Klarinet Archive - Posting 000043.txt from 2008/02

From: "Forest Aten" <forestaten@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Salome review
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:29:08 -0500

Well here it is....the review of the Dallas Salome....

Not such a good review...until the last line.

The pit at Fair Park Music Hall is...well, the pits. I can't see (or =
hear)
any of what the critic, Cantrell, is speaking of...but I do know that in
recent years our European general director (and thanks now, she's gone,
history), we had for certain moved toward the "Euro Trash" concepts of
staging and costume.

*For those interested...I do NOT believe anyone had an orgasm on stage. =
:-)=20

I do like the last line of the review. At least one part of the company =
got
it right.

Forest
---------------------------------------------

'Salome' leaves opera audience laughing, and not in a good way=20

OPERA REVIEW: Program has audience laughing, and not in a good way

12:00 AM CST on Saturday, February 2, 2008

By SCOTT CANTRELL / The Dallas Morning News=20
scantrell@-----.com=20

Beware what you ask for.

=20
NAN COULTER/ Special Contributor
Mlada Khudoley and Robert Hayward That's the moral of Richard Strauss' =
opera
Salome. But, having seen four productions in the last two years or so,
hadn't I just said I'd love to see one freed from Sunday-school-book
realism?

Well, the Dallas Opera has delivered. A program note by =
director-designer
John Lloyd Davies explains he has modernized the tale of John the =
Baptist,
Herod and Herod's stepdaughter to around 1920, a decade and a half after =
the
opera's composition.

What the d=E9cor =96 a coiling ramp and pilasters decorated with art =
deco
squares and backlit roses =96 has to do with anything is anyone's guess. =
Herod
is done up like an early-20th-century military ruler, bedizened with =
medals
and a black cape. (Remember Ethiopia's Haile Selassie?) The gun-toting
soldiers look like French Foreign legionnaires.

This could have worked. But if Mr. Davies had set out to make fun of the
opera, he could hardly have done a better job. When this Bible-based =
story
(by way of Oscar Wilde) of murder, suicide, necrophilia and incest has =
an
audience repeatedly chuckling, as happened at the Friday evening =
opening,
something has gone wrong.

For the title role, Strauss said he wanted a 16-year-old with a voice =
for
singing Wagner's Tristan und Isolde =96 impossible, of course. Here the
Russian soprano Mlada Khudoley does look plausibly young, and she =
certainly
puts on a splendid mad scene with the severed head of Jokanaan (John the
Baptist). But she fills Fair Park Music Hall's vast spaces mainly by
narrowing the voice to a serrated edge.

Jokanaans usually woof woollily, but Robert Hayward's ample =
bass-baritone
has a firm, clear center to it; it's rare, in fact, to hear the role so =
well
sung. But the cistern too effectively muffles his voice.

Apart from an infatuation with Salome, the guard captain Narraboth is
usually portrayed as a prudent guy. With a potent, clarion tenor, =
Jonathan
Boyd makes him a high-strung obsessive. Again, it could work, but ... .

Herod, lusting after Salome, is a pretty unsavory character, with =
periodic
flashes of hallucination. But Allan Glassman, with a big, penetrating =
tenor,
makes him way too campy; this is a Herod easier to imagine fancying the
bare-torsoed male dancers. Judith Forst is a first-class you-know-what =
as
his wife Herodias.

There are some really fine performances in lesser roles, notably from =
Eudora
Brown (Herodias' page), Jay Gardner (Second Jew) and Charles Robert =
Austin
(First Soldier).

The famous Dance of the Seven Veils has been turned into a distracting
clutter, with those six male dancers twirling big mirrors and slinky =
veils
around Salome. As to Ms. Khudoley's hoochie-koochie, well, the vice =
squad
will not be alerted. But the raw stereotypes of the five Jews are almost
jaw-dropping.

The best part of the whole undertaking is absolutely glorious playing =
from
the Dallas Opera Orchestra, the score finely balanced and eloquently =
molded
by music director Graeme Jenkins.

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