The Happy Ides of March at the Met & the NYP

I scored a double-header for the Ides of March - a matinee at the Metropolitan Opera (Britten's Peter Grimes) followed by an evening at the New York Philharmonic.  Both, happily, provided truly excellent performances to savor.

Before the Met, a wonderful extra treat....  my opera-going companion had discovered a while back that a neighbor in his apartment building worked at the Met, and his neighbor had offered to provide a look back-stage.  Today turned out to be a day when it was possible, so late in the morning we met my friend's neighbor at the stage door and received a quick private tour of the "innards" of the Metropolitan Opera.  This was quite fascinating, especially as they were readying the house for the live digital broadcast of the afternoon's performance.  And it helped me to understand better why the ticket prices are so high at this house.  Every set, every costume, every wig, every bit of electrical work and special effects, is done in-house, and the attempts at authenticity -- at least in those productions that are aiming at authenticity of an ancient setting -- are quite painstaking.  The big stage calls for big sets and props, and the mechanical equipment to move all this around is also quite oversize.  The whole thing must be enormously expensive to operate at the high level of quality typical of a Met production, and on top of that the Met is committed to presenting the biggest stars in opera, who can command top fees.  So the high ticket prices become quite explicable in the absence of significant financial assistance from government.  Even with the long list of donor angels in the program, the prices must be high for the organization to cover its costs.  But, of course, this threatens to cut out younger attendants, so the house has made arrangements to accommodate them, with a certain number of tickets being held back for low-price same-day sale for weeknight performances, and the new practice of live broadcasts in high definition video with digital sound to selected movie theaters.  One hopes these efforts will build the future opera audience...

On to the performance. Britten Peter Grimes was actually the first opera I ever attended at the Met, in December of 1977, and I have fond memories of that production, which I also saw on one of its later repeats.  The production was naturalistic, a simulation of an actual English fishing village being created right on the stage.  The new production this year abandons naturalism for symbolism, a looming wooden wall punctuated with doors and windows, few other props to speak of, although the named characters were all distinctively costumed in the relevant period (c. 1830) and extras and chorus were also suitably costumed.  The wall moved back and forth and reconfigured some time, but the setting was mainly symbolic, and the blocking of the production pretty much abandoned the pretense of naturalism; much of the time, the chorus, which is an active component of the production standing in for the people of the fishing village, was arrayed as if for a concert performance, in rows facing the audience. 

I thought this was a visually boring production, and too often took on the aspect of a concert performance rather than a fully-staged musical drama.  On the other hand, the singing by the leading characters was superb, as was the chorus, and some of the acting was also quite naturalistic, in contrast to the overall staging.  Donald Runnicles, the guest conductor on this occasion, is a master of the idiom, and his control was assured from the prelude and the sea interludes and throughout, beautifully paced and coordinated between pit and stage.  Anthony Dean Griffey as Peter Grimes was awesome, and his supporting players came through quite well dramatically.  I was less happy with Patricia Racette's performance as Ellen Orford, as I thought some of the vocal lines were outside her comfort range at the high end.  Teddy Tahu Rhodes was a physically and vocally commanding Ned Keene, and Anthony MIchaels-Moore a vocally commanding Balstrode.  Here I thought the costuming department was off a bit.  The prior production had costumed the Balstrode in a military-style coat, signifying his status as a retired sea captain and making him stand out in the ensemble, enhancing his dignity.  The costume for this production was purely civilian, as a result of which the character seemed to have less prominence, which I thought detracted a bit from the overall effectiveness.  Felicity Palmer, a veteran of this repertory, was a big hit as Mrs. Sedley, the gossipy neighbor who stimulates the raid on Grimes's hut, and deservedly so - a standout character turn.

Although the show was being broadcast live, I found the camera less obtrusive than they had been for the Romeo & Juliet I attended earlier in the season, but the movement of the cameras on the sides and beneath the stage were still somewhat distracting.  It would be great if the Met could figure out a way to do these broadcasts without moving camerawork visible to the audience in the hall....

A terrific dinner interlude with my opera-companion and his nephew, visiting from college, at Pasha, a marvelous Turkish restaurant on West 71 Street just east of Columbus Avenue.  Pasha fills up for the dinner hour, when reservations are definitely needed, but we were early diners, coming in around 5, and so had no trouble getting a table.  The best thing to do at Pasha is to order lots of appetizers and forget about a main course.  The variety and excellence of the appetizers, followed by some shared deserts, make a splendid repast.  One of my favorites on the Upper West Side.

The Philharmonic's new Music Director-designate, Alan Gilbert, was conducting the orchestra this week for the first time since that announcement was made, and if this concert is a portent of what's to come when he finally takes the helm in 2009, we are in for a treat.  The Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel has not been particularly significant to the active musical life of the city or nation, with its emphasis on standard repertory works and de-emphasis on the newest streams of orchestral composition.  This week, Gilbert was present the world premiere of a new symphony by Marc Neikrug, a New York-born composer (1946) who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he is the artistic director of an annual chamber music festival.  A large part of his musical career has been spent as a pianist, including much touring as sonata partner with Pinchas Zukerman, the violinist.

Neikrug's symphony was actually an expansion and orchestration of a chamber piece, which turned out to be longer than the Philharmonic was expecting, to judge by the time estimate of 20 minutes in the program book and the actual playing time running closer to half an hour.  At the beginning of the concert, Neikrug came out front with composer Steven Stucky, described in the program as "host", for a brief presentation about his work with Gilbert conducting some examples.   It's unusual to have such a presentation within the parameters of a regular subscription concert, but I thought it was useful.  I would like to have had it be a little more technical, but that probably would have induced boredom in the audience, unfortunately.  In any event, it was helpful to understanding the piece.

Neikrug's symphony is in one movement with several contrasting segments, beginning and ending slowly, with two faster interludes separated by a moderately paced middle part.  I was most taken with the second of the fast interludes.  In the introductory remarks, Neikrug indicated that all the sections were related to each other, but he didn't specify how, and I couldn't really tell on first hearing.  In fact, on first hearing I would hesitate to say much substantively about the piece, other than to indicate that Neikrug does seem to have a distinctive harmonic and orchestrational voice.  He really knows how to get a good variety of sounds from the orchestra.  I did not hear distinctively memorable themes or motives being developed, but that could well be a function of first hearing.  I hope somebody can arrange for a commercial recording, since this is a piece I would want to hear repeated.  It seemed substantial enough to merit further acquaintance.  The performance seemed very confident.

After intermission, we had "A Hero's Life," the monumental symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, a big romantic piece that is not often heard in concert these days.  This was an exemplary performance.  Gilbert had the full measure of the piece, and the orchestra's participation in the performance sounded very enthusiastic, very involved, very precise...  Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster, performed marvelously in the extended solo passages intended to represent the composer's wife.  The solo winds and brasses out-did themselves, especially the horns, who were impeccable tonight.  (I understood from a review of last week's subscription concerts that they had a stormy time then....)  I doubt that one could hear a better live-in-concert performance of this piece anywhere today.  If this is what we can expect from Alan Gilbert in the standard repertory, I think we will be in very capable hands.  And if it is what we can expect from him in the way of exposing NYP audiences to the music of our time, those capable hands are most welcome.  A fascinating glimpse of our musical future....