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Andy D
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« on: 11:22:56, 27-08-2007 » |
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No-one seems to have posted anything about tonight's surely eagerly awaited prom yet. Unfortunately I'll be out  |
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #1 on: 11:28:19, 27-08-2007 » |
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I'm totally unsure about this. I've just listened to him singing "Maria" on R3 and I didn't like it at all. His phrasing was laboured and the accent he put on some of the words during crescendos was ugly. I didn't like the tone of his voice either. Compared to whoever it was accompanying him, he sounded very amateur. I didn't catch the lady's name but she left him well and truly behind as far as technique goes. His Lloyd-Webber recordings are passable I suppose. I've never heard him live so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and listen tonight.
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #2 on: 11:37:16, 27-08-2007 » |
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Well I shan't be using my season ticket this evening. Partly because I really don't enjoy that style of music, and partly because I don't fancy being in a scrum in the Arena when I could be having a lazy Bank Holiday evening (I'm expecting a day queue round the block, and a season ticket queue of about 3  Also I'm already going to Proms Chamber Music - Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper (on which subject I will start a new thread when I arrive home, if somebody else hasn't done it already) and then possibly dashing straight on to Prom 57 - The Water Diviner's Tale (ditto previous) which will finish about 4, and the Michael Ball concert doesn't start till 8. It's just too much investment of time for a concert I don't really want to go to in the first place  Right, must be off, got to be at Cadogan Hall for 1pm  |
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« Last Edit: 11:43:15, 27-08-2007 by Ruth Elleson »
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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HtoHe
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« Reply #3 on: 11:40:39, 27-08-2007 » |
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I'm totally unsure about this.
I'm unsure whether this kind of thing has any place in the Proms, Milly, but I'm not going to let it worry me. I'm entirely sure that I don't want to listen to this artist or this material so I shall be doing something else tonight. The lunchtime Prom looks interesting, though. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #4 on: 11:43:51, 27-08-2007 » |
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I shall be washing my hair.
Simply saying that the concert is "Michael Ball" without even giving a hint of what he's going to sing (there is nothing on the Proms website except for his photo) is asking a lot of an audience, I feel... are we supposed to be so very grateful for his mere presence?
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #5 on: 11:48:53, 27-08-2007 » |
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To be fair, Reiner, other concert series (the Barbican's Great Performers series being a good example) let classical performers get away with this too, and still sell on the strength of the name. The booking opens anything up to 2 years in advance of the concert and, in the case of solo recitals, the programme is often "tba". By the time the programme is announced the concert is often already sold out, partly because advance series booking discounts only apply far in advance.
Even in these cases I'd have to be SERIOUSLY interested in the performer in question to sign up to a recital without knowing what they were playing/singing.
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #6 on: 12:00:07, 27-08-2007 » |
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I'm totally unsure about this.
I'm unsure whether this kind of thing has any place in the Proms, Milly, but I'm not going to let it worry me. I'm afraid it worries me. This is what the interval discussion was about last night. A lady professor/author was waxing lyrical about how the Proms needs to move with the times. I personally didn't agree with a word she said. What serious music-lovers would call "dumbing-down" is referred to as "giving wider access to other people with different tastes to enjoy". It's madness quite frankly. Ruth was probably correct when she said that the day-queue would be round the block and the usual queue would be 3. Ok, they're bringing in a whole new set of people to the Proms but only to watch what they could see in any West End musical I would imagine. That's hardly introducing them to classical music in any way. All it's doing is removing classical music to make way for the easy listening genre to come in and take over the space. The Proms is obviously regarded by the new "innovative" movers and shakers as an elitist, dated institution. Perhaps it is but I liked it that way. It has always been a minority audience I would agree, but does that really matter? There's plenty of dross out there all year round for everyone who prefers that sort of stuff. Why encroach on us? |
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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Tony Watson
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« Reply #7 on: 17:19:21, 27-08-2007 » |
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No-one seems to have posted anything about tonight's surely eagerly awaited prom yet. Unfortunately I'll be out I'll record it for you if you want, Andy. If it makes lots of money to subsidise other concerts, that will be something. But a whole evening of Michael Ball? Does anyone remember the Viennese evenings that were once a regular slot, in which music by the Strauss family was the main feature? Even then it was thought that waltzes and polkas were not meaty enough to fill a whole evening so the first half would be something by Mozart or Schubert. And when it was Sullivan's anniversary, he was only given half a concert, the thinking being that his music lacked enough interest for a whole one. Diversity is all well and good but why does it always go one way? Why doesn't anyone complain about the shortage of old ladies at heavy metal rock concerts? Why doesn't a concert pianist appear on a gardening programme to tell us how to plant peas? I suppose there was the third act of Die Walkure at Glastonbury a year or two ago. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #8 on: 17:49:51, 27-08-2007 » |
