela Dessì’s voices, but tonight we want to explain how, well, impressively not good the ideas Robert Carsen had for this staging, his second Manon Lescaut already, were.

We consider Carsen – together with David McVicar, Graham Vick, Nigel Lowery and a very few brilliant others who are mercifully under 70-years-old – the great hope for opera fans who hope to watch – and not just to listen – to some great shows in the future decades – Carsen is one of the kids whose responsibility it is  to allow us not to go to the opera house wearing sleep masks to block out the sheer stupidity of the staging.

But, tonight we really wished we had kept one of those sweet green Alitalia sleep masks we wore last week coming back from the US (and not only because Alitalia’s imminent going out of business will turn them into cool retro memorabilia pretty soon).

Because Carsen is like one of those TV cops with a bad attitude and a lot of street smarts: all instincts and chutzpah, and when they get it right they crack the case before the next commercials appear; when they’re wrong, they’re like totally sending an innocent man to the chair because they’ve made themselves certain that he’s guilty, even when he’s clearly not.

Because when Carsen gets it the kicks major a$$ the way he did with his ethereal Dialogues des Carmelites and his otherworldly Iphigenie, to name just two, that are among the best productions we have ever seen; when he gets it wrong he either hammers already delicate material like Bernstein’s Candide into submission turning into something else and really damaging the piece in the process, or he simply ruins a perfectly good opera the way he did tonight with Manon Lescaut.

A first act where the students are dressed up in contemporary, GAP-style lam4r clothes and dance just like in one of those old GAP ads, only not as well, in a clap-ur-hands-say-yea fashion; where the action takes place in a mall where the women’s fashion is from the 1950s and the big props are shopping bags from Chanel and Gucci (big Puccini message: shopping bad, clapping hands like a moron good); Manon is decked out in a man’s shirt and navy trench coat just like those big stars from the DDR realist films from the 1950s (a sin especially unforgivable when the soprano is as milfatuation-worthy as Daniela Dessì, who’d really deserve better from her director and costume designer). Des Grieux instead wears an appalling black fake-leather coat over a sleeveless greenish hoodie (and good luck with that when the tenor isn’t as tall and slender and young-looking as Fabio Armiliato).

In the second act all hell breaks loose – it starts with Manon dressed out badly even as a rich woman, in a shapeless long black nightie that’s supposed to be a dress, we fear, underneath a  premaman-like loose flowing purple jacket – evidently all the shopping didn’t help much since she’s made to look like a tree trunk, a good idea when the soprano weighs more than 200 pounds, a major sin when you have a soprano as attractive as Dessì. Impromptu photo shoots (with horribly stereotypical gay makeup artists prancing in various teapot stances and stealing Manon’s makeup in ways that make those black porters and maids from 1930s Hollywood movies look like models of sensitivity) follow; Manon and her chambermaids end the act gang-raped by Geronte and a bunch of soldiers dressed as the bad guys in the Matrix.

The third act’s best idea is a perp-walk of models that turns into a fashion show’s catwalk, with Paris Hilton-style celebrity justice and paparazzi shooting their flashlights like crazy, over and over, as the singers try to go on with the opera Puccini went to the trouble of writing.

In the final act, well, the desert is that same mall, with used-up shopping bags everywhere, and tons of money thrown everywhere (all the money in the world won’t buy you water, get it? Get it?? Get IT????).

In all this chaos, Dessi’s and Armiliato's singing was the usual wonder, as always, as if their voices come out of their throats already filtered and equalized and corrected by a sound engineer – they sound better live than most opera singers in studio recordings.

When in doubt, if they’re up on stage and the director is losing his pewp the way Carsen did tonight, just close your eyes. Or purchase score desk, partial view seats. (They’ll certainly beat our 70-dollars a pop seats at the Staatsoper – the least you see, the better in this case. Just listen, and dream.

