Kaufmann: Carnegie Hall. "Tristan & Isolde"

[bostonman]

On 8/7/2021 at 3:02 AM, jeezifonly said:

I appreciate that European opera audiences have so much love and just can’t help themselves, and are not sated without encores.

I hate encores in a staged performance. It dishonors the composition.

I also hate a curtain call after every act. It dishonors my bladder. 

 

I tend to think encores in a comic opera (especially a "numbers" opera such as La Fille Du Regiment or Don Pasquale, etc) are perfectly fine - the composers most likely were open to this as well. In more dramatic operas with a tauter musical fabric, I agree with you. I'm also not fond of putting in extra endings or stopping the score in places that weren't written in that way. (the artificial stop at the end of "E lucevan le stelle," for instance, drives me nuts). Much as I understand the "historically informed"  desire to encore "Va pensiero," I don't like it - it doesn't really serve any dramatic purpose, in an opera where keeping the dramatic through-line going helps the piece tremendously. 

I've never liked the curtain calls mid-opera either, but it's not a bladder issue lol, more that for me it takes away from the "suspension of disbelief." It's one thing to have an intermission, but I don't like seeing the singers step out of character at those points. 

Having bene musical director for a number of the G&S pieces, it's amazing to look at the old Kalmus orchestra parts to see the word "encore" written in so many places that we today would find ridiculous. (Most often today, the patter aria may get an encore, but that's about it.)

[bostonman]

10 minutes ago, WilliamM said:

Read my comment again.

I was referring to Ethel Merman needing voice lessons. By the way, I saw Ethel in "Gypsy" twice,  encores would have been at odds with Jerry's direction. (Jerry Robbins).

I read your comment a number of times, and somehow expected, or hoped, that your reference to the composers did relate back to encores. Because the quip about Merman and voice lessons really has nothing to do with this thread lol. It doesn't matter what jeezifonly said once, it has nothing to do with the conversation. :-)

I would hope we all know that "Jerry" referred to Robbins. Did he let you call him Jerry? :-) I'm also not sure what Gypsy has to do with Cole Porter or encores at all. I also think that by the 50's, even planned, written encores were not so much a thing anymore. (One of the only examples of planned encores I can think of after that was the 60's revival of "The Boys from Syracuse," that has 2 short encores for "Sing For Your Supper" in the score. And of course the meta-joke in "The Drowsy Chaperone" where the song "Show Off" has a written encore built into the show that starts with "I don't wanna encore no more...")

 

Edited August 8, 2021 by bostonman

[+ WilliamM]

9 minutes ago, bostonman said:

I read your comment a number of times, and somehow expected, or hoped, that your reference to the composers did relate back to encores. Because the quip about Merman and voice lessons really has nothing to do with this thread lol. It doesn't matter what jeezifonly said once, it has nothing to do with the conversation. 🙂

I would hope we all know that "Jerry" referred to Robbins. Did he let you call him Jerry? 🙂 I'm also not sure what Gypsy has to do with Cole Porter or encores at all. I also think that by the 50's, even planned, written encores were not so much a thing anymore. (One of the only examples of planned encores I can think of after that was the 60's revival of "The Boys from Syracuse," that has 2 short encores for "Sing For Your Supper" in the score. And of course the meta-joke in "The Drowsy Chaperone" where the song "Show Off" has a written encore built into the show that starts with "I don't wanna encore no more...")

 

@J.Applegate

 

14 minutes ago, bostonman said:

I read your comment a number of times, and somehow expected, or hoped, that your reference to the composers did relate back to encores. Because the quip about Merman and voice lessons really has nothing to do with this thread lol. It doesn't matter what jeezifonly said once, it has nothing to do with the conversation. 🙂

I would hope we all know that "Jerry" referred to Robbins. Did he let you call him Jerry? 🙂 I'm also not sure what Gypsy has to do with Cole Porter or encores at all. I also think that by the 50's, even planned, written encores were not so much a thing anymore. (One of the only examples of planned encores I can think of after that was the 60's revival of "The Boys from Syracuse," that has 2 short encores for "Sing For Your Supper" in the score. And of course the meta-joke in "The Drowsy Chaperone" where the song "Show Off" has a written encore built into the show that starts with "I don't wanna encore no more...")

 

When did you because a hall monitor here? Members frequently refer to members prior comments.

[bostonman]

Just now, WilliamM said:

@J.Applegate

 

When did you because a hall monitor here? Members frequently refer to members prior comments.

So they do. It still made no sense. :-)

[jeezifonly]

1 minute ago, bostonman said:

 

I've never liked the curtain calls mid-opera either, but it's not a bladder issue lol, more that for me it takes away from the "suspension of disbelief." It's one thing to have an intermission, but I don't like seeing the singers step out of character at those points. 

 

This is exactly what I meant.

An artist is paid for the performance once they show up. Whether or not they remain for final curtain calls when the character dies at the end of Act I is negotiable. I think the Met is the only American house where mid-story bows are regularly used. I don’t mind it when it’s after a one-act with another to follow. 

It transforms, half way through, a presentation of theatrical literature to “star vehicle” for no reason. No problem with star vehicles. Use that for sales and promotion.
Attending a $100+/ticket show, once a character enters, I don’t want to see them out of character until the end of the piece, when I give them great love with my hands. (That sounds like it should be in a different forum here…🤭)

[+ WilliamM]

14 minutes ago, bostonman said:

So they do. It still made no sense. 🙂

In your opinion. Perhaps you should apply to monitor this site. Go into monitor training as it were

[bostonman]

8 minutes ago, jeezifonly said:

An artist is paid for the performance once they show up. Whether or not they remain for final curtain calls when the character dies at the end of Act I is negotiable.

Agreed. And granted, while all the dead characters are going to take their bows after they die in the last act anyway, I do think Scarpia could wait out the relatively short 3rd act, for instance, so that the dead aren't coming back to life before the story is over. I'm not aware that any other form of theatre allows for such mid-show bows, and I think opera shouldn't either. 

[bostonman]

4 minutes ago, WilliamM said:

In your opinion. Perhaps you should apply to monitor this site. Go into monitor training as it were

I recently bought a nice new curved computer monitor. I can't tell you how or why it works optically, but I love the effect. So much nicer than the traditional kind. I think Gershwin, Porter and Berlin would agree. 

Encore, anyone? 

[jeezifonly]

15 minutes ago, bostonman said:

Agreed. And granted, while all the dead characters are going to take their bows after they die in the last act anyway, I do think Scarpia could wait out the relatively short 3rd act, for instance, so that the dead aren't coming back to life before the story is over. I'm not aware that any other form of theatre allows for such mid-show bows, and I think opera shouldn't either. 

A Tony-Winning costume designer once included a rendering for “Scarpia Act III”

??

[bostonman]

Just now, jeezifonly said:

A Tony-Winning costume designer once included a rendering for “Scarpia Act III”

??

Perhaps it was one of those awful "konzept" productions where characters are made to appear when they're not called for? :-)

 

[jeezifonly]

1 minute ago, bostonman said:

Perhaps it was one of those awful "konzept" productions where characters are made to appear when they're not called for? 🙂

 

No, it was rumored at the time she left the “mapping out” of the project to an assistant, who read the CD liner’s libretto and saw the line Tosca speaks “to him” at the end, and somehow did not understand the context of their “conversation”