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waltzes and polkas were not meaty enough to fill a whole evening so the first half would be something by Mozart or Schubert Well, they were from Vienna too On the same basis they could have filled-up the other half of the Sullivan concert with the Count Basie Orchestra doing "Stompin' At The Savoy" At least with Victor Hochhauser you get canon & mortar effects, a fat soprano and the Band Of The Coldstream Guards |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #9 on: 18:16:06, 27-08-2007 » |
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waltzes and polkas were not meaty enough to fill a whole evening so the first half would be something by Mozart or Schubert Well, they were from Vienna too On the same basis they could have filled-up the other half of the Sullivan concert with the Count Basie Orchestra doing "Stompin' At The Savoy" At least with Victor Hochhauser you get canon & mortar effects, a fat soprano and the Band Of The Coldstream Guards Noooo! Victor Hochhauser may surround his events in corporate sponsorship gloss, and stick the ticket prices up so high that they don't sell any (ahem... Bolshoi Opera season at Covent Garden, was it 2004 or 2005? They ended up having to offer three shows for the price of 1!) but he DOES promote decent stuff. The thing that always makes me titter is the stuff marketed by Ellen Kent & Opera International (Italian and French operatic warhorses performed by Eastern European companies with a headline performance in the Albert Hall amidst a tour to provincial venues). The ones which advertise Carmen on the basis of the presence of "a dazzling white stallion"* (*in selected venues only) and Tosca with the tagline "Witness Tosca's amazing leap of death!" |
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #10 on: 18:24:37, 27-08-2007 » |
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Carmen on the basis of the presence of "a dazzling white stallion"* (*in selected venues only) and Tosca with the tagline "Witness Tosca's amazing leap of death!" Well, they called it a "shabby little shocker", didn't they? I wonder what kind of horse you got in the other venues? I wasn't being cheeky about Vic Hochhauser though (for once)... I was making a rather invidious comparison between his shows and just one lone Michael Ball on the bill this evening.. |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #11 on: 18:37:52, 27-08-2007 » |
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There are other vocalists tonight apart from Mr Ball, including the mysterious Alfie Boe. I'd probably prefer Milly's Alfie the boxer.
Re. Gotterdammerung at Glastonbury, apparently the NYO played there this year at about nine o'clock in the morning but I don't know what they played. The Simon Bolivar mob doing the Rite of Spring at Glastonbury might be interesting.
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Dreams, schemes and themes
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HtoHe
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« Reply #12 on: 18:39:23, 27-08-2007 » |
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"Witness Tosca's amazing leap of death!"
How about "Witness Mr Ball's amazing...." No. Slapped wrist for me for even thinking of it. I'm a bit unsure how I feel about this gig. I'm absolutely sure I don't want to listen to it - and I won't - but that's different from thinking it shouldn't be on. My gut feeling is that such MoR stuff has no place in a serious music festival; but if I ask myself why I disapprove of this but approve of Cleo Laine I don't really have much of an answer. Does anyone remember the Viennese evenings that were once a regular slot, in which music by the Strauss family was the main feature?
I remember 'Die Fledermaus' not too many years ago. That was certainly a full evening of J Strauss and another one for which my radio was very definitely tuned away from Radio 3! I wouldn't have dared suggest it shouldn't be part of the Proms, though! I wouldn't like to see too much of this stuff in the festival, but I can't help feeling mean wanting to deny Musical Theatre fans their opportunity to see a headliner for a ticket price they can afford. |
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Ruth Elleson
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« Reply #13 on: 19:32:56, 27-08-2007 » |
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There are other vocalists tonight apart from Mr Ball, including the mysterious Alfie Boe. I'd probably prefer Milly's Alfie the boxer.
Re. Gotterdammerung at Glastonbury, apparently the NYO played there this year at about nine o'clock in the morning but I don't know what they played. The Simon Bolivar mob doing the Rite of Spring at Glastonbury might be interesting.
They played Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, I believe. As for Alfie Boe, he's a bona fide decent young tenor who used to be on the young artists' programme at the ROH (he was Alfred rather than Alfie at the time). He also sang Rodolfo for Glyndebourne Touring Opera, which was broadcast on Channel Four on Christmas Day 2000. He dropped out of the ROH scheme before his two years was up, as he got offered the role of Rodolfo in Baz Luhrmann's smash-hit production of La Boheme on Broadway. By the time he came back to the UK, it was as a crossover singer |
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Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!
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MabelJane
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« Reply #14 on: 21:40:25, 27-08-2007 » |
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Well I've only just turned on Radio 3, prompted by this thread... and can't say that I like Michael Ball's voice nor his repertoire but he's obviously very good at it and the audience are loving it so it being a Prom doesn't bother me - but perhaps my opinion doesn't count as I'm not a Prommer. I remember 'Die Fledermaus' not too many years ago. That was certainly a full evening of J Strauss and another one for which my radio was very definitely tuned away from Radio 3! I wouldn't have dared suggest it shouldn't be part of the Proms, though!
I'd have enjoyed Die Fledermaus! (Loved it at the ROH years ago.) I like the music of Westside Story which is on now - and although I'm not keen on Michael Ball's voice he sounds much better singing it than Jose Carreras did (and I love Carreras's voice!). |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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