My Big Fat Candide Review

The three big papers in Italy (Corriere, La Stampa, and La Repubblica) all reported a t0tally excited reception (10 minutes of applause –- but we’ll get to that later) for Robert Carsen's direction --> appropriation --> adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's Candide from the Wednesday, June 20 la prima at Teatro alla Scala. Don’t get us wrong. We liked many things about it: the witty tributes to cultural icons and shared historical legacy, the dying flicker of optimism and increasing commodification of American culture since the death of JFK, and the rise of the tacky and misguided nouveau riche. (yawnz0rs)

But by the end of the night, the audience is pushed into the role of a bemused parent battling the sudden onset of puberty of a confused and rebellious teenager. Carsen inelegantly slams his dogma and paints his social-commentary-couched-in-irreverent opinions in such broad strokes, that a few times OC found herself rolling her eyes to his modern citations ('does the audience like me yet?! I wont stop referencing our shared cultural history until I am liked.')

But Carsen’s production was equally brilliant compared to even the most tenuous parts: a brief allusion to Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, complete with a saxophone-wielding cross-dressing Jack Lemmon as Maximilian, uttering the famous (ed: Joe E. Brown's in the original movie) line, "well, nobody's perfect". While I lolled, not one of the Italians near me uttered a single sound. And of course, Glitter and Be Gay was set to the iconic Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, as Cunegonde is transformed into Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. What we also respected from Carsen was the elegant handling of the inherent anti-war message, which was thankfully not foisted heavily into the structure of Carsen's moral edits, and rather delievered with wit and grace.

The stage, as you all have seen/read by now, is set inside a giant television from the 1950s with rounded rectangle frames, reminiscent of a giant vintage metal lunchbox. The opening credits are certainly brilliant enough, all in English in whimsical font, as well as the appealing nostalgic pastiche of stock footage, all taken from idealized, pastel, and frothy clips of happy American 1950s families -- panning the camera over white picket fences and brand new ranch homes, spliced with footage of the JFK wedding, a NASA space launch, etc...all saturated in a warm orange glow of nostalgia. However, Voltaire giving the audience the middle finger to signify the opening of Act I is a little too, well, *rolls eyes*.

But in the age of MTV and lightning-fast edits, OC found the overall production riddled with a bad case of ADHD *omg brb something shiny*! It was impossible to focus on the overture with the media presentation buzzing and flashing behind (there was also a similar presentation after the first intermission). The problem with this entire production is that Bernstein’s music and creation takes complete backstage to Carsen's self-laudatory, egotistical omg shared inheritance omg direction. He's like Orson Welles on crack. Carsen uses Lenny’s Candide as a vehicle to perpetuate his convictions and his own brand of heavy-handed social commentary, and to present his own, updated version of Voltaire’s novel. The music was a mere afterthought, a batch of stringed notes for the background of Carsen's direction. This was all in great contrast to the 2004 Candide OC saw in NYC, a love-fest hommage to Bernstein...where at one point in scene, an album of Lenny's West Side Story was used as a prop in tribute to the great maestro, the audience bursting out in applause.

The La Scala orchestra was completely incapable of getting down that fundamental, unique ,brash Lenny sound. They washed it entirely in their patented La Scala Italianate (duh) treatment -- although very beautiful and evocative in its own right -- but not even close. But then again, no one was really listening to the music rite? so who cares!

The final word on the cut scenes? As the legend goes *cue grandpappy voice*, it all began back in December 2006 when Stéphane Lissner took his adolescent son (note: OC isn’t a parent, but I prolly wouldn’t recommend this opera for 13-year-olds) to the December 26th Paris production at the Théâtre du Châtelet, and decided that Carsen's vision of Candide was "not in line with the artistic production of La Scala". Many meetings behind closed doors in January 2007 between Lissner and Carsen were held, where eventually they agreed upon a “Milan-Safe” version, cutting roughly 15-minutes of staging from the Paris version, including two songs of Dr. Pangloss (but hinted-at in the newspaper for reasons wanting to conserve Lamert Wilson’s voice. um okay yaaaah).

