Word: preying
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Performers Betty McNally (Mrs. Stockmann), Jim Caudle (Dr. Stockmann), and Colette Auerswald (Petra Stockmann), each fall prey to a common inconsistency--switching indiscriminately from stereotypes to realism, not having developed the characters sufficiently to manage such a switch. Will Johnston (Captain Horster), Erik Corwin (Morten Kitty), and Roger Rignack (Aslaksen), however, are not inconsistent. They simply choose to not develop their characters--period...
Certainly not audiences across America, which have loudly acclaimed him on a solo recital tour that ended last week in Manhattan with a masterly program of Schubert songs set to Goethe texts. Prey has lost nothing of his fabled way with the German art song, whether communicating the unearthly calm of Meeres Stille, the wild terror of the Erlkönig, the heroic defiance of Prometheus or the soft tenderness of Versunken. And certainly not the opera audiences of San Francisco, which last month heard him sing his greatest role, Mozart's Figaro, in a musically radiant (though poorly...
...Bayreuth Festival, however, can see him as something other than a stalwart. In a brilliant bit of casting against type, the suave, silken Prey has been portraying the cantankerous Beckmesser in Wagner's Die Meistersinger. It may be the first time in history that Beckmesser out-sings his tenor rival in the prize-song contest. "In his letters, Wagner said that Beckmesser should not be too comic," says Prey. "So I said I will sing this music like Schubert's Winterreise. "And he does...
What else lies in store? Berg's Wozzeck, perhaps. A demanding performer who turned down a request by Herbert von Karajan to sing Beckmesser because he disagreed with Karajan's concept, Prey is currently mulling a couple of offers to sing the foremost 20th century antihero. He plans to ignore the tradition of croaking and barking the role that has evolved since the challenging opera's premiere in 1925. "Berg wanted a beautiful voice," says Prey. "I want to sing every note as it is written...
...Prey's darker side should not come as too much of a surprise. He confesses an avid interest in spiritualism ("but not in seances") and has a huge library of books on the occult. He bought a summer house on an island off the Danish coast as a refuge for himself, his wife Barbara and their three children, just in case Nostradamus' prediction of a world war comes true. The bleak side of the Teutonic soul occasionally stares out uneasily from behind the affable visage. But it is quickly dispelled with the German equivalent of a verbal shrug...