The Night the Wagnerian Tenor Was More Like Handel than Verdi and Why That Surprises Us and Why We Care

I'll admit it-- I'm no expert on Wagner.  I'm hardly conversant in Wagner.  And while standing in the lobby through long intermissions at Lohengrin at the Deutsch Oper, it was obvious-- one must be conversant in Wagner.  Fortunately or unfortunately, my Deutsch limitations masked my Wagner limitations and my input was impressionistic at best.  Expert or not, one thing was abundantly clear: we were in the presence of a star.

Once again, the opera revolution we were expecting to see was something in the realm of Lohengrin birthing an alien as part of lucid dream in a grocery store, etc, etc, usw, usw.  Genau.  Instead, the revolution seemed to exist in this placid, crystal-toned man: emerging with his wings so large they upstaged the set itself and yet so delicate, it was as if they were shivering to even be exposed.  These wings were his voice: strong in power and focus, and ethereal like a beam of light straight through the mammoth orchestra.  Floating, yes, but more human than that.  His name is Klaus Florian Vogt.  He encapsulates what I would imagine the allure of a castrato was: a man with physical prowess and depth of support of a sound that would be fragile, simple.  Vulnerability in stereo-- like watching a child's face on a movie screen.  I guess I feel lucky that I had no expectation for what Lohengrin should sound like because this fit seemed ideal.  Our lobby friend from Hamburg said, "we love him because he's closer to Handel than Verdi"-- so he shows us how Wagner isn't just heavy and loud, he's poised and profound.

So there we are: the American spies into this vast German cultural machine, having arrived at the Mother Ship.  And yet again we are handed a surprise.  It would seem that the larger houses are supremely interested in exact fach, exact timbre, exact type.  Success for a singer is to reliably epitomize those things.  But their star-- an anomaly-- someone who takes this role that is most iconic and makes all those lobby experts listen anew.

Day 2: Die Zauberfloete at the Karlsruhe Oper

...and so begins what I was most looking forward to in German opera.  The Queen is literally plugged in for this 20 year old (?) quirky and yet solid production by Ulrich Peters.  It's a battle of light versus dark where those grappling in between don wild neons and backpacks.  I could give a review, but I'd rather talk about how this opera and this house in particular defies a few of my biggest opera pet-peeves (let's call them opereves). 
#1- Being aware of people's entrances and exits.  I don't think I once saw someone just walk on to the stage.  They appeared in vertical blinds in the thrust, they came out of stairs in the pit.  They descended from the rafters.  I felt the world was endless beyond the curtains.
#2- Audience members getting up to leave while they are clapping.  Imagine this: they get up and walk, but it is meandering to the pit to give their appreciation.  An audience that sits still for four curtain calls is exactly, as Vanessa put it "respect".

Bravo to my old buddy Lucas Harbour for his low and powerful Sprecher.  And to Emily Hindrichs, who is literally flying back and forth from Boston for these performances.

-->

This winter has somehow brought about a new era of black/white, Animaniacs-style “good idea/bad idea”, logic that keeps popping up.  Most recently: uncomfortable conversations with singers in which I remember that it is indeed an industry of “this is good, that is bad” declinations that lie somewhere between what you’re supposed to say, what makes you personally look better, and what you, the knowledgeable purveyor of art, actually want to say.  Then last night I attended this sort of fabulous every Monday series of choreography-in-progress that happens at Judson Church.  It’s a milieu of pieces ranging in taste and execution.  Fortunately, the work of Jin Ju Song-Begin and her husband, Jerome Begin that I was there to see was incredible PLUG (as in, please give them some money to make this a full work).  But the evening as a whole was all over the place—which is where ‘good idea/bad idea’ morphs into important/not important.  It struck me, while watching one of the guys jump up into a double tour with this look of glee on his face that no one except dancers gives a hoot about double tours.  Particularly in a new-work kind of situation.  We think it looks like ice skating.  It has the emotional thrust of a toothbrush.  But I happen to know first hand that dancers themselves are obsessed with double tours and will slip them in at any cost.  Similarly, singers are obsessed with talking about hooks and high ‘c’s.  I promise this isn’t just a rant—it truly is a realization: what is important to people in these artistic industries is, generally, unimportant to the audience.  And what is important to the audience is generally completely ephemeral to the artists.  All brilliant artists have some semblance of technical prowess, but they are truly special for the way they negotiate around their lesser abilities.  So let’s switch the language.   

Not important: that Star Trek arm-angle-gesture that every modern choreographer seems to be using.   

Important: women crawling face-down with the fronts of their shoulders so that their backs look like really sexy/desperate locomotive gears.   

Not important: the vocal prowess of the tenor in his final moments of Ballo.   

Important: the fact that his character is dying.