Now, thanks to video captures of the January 2007 Arte' channel broadcast of the uncensored and uncut Paris production, those who can’t get to the theater can revel in Carsen’s controversial vision (Again, Opera Chic has been forbidden by la Scala's lawyers to publish la Scala promotional material that is freely distributed to the media, and shots from inside the theater.) Here were most of the edits:

In the famous scene with Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, and Putin floating drunkenly among split oil tanks (at la prima, two of those tanks had a ‘wardrobe malfunction’, and remained distractedly and ominously on stage ten minutes through the Las Vegas scene) Putin thankfully doesn't vomit (making instead very audible hiccups), and Berlusconi is dressed in longer briefs (instead of a little Speedo seen in Paris). The neckties of the five world leaders have been left in the dressing room, but that was explained for the reasons of new, improved masks that didn’t need the neckties to conceal the creases in the material.

No molesting, pAEdophile priests or priest/church jokes…specifically the line, "Farebbero comodo alla nostra confraternita" (but instead Dr. Pangloss grossly molests Paquette through a few scenes.) Also cut was the entire scene of the cardinals arriving in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lots of cracks at the Mormons, however remained, upon Candide’s arrival in Salt Lake City, UT. Not many Mormons in Italia!

Dr. Pangloss/Voltaire/Martin, played by the excellent Lambert Wilson, narrates in Italian language (instead of English) marring the production with an ersatz and disjointed feel (Lissner had said that such long stretches of English would bore and lose the interest of the general audience). Even the last few lines in the ending scene uttered by Candide and Voltaire are spoken in Italian.

Appearing in scene, although reportedly once agreed to be cut by Carsen, was Kim Criswell’s Old Lady, who said she was the daughter of a Polish pope ("Sono figlia di un papa polacco") because I remember being like, 'oh great, here comes the Pole joke.

But can we just address the screaming headlines that state the Candide la prima received bountiful applause? Well, yes, technically there was roughly 10 minutes of applause. People liked it, yes. But whoever coordinated the curtain calls split-up the massive, massive chorus into much smaller sets of about 15 members, each line of chorus singers taking an isolated, separate bow. Technically and literally, because the chorus (ed: and the mimes and the dancers) was split into small bodies among such a large group, it took a very long time. When the principals finally came together with Carsen, Axelrod, et al, after the entire chorus had taken their like, 8 minutes of curtain calls, there was only *one* ovation for them. The curtain went down once, and was raised one additional instance for a final, second ovation. THIS CASE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY CLOSED.

Now to make this monster post even more GINORMOUS, here are some more screenshots from the December 2006 Paris production, broadcast last January by Arté on satellite, not from La Scala's production:

Above: Dr. Pangloss's history lesson

Above: The chorus and the earthquake

Above: auto-da-fé with hanging of Candide and Pangloss. Oh yeah: And the KKK.

Above: Cunegonde's Glitter and Be Gay

Above: Escape from Hawaii to the Titantic

Above: Bush drunk on a raft

Above: Blair drunk on a raft

Above: More rafts

Above: Las Vegas and The Old Lady

Above: cul8r

La Scala's Censorship of Carsen's Candide

And what about those adjustments that Robert Carsen worked-out with Stéphane Lissner to adapt his production for a Milan & Italy safe version? Tonight the caricature of Silvio Berlusconi was dressed in longer briefs, unlike at the Théâtre du Châtelet production where he flaunted speedos (see below). As we anticipated, he wore no tie. What you can see posted are vidcaps of the Arte' broadcast, last January, of the uncensored and uncut Paris production.

These Paris-Candide vidcaps show scenes that have been cut from la Scala's staging.

