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Mar. 16th, 2016 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretMonday night I saw Donizetti's The Elixir of Love at the Met. It's my second time seeing the show, after seeing it years ago at NYCO. I'll be seeing it again next month at Philadelphia Opera. My feelings on Elixir remain the same: It is a very stupid opera.
I didn't have the confusing feelings I had about Jonathan Miller's strange NYCO production, set of all places in a diner in the 1950s in the American Southwest. I understood Bartlett Sher's production design, was grateful that he shied away from the tedious metatheatrics that have marred some of his other Met buffas. But it was a pretty static staging blocking-wise, a lot of standing around and singing.
I continue to think Belcore is a pretty great antagonist. It'd be interesting to see him played with a little more of a sinister edge, but I feel like it'd be hard to do, because Donizetti writes him as such a gentle buffoon.
And I still don't understand if Nemorino actually inherited his uncle or not. Such a major plot hole.
I didn't have the confusing feelings I had about Jonathan Miller's strange NYCO production, set of all places in a diner in the 1950s in the American Southwest. I understood Bartlett Sher's production design, was grateful that he shied away from the tedious metatheatrics that have marred some of his other Met buffas. But it was a pretty static staging blocking-wise, a lot of standing around and singing.
I continue to think Belcore is a pretty great antagonist. It'd be interesting to see him played with a little more of a sinister edge, but I feel like it'd be hard to do, because Donizetti writes him as such a gentle buffoon.
And I still don't understand if Nemorino actually inherited his uncle or not. Such a major plot hole.