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So it was a really nice holiday. I adore Budapest and had no idea that I would like it so much. Went to a Lutheran church, a Catholic cathedral complete with relic and singing choir, the northernmost Islamic shrine, and the biggest synagogue in Europe. The person taking donations at the entrance of the synagogue asked me if I was American, which no one has ever asked me before as far as I remember. It pleases me greatly, though I'm not sure it should, since we Americans have such a bad reputation as travelers. But I was on my best behavior, as I always strive to be when I'm abroad. One must keep up appearances, be a good example.
We went to the Hungarian State Opera twice to see La Bohème and Manon Lescaut. They were having a Puccini Festival, so now I've seen more Puccini than anything else as far as opera goes. The opera house is so gorgeous, inside and out, though I've only been on the inside of five opera houses. The Markgräfliches Opernhaus in Bayreauth is the most fancy I've seen and the Wiener Volksoper the least.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest has an incredible collection of Spanish paintings, especially good El Grecos and a couple of nice Goyas (also some very boring ones).
Vienna was less eventful, just stopped in for 3 days to see amazing art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Bildungsakademie. Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary made tears well up in my eyes, made me all shaky. And then there are three late Rembrandt self-portraits that are uncanny, like looking into the great painter's soul itself. We also went to see Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio at the Volksoper, and the difference between Puccini and Mozart was marked. Mozart is just incredible, even difference between his stereotype of "oriental" music and Saint-Saëns's shows this. The romantics just don't compare, not even to me, a person who really doesn't have much musical sense one way or other. I'm visual to a fault. The set and costumes were not to my taste, the set consisted of a modern glass palace that spun around, and the costumes were retro 40's. However, the singing was marvelous and so was the acting.
Two weekends ago I went to see Falstaff with a friend who graduated in Linguistics with me. It was much fun, the opera is funny and the staging was excellent. They had a wonderful model landscape background that included minute houses and even cows, and they did a fabulous rainy scene at the beginning. The crayoning on the walls that Nannetta and Fenton do is a bit much though. I've been told by my composer friend that the opera is horribly unmelodic. I suppose it is true, there is a lot of tittering. Anna Netrebko, who played Nannetta, has a beautiful voice, and is also very lovely to look
Halloween is my favourite holiday, though I think I could do without the time change that always happens before it. We went to Tosca with our lovely friends G and Loretta. We had a splendid time. The opera was beautiful, all the singing was adequate. Eva Urbanová has a pretty voice. It was odd seeing the same production again with different singers, but I liked it, everything was nicely familiar. The second act was especially good, the music is best in that act. For some reason I find the overtures in Tosca to be strange, I don't know what it is.
Quite a few of the audience were dressed in costume, which was fun. I went dressed in an Egyptian belly dance costume that I don't dance in as I do a different style of belly dance. It consists of a forest green velvet top and a matching skirt that is half velvet and half chiffon in a lighter shade. There are silvery beads and sequins here and there as trim. It is a very silly outfit.
Yesterday I went and saw Saint-Saëns most famous opera Samson et Dalila with my father, who was here for the weekend, ostensibly for a pre-auction showing at Butterfields that didn't happen. The opera was the best one overall that I've seen this season. The music and singing were all fairly good, and Olga Borodina, the mezzo-soprano who played Dalila, has just an incredible voice. She's a good actress too. Sergey Larin has a nice voice as well, but he was only really brilliant in the first scene of Act III, when he laments to God as he turns a millstone in prison. He was able to sing beautifully despite being in some odd doubled-over positions that probably aren't ideal for singing. Timothy Noble (Priest) and René Pape (An Old Hebrew) had very lovely voices that were consistently good throughout the performance. There were also two ballets in this opera, and the corps du ballet was quite good as they were in Arshak II. The dancers were the same as far as I could tell.
The only serious problem with the opera was the operation of the curtains. The placement of something must have been off because one of the curtains and the overscreen kept snagging each time they raised either of them. The audience was very immature about the whole thing, and whenever they mananged to get it okay, they would applaud. One would think that the stage crew would have it all set up correctly, as yesterday's performance was the last one.
Yesterday we just decided to try to see the rescheduled performance of Tigran Chukhadjian's Arshak II, and managed to finagle inexpensive tickets for the orchestra. The performance was supposed to have happened last Tuesday, but most of San Francisco shutdown that day, and it was cancelled. The performance started with a moment of silence, and then we sang America, the Beautiful. The opera itself was very nice. It was composed in 1868 but was never performed in its full form until the San Francisco Opera premiered it September 9, 2001. The libretto is loosely based on King Arshak II who ruled Armenia in the 4th century. The staging was the most impressive part of the production. The tiered walls were imposing and they moved to change scenes. The costumes were lovely. There were two ballets, one that involved women in white fluttering and floating beneath the cage were Queen Olympia was being held prisoner, and one with men and slave women that was celebratory. It was strange for the music to go on so long without singing, but the dancing was gorgeous. As for the singing, Arshak II, sung by baritone Christopher Robertson, was not as good as Gordon Gietz (Valinace) nor Philip Webb (Prince Knel). Queen Olympia, Arshak II's first wife, was sung by Hasmik Papian, and her voice was excellent, very sweet, clear, and under control. In contrast was Arshak II's second wife Paransema, who was wasn't nearly as good, her voice was more breathy and less under control. I believe the part was sung by mezzo soprano Mzia Nioradze, though Nora Gubisch should have done that particular performance, but she was ill. The music itself was very pretty. The ending was a bit quiet for how tragic the storyline was, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience.
Last Friday we went to the opening night of the San Francisco Opera. They played Verdi's Rigoletto. The soprano Désirée Rancatore was very good, her voice is sweet and light. Maybe just slightly cold, slightly frail. The tenor Frank Lopardo was acceptable, a bit inconsistent. His voice was not as strong as the title baritone Stephan Pyatnychko, who was amazing. Pyatnychko's voice was rich and warm, and just beautiful.
The set was clever, but certain details made it odd. They did a good job with the river scene, and the way they moved the set around was done well. However, the stripped down nature of much of the set was not aesthetically appropriate, the arches without any ornamentation looked like concrete and the stairs used in an interior space was made hideous with a metal railing at the top which looked like one you would find in a modern office building. The lighting was also strange. One of the interior areas was always lit red, and the adjacent outdoor area was lit yellow.
Simon Boccanegra was excellent. Samuel Ramey (Jacopo Fiesco) and Paolo Gavanelli (Simon Boccanegra) were especially amazing. We got to see Carol Vaness again, who was in Don Giovanni as Donna Elvira and Tosca (as Tosca). She was the sole soprano in the production, and she was, predictably, awful. However, the opera is more focused on the lower voices, the main parts are baritone and bass. All and all it was a wonderful opera, the kind that gives you shivers.
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