Opera Chic has been forbidden by la Scala's lawyers to publish Scala promotional material that is freely distributed to the media, so there will be no Candide at la Scala images here until tomorrow, when Italian law will allow us to reproduce, in fair use, pages of newspapers that have published those images.

whew!

Enjoy.

In Milan, swiftly axed from the production (about 15 minutes, 2 musical numbers and a lot of anti-Catholic Church jokes) was Candide's arrival into Santa Fe, New Mexico. Below, find the Théâtre du Châtelet production of Carsen's staging of Candide, (thanks to ARTE airing it this past January) which included the scene.

Why is the Vatican still so powerful here, that the Scala GM Lissner axed all the anti-Catholic content but kept the anti-Berlusconi shtick, thus enraging the very Milan city government that yearly endows la Scala with a fat donation?

In a few words, because the Church and the Catholic organizations are so powerful here that, when the (nominally) center-left central government led by Romano Prodi tried to pass a very mellow law allowing some form of protections to civil unions, straight and gay unions alike, the Church had successfully lobbied Catholic politicians to sink the government in a Senate vote (the government usually has a small majority there, but they magically lost it on that issue) and they sent ONE MILLION people to a demonstration in Rome, the awesomely named "Family Day", in English, to flex some bada$$ Catholic muscle.

Needless to say, the civil unions plan has been shelved indefinitely.

The Catholic Church also won big two years ago, sinking a referendum that would have given more leeway to stem cell research and in vitro fertilization (abortion, on the other hand, is still legal here...it is not clear for how long, though). And a recent "offensive" art exhibit in Bologna has created a big fuss, with the (leftist) city government withholding support to the artist and actually apologizing to the Church.

To sum it up: Scala GM Stephane Lissner is more worried by the Vatican's possible wrath than by Silvio Berlusconi's certain discomfort at being mocked on la Scala's stage. Lissner may be right, but Opera Chic is not so sure -- He lost about 2 million euros of Milan government funding anyway. And we doubt the Vatican is going to send him a thank-you note, much less a check for 2 cool mils.   

Why Can’t Anyone Just Leave Poor Lenny Alone?

[Do not insert a "best of both possible worlds" joke here]

First it was the NYC elementary school that thought it would be cool to do a biographical sketch in the very cemetery where Lenny’s body resides. Then Carsen took out his beat-down stick and whacked with all his might to create something simultaneously kind of laudable, but incomprehensibly *not* Bernstein’s Candide.   

Herpes jokes, a grabby-hands Pangloss, Cunégonde as a “shiksa b*tch”, the immigrants to the New World referred to as, “wops, kikes, spics, [insert additional offensive slang here], and the KKK dancing a hoe-down. It’s like, okay Carsen, WE GET IT. I mean, just how many times can you hear "West Failure" (for “Westfalia”) before it gets old?! Yeah, um: 3x.

Amazingly, through all the racial slurs and barbs, Carsen had at least enough sense to not drop the n-bomb…but then again, even if he did, I don’t think the audience would have cared, as there was indeed a warm reception for Carsen’s antics at La Scala tonight. Lots of cheers when Carsen (wearing one of the most hideous -- dark purple and white striped -- suits I’ve seen in my entire life) came onstage to take his curtain call. A smattering of boos, but really just a miniscule dollop compared to the wild cheering. For the American experience, Carsen leaves one with a complete dichotomy of both nostalgia and embarrassment. Embarrassment for the egregious metaphors and couched social criticisms via an extremely altered libretto. Or as the La Scala flyer states, “Liberamente adattato da Robert Carsen”, freely adapted. "Liberamente adattato" my a$$. That was straight-up misappropriation.

Carsen, your anti-establishment, anti-globalization, anti-TV shtick is hijacking Lenny’s musical/operetta/opera (I’m sooo not getting into this debate fyi tia) REPORTED REPORTED!!   more tomorrow...

Finally Candide! More or less.

