(no subject)

  "Turandot" is only worth mentioning because there is nothing to say about it. It was fine, and nothing more than fine. The sets, especially for the second and third acts, were amazing, because it's the Met, and they have good taste in things like that. The singers were competent - Liù could have been better, if only because "Signore, ascolta" is probably my favorite Puccini aria, but she was good - just not outstanding. Calaf was, you know, a tenor. He didn't screw up 'Nessun dorma,' but that was pretty much as far as it went. Also, I hate Puccini in general - this is the only full opera of his I own.

     Speaking of the Met, though I have unbounded love for them, I think their choice to do "Carmen" instead of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" is awful. First, I don't like Carmen very much. It's not because I don't like popular things - "Rigoletto" is my second favorite opera, after all - but because musically, it becomes rather diffuse in the second act, and it's dramatically inconsistent. And everyone does it! Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but when there's a choice between bringing out the over-played and obvious "Carmen", and "Contes", which probably suffers from Offenbach's reputation as light... well, let's just say that "Contes" deserves more play.


    
  I'm biased, I admit, because I'm a sucker for a good frame-tale. Still, "Contes" is much more ambitious structurally, and more interesting - and the libretto's much better written. And if we're reducing the operas to their most famous numbers, well, I'll take the doll song or 'belle nuit' over 'l'amour est un oiseau' any day.


  
    The only good point is that Nancy Fabiola Herrara has one performance as Carmen, and her Maddelena is amazing. I'd love to see her do it on a larger scale. The only thing is that Carmen may well be worth going five miles or so - I'm not so sure about fifty.