Word: ra
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...orchestra pit of any opera house is best heard from, not seen. That was not the case last week, as the Paris Opéra opened at New York's Metropolitan Opera House and Milan's La Scala moved into Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. It was the first visit to the U.S. for both the storied companies, and in both pits there was unexpected drama on opening night...
...Georg Solti, the Paris Opéra's principal guest conductor, led Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. A light had been glaring in his eyes all evening and, leaning away to avoid it, he had already broken two batons. Then, early on in Act III, he stabbed himself in the temple with the point of his third baton. Blood poured down into his right eye, dripping onto the score and music desk. Onstage, Count Almaviva was alone, plotting revenge against his uppity manservant, Figaro. Solti went on beating time with his right hand and sopping...
...music director who, at 43, is a conductor of international stature. The production was conceived and staged by Italy's Giorgio Strehler (see box). For Strehler, it was one of three moments in the spotlight. His staging of Figaro was the first hit of the Paris Opéra's run in New York. This week La Scala will introduce his production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra...
...broad variety. Mozart's was something else again. One cherishes the 18th century for The Marriage of Figaro alone. One takes heart in the present, when a work of such bite and compassion can be done as well as it was on the Paris Opéra's first night in New York. Among the many talents at work was the same essential Strehler as in Macbeth-but what a difference! It was as if he had taken his lead from the Figaro overture, that barely perceptible rustle of strings and woodwinds that swells to incandescence...
Presiding over an obviously recharged Paris Opéra orchestra, Solti made his first appearance in an American opera house since 1963-64. His Figaro had a spacious relaxation not always heard in his work with the Chicago Symphony. His handling of the surprising events that constitute the wondrous finale of Act II was but one of his many lessons of the evening in how to pace an opera...