(photo above from the Theatre Du Chatelet production in Dec. 2007, NOT from la Scala's current production)

Since there are still tickets available a few hours before the show -- no sold out crowd for that -- and there's nothing good on television, Opera Chic has decided to go check out the scandal-heavy Robert Carsen staging of Candide -- l'"affaire Candide" that earned Opera Chic a few high-placed enemies and cost la Scala's management a big fat cut in government-funding (because, really, ridiculing ex Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a city heavily dominated, politically and otherwise, by Berlusconi and his allies, is not the smartest move for those who need government funds -- the decision by the center-right mayor of Milan to pull 2 million euros out of the yearly funds given to la Scala has been considered a pretty evident payback for the decision to go on and stage the "offensive", politically charged Candide anyway. That and, of course, the Scala decision to be mean towards Scala-loving Opera Chic has not helped either lol).

Opera Chic didn't particularly like that Candide on TV, the opera was broadcast by Arté last January, because really, how tired it is to argue that TV is bad for you and that America has lost her optimism since JFK was murdered? that's just bOring! and makes Opera Chic (who usually loves Carsen's work) goes zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with sleep. A gifted director, he may not be a politcal artist. 

Anyway.

The latest news are:

* the scene with Berlusconi, Bush, Blair, Chirac and Putin (three of whom are now either out of office or on their way out, one has a below-zero approval rating and the other has been accused of murder on CNN by a dying, poisoned Russian ex spy) in their underwear has remained more or less untouched, only their neckties are missing

* all the satire against the Catholic Church ("I'm the daughter of the Polish pope!", lots of jokes about pAEdophile priests) has been carefully and completely deleted

* the show, 15 mins shorter than the Paris production, is still kinda lame

But then, Candide had never been staged at la Scala before. And Opera Chic will always love Lenny.

So off we go, in a few hours. We'll report on possible stirrings in the audience. So stay tuned later.

Candide: Satire Defanged = Box Office Dud?

Want a ticket for the defanged Candide?

Help yourself, uncharacteristically there seems to be plenty available.

Lissner: Candide Is On, But With Pants

Today's la Repubblica certifies that Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin and Jacques chirac will indeed appear in Robert Carsen's staging of Candide at la Scala next June 20 as originally planned.

But no more underwear: the heads of state will wear pants.

This, and other changes to the original staging, will be fine-tuned by Carsen and his co-director, Scala General Manager Stéphane Lissner as soon as Carsen comes back from Japan where Maestro Ozawa is conducting Carsen's staging of Tannhauser.

(pictured above, Lissner and Carsen hard at work on their Candide rewrites)

Stèphane Lissner to Robert Carsen: 'Dude, La Scala No Habla El English, capisc?'

Quadrilingual Bang & Olufsen fan (Opera Chic prefers vintage McIntosh, thank you very much) Robert Carsen speaks about his controversial Candide censored torpedoed by Scala General Manager and all-out tough guy Stéphane "Jacket Required, Or Maybe Not" Lissner:

The scene involving Bush and the other semi-clad statesmen floating on an oil slick, Carsen says, was never mentioned in his conversations with Lissner. ``Stephane had this concern for the Scala audience,'' he says. ``There's so much in English that they would just tune out.'' Carsen plans to adjust the show for Milan; exactly how will be hammered out later.

Memo to future Scala directors of politically very sensitive material: whatever you do, translate all the dialogue from English into Italian, and be careful how you translate "Berlusconi Suxxx0r!", in Italian it's "Viva Berlusconi!". Then delete the politcally sensitive material, because in Italian it sounds even worse. Then pocket your massive fee. And you'll all be alrighty.

Pleez Hammer Lissner don't hurt'em! (in the photo below, Carsen and Lissner hard at work rewriting Candide in a Scala-safe version)

PS Opera Chic truly loved Carsen's staging of Dialogues Des Carmélites and his Kát'a Kabanová. But the d00d likes Craigie Aitchison, and he loses points in OC's scorecard. wtf?

