Word: opers
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...Chereau proved, a radical Ring will ultimately be accepted if it is presented with dramatic force and intellectual coherence. Each new Ring director has the obligation to seek the spirit, not necessarily the letter, of Wagner's four-opera cycle, and Kupfer, director of East Berlin's Komische Oper, is no exception. He presents a cinematic rethinking of the myth that projects the action far into a grim, post-nuclear-war future, in which gods, dwarfs, giants and humans stumble through the detritus of a lost civilization in a futile search for salvation. As stern as a Lutheran sermon...
...because of the temperature change. After shivering on frigid sets, the cast finally obtained two 54-seat buses, where they changed costumes by retreating behind cloths strung up like curtains. Then last February, a month before he was scheduled to leave to direct a production at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Schell was laid low by a fever for nearly four weeks. Torn between his Berlin commitment and the unfinished movie, Schell dragged himself out of bed to shoot a few more scenes in Leningrad before departing. "Sometimes," he groans, "I felt half unconscious...
Wagner: Parsifal (Tenor Peter Hofmann, Bass-Baritone José van Dam, Mezzo Dunja Vejzovic, Bass-Baritone Siegmund Nimsgern, Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic and Deutsche Oper Berlin Chorus; Deutsche Grammophon, five records). Wagner's last and most difficult music drama has not had a really satisfying recording-until now. Hofmann makes Parsifal both strong and guileless, the splendid Van Dam is an anguished Amfortas, and Nimsgern is an evil, but not inhuman Klingsor. Only Vejzovic, a screechy Kundry, is weak. The real stars are Karajan and his Berliners, who capture the score's glowing spirituality...
Bach: Magnificat. Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms (Deutsche Oper Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conductor, Deutsche Grammophon). This is an apt pairing: a monument of the Baroque and a modern masterpiece whose liturgical austerity looks back to precedents in the Baroque and earlier. Karajan's Bach, velvety and well turned, may not be for purists, but the Stravinsky seems just right, with its tart syncopations dancing beneath a lustrous choral hymn of praise...
...Kennedy Center's venturesome executive director, Martin Feinstein, whose previous imports have included La Scala and West Berlin's Deutsche Oper, the Vienna visit turns out to be the final coup of his tenure. Internal conflicts have led the center's board to redefine Feinstein's status as of Nov. 30, retaining him thereafter only in the less powerful role of director of opera and ballet. The impact of this change on future visits by foreign companies is unclear...