Two Misses, A Hit

New York this season has been given answers to three very different operatic questions: Can Wagner be sung successfully in English in this polyglot, tradition-bound city? Does Scott Joplin make it on Broadway as a serious composer for the stage? And is the Metropolitan finally replacing its durable (and no less feeble for its longevity) production of Le Nozze di Figaro with an effort that does justice to Mozart’s greatest comedy?

The answers to those three questions did not come through equally loud, clear—or positive. In fact, only the Met’s new Figaro can be accounted a relatively unblemished success. The New York City Opera’s Die Meistersinger, in John Gutman’s translation, provides a worthy evening, but it cannot be said that this new production makes much of a case for the smaller of the two major companies’ capabilities when the epic forces of Wagner need to be confronted with confidence and style. Certainly, it erases no memories of the Metropolitan’s current production, and it will be quite interesting to compare the two at close distance when that Meistersinger is revived in the spring.

HP

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Harvey E. Phillips

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New York this season has been given answers to three very different operatic questions: Can Wagner be sung successfully in English in this polyglot, tradition-bound city? Does Scott Joplin make it on Broadway as a serious composer for the stage? And is the Metropolitan finally replacing its durable (and no less feeble for its longevity) production of Le Nozze di Figaro with an effort that does justice to Mozart’s greatest comedy?

The answers to those three questions did not come through equally loud, clear—or positive. In fact, only the Met’s new Figaro can be accounted a relatively unblemished success. The New York City Opera’s Die Meistersinger, in John Gutman’s translation, provides a worthy evening, but it cannot be said that this new production makes much of a case for the smaller of the two major companies’ capabilities when the epic forces of Wagner need to be confronted with confidence and style. Certainly, it erases no memories of the Metropolitan’s current production, and it will be quite interesting to compare the two at close distance when that Meistersinger is revived in the spring.