BREAKING CANDIDE/CARSEN/LA SCALA NEWS: NOW WITH MORE FRANCE

Opera Chic has been privileged to receive some juicy news concerning the evolving Candide fuss between Teatro alla Scala GM Stéphane Lissner and Director Robert Carsen.

As Opera Chic reported a few days ago, Lissner was quoted saying that Carsen had proposed to him meeting this January to, "evaluate the opera together via DVD, scene for scene, " to decide which cuts will be implemented before Candide sees the light of day in Milan.

Well, Opera Chic has learned that the sup4r hawt, GM-on-Director meeting will be on Monday, January 15th, 2007. Yes, the tête-à-tête will be on America's Martin Luther King Day (and 25 Tevet, 5767 representing all the Frumsters in da house).

Another tidbit: Le Monde writes today (Stéphane Lissner reprogramme "Candide" à la Scala de Milan) that Lissner had already spoken to Jean-Luc Choplin, GM of Paris's Théâtre du Châtelet about his concerns with the staging (where Lissner was in attendance on December 26, 2006 with his son).

Choplin is quoted by Le Monde saying that on December 28, 2006, he received a fax from Stéphane Lissner, asking him for a meeting on January 8, 2007. But Lissner had cancelled Candide without further contacting Choplin, snubbing his French colleague. Choplin states his confusion of Lissner's actions, especially the diss, because they had worked together since the inception.

I think someone might have drugged Lissner's panettone gastronomico during his Natale lunch, because he's just been wacky lately...

More l8r!

Lissner officially explains the reinstatement of Carsen's Candide at La Scala, as Opera Chic anticipated

From today's Corriere della Sera, an article discussing Candide: as Opera Chic wrote last night, Stéphane Lissner’s earlier statement that cancelled Director Robert Carsen’s production of Bernstein’s Candide at La Scala is no longer valid -- Canadian director Robert Carsen has agreed to make changes that will allow the opera (that premiered in Paris earlier this month) to be staged here.

Lissner (General Manager of Teatro alla Scala) had made his decision to axe the opera from the 2006-07 rotation at Teatro alla Scala two days ago, which Opera Chic had reported here.

In today's interview, Lissner defends his earlier decision to cut Candide, and points out that what works in Paris and London doesn't necessarily work in Milan, and that Carsen's Paris Candide just wasn't in line with his artistic vision of what is suitable for Teatro alla Scala. Why?

According to Lissner -- that of course, cannot really admit to having caved into political pressure (the staging makes fun of ex Italia PM Berlusconi, among other politicians, and while Berlusconi is not PM anymore, his party is still all-powerful in Milan) -- the production was initially axed because Carsen took liberties with the libretto that weren’t approved for La Scala.

Read on:

Lissner: “Candide” alla Scala se sarà revisionato da Carsen (Lissner: Candid will be at La Scala if it is revised by Carsen)

Il regista si è ditto disponibile all’operazione (The director said he was available to prepare [changes] to the operation)

L’allestimento di Parigi non è adatto a Milano (The staging in Paris is not adaptable to Milan)

The translation follows:

"Turned down the very first instance by Lissner, Candide could in certain reality, come back to La Scala. From New York came this announcement from the General Manager, after having spoken to Carsen via telephone. Carsen had always been loved by the Milanese audience, especially for his prior productions at La Scala of Dialogues des Carmélites and Kát'a Kabanová (the latter Opera Chic saw on March 22 this past year at La Scala, and thoroughly enjoyed it [despite Gardiner's pedestrian conducting]) (see image below), and told Lissner he is willing to assist Teatro alla Scala by substantially modifying the opera."

"Lissner said of Carsen, 'He proposed to me that we should meet together in January, and evaluate the opera together via DVD, scene for scene. I am a man of discussion, and a man of the theater. I decided to accept the offer. I know how much this opera is anticipated to appear at La Scala, and how disappointed everyone would be at its cancellation.'"

