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Today was the first full performance live broadcast of the season from the Met. The work was the Wilde/Strauss one acter, Salome. Karita Mattila was singing the title role.
It was good but not mind blowing. Vocally it was spectacular. Mattila has the this role aced and the rest of the cast was very strong. What was not quite there was the depraved sexual tension of Peter Hall's production at the ROH in the 80's. It's partly a question of body types. Maria Ewing, though hardly 16, is believable as a perverted seductress. Mattila isn't. The Met production dealt with this by making Salome and her mother extremely drunk and to some extent playing for laughs. The disputatious Jews were reminiscent of the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem in Blackadder for example. It worked well enough but still meant the performance fell short of what it might have been.
The direction for the HD broadcast was also good but not greast. From what I could see the sets and staging were really pretty interesting but most of the broadcast was of extreme close ups so we didn't see much of the picture as framed by the designer. It might have been better if we had been given more long shots.
So, not the very best of the Met but well worth $20.
It was good but not mind blowing. Vocally it was spectacular. Mattila has the this role aced and the rest of the cast was very strong. What was not quite there was the depraved sexual tension of Peter Hall's production at the ROH in the 80's. It's partly a question of body types. Maria Ewing, though hardly 16, is believable as a perverted seductress. Mattila isn't. The Met production dealt with this by making Salome and her mother extremely drunk and to some extent playing for laughs. The disputatious Jews were reminiscent of the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem in Blackadder for example. It worked well enough but still meant the performance fell short of what it might have been.
The direction for the HD broadcast was also good but not greast. From what I could see the sets and staging were really pretty interesting but most of the broadcast was of extreme close ups so we didn't see much of the picture as framed by the designer. It might have been better if we had been given more long shots.
So, not the very best of the Met but well worth $20.