"The job ahead, however, is hefty and not easy, Lissner admits. He thinks back to the night of Santo Stefano (December 26, 2006), when he was with his 13-year-old son at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, in order to attend the popular opera, in which all of Paris was talking about, and an opera that was applauded by the public."

"Lissner said specifically of that night, 'I can confess, that to me, the opera was entertaining/enjoyable; but when it was over, my son whispered to me incredulously, ‘Dad, but is this show is coming to La Scala?’"

"'I tried to keep down a final giggle, and said to him, 'No, this opera won't come [to La Scala].'"

[The question is proposed to Lissner:] "But why then won’t Candide come to La Scala?"

[Lissner responds:] "Because it doesn't fit into my line of what is good for La Scala. At this point it comes down to an agreement between tradition and modernity. And I didn't make this decision because of the famous scene with the heads of state in their underwear. Simply, I made it for a load of other reasons; more specifically is that Carsen had made changes to the libretto. He added allusions and some situations in a style that just do not conform with those of La Scala."

[The question is proposed to Lissner:] "A good example of this may be the harsh jokes towards the church or the pedophile priests?"

[Lissner responds:] "I don't want to get into the details. I knew that people were saying that we must not censor things, and other such nonsense, but it’s not really like that at all. Candide is known to be a subversive work, and Carsen is truly an individual who is able to capitalize on that spirit. I knew this well [when he was hired for the job]. But whatever works at London and Paris for Carsen, is not necessarily successful at La Scala. I want to open La Scala to new ideas, to a diverse public, but without giving the impression of instigating controversy and provocation."

"Carsen said that he was disappointed and surprised at the decision, but is able to modify his opera."

I can't wait for the January tête-a-tête behind closed doors! Opera Chic promises to report all the details!

BREAKING NEWS: CANDIDE DIRECTOR CAVES IN, WILL KILL POLITICAL CONTENT

OPERA CHIC EXCLUSIVE! PLEASE CREDIT OPERA CHIC!

No dancing Berlusconis, no horny priests, and less pacifism for La Scala's forthcoming Candide. Opera Chic has just heard that a few hours ago, Teatro alla Scala General Manager Stéphane Lissner had a very tense phone conversation with Candide Director Robert Carsen, and Lissner's hard-line Draconian rule seems to have WON THIS ROUND.

Rumor has it that Carsen has privately agreed to make some editorial changes and cuts to the controversial parts of the opera that Lissner has deemed "unbecoming" of Teatro alla Scala's artistic direction, in exchange that Lissner will void and retract last night’s decision to drop the opera from the 2006-07 season. (Opera Chic had reported early last evening here and here when Lissner had axed Carsen's Candide from the current La Scala season.)

Opera Chic can only assume that Carsen sucked-up his artistic vision and caved to the demands of Lissner because he did not want to:

a) permanently ruin his very lucrative (the budget for his July 2006 Candide at La Scala exceeds 1.5 million dollars) relationship with the theater for possible future productions.

b) renounce the obvious media exposure that Candide at La Scala will bring him.

Anyway, despite obvious political pressures, Carsen's Candide will be reinstated (albeit, a slightly compromised, G-Rated version) in the Teatro alla Scala program rotation for the 2006-07 season.

vvvvUPDATEvvvv

Carsen's un-edited, French version of Bernstein's Candide, will air in January 2007 on ARTE Channel, which is part of the European satellite package (I get it via SKY here in Milan). The air-date is very soon: it is scheduled for Saturday, January 20 at 10:10 pm. OMG I'm so rescheduling my Saturday night plans! Party at my house!

Also of note is American blogger "Of the Kosmos", who is living in Paris, gave a brief review (in progress) of Carsen's direction of Bernstein's Candide, after attending the show at Théâtre du Châtelet earlier this month.