Pride of place this year must go to the version of Wagner’s Ring operas from the Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen (reviewed on May 2). It succeeded despite all the hurdles it set up for itself to surmount — major changes to the plot, comic characters in the audience, and giving in to the “Eurotrash” tendency to present mythic heroes as pitiful individuals doing the washing-up in a modern, Ikea-style kitchen. It succeeded because the commitment of the lead singers was so outstanding, the playing of the orchestra so intense and so breathtakingly recorded, and because the production consistently rose above its own absurdities at the work’s greatest moments, invariably at the end of each of the four operas.
Conductor Michael Schonwandt, the Brunhilde of Irene Theorin, and the Sigmund and Siegfried of Stig Andersen were all beyond praise, and there were many other outstanding soloists too. This is a production to treasure, even if its eccentricities mean that any enthusiast ought to possess at least one other DVD version as well.
The best CD of the year to come my way was the San Francisco Symphony’s stupendous recording of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony (reviewed on Oct. 10). Michael Tilson Thomas has been struggling to get this over-reaching work right for some time, but here he succeeds spectacularly.
Photo: Taipei Times
Two other remarkable DVDs reviewed this year, though released at an earlier date, were the haunting rendition of Puccini’s Turandot with Franco Corelli as Calaf (reviewed on Aug. 1) and Mozart’s Don Giovanni with Bryn Terfel in the title role (reviewed on Feb. 7).
The black-and-white filming of Turandot had an opiated feel to it, as if the Beijing of old was something more than simply nightmarish. Combined with Corelli’s restrained performance, the treatment showed this brilliant opera in a new light. Even Ping, Pang and Pong no longer appeared ridiculous, and the most basic dance and mime ideas in this made-for-TV production all had a strangeness about them that, together with Corelli’s fine but unusual interpretation, made the whole experience unforgettable.
Bryn Terfel’s take on Giovanni won me over to this artist and simultaneously confirmed my feeling that the character must be displayed in a somber light for any production to be really successful. Terfel decisively conveyed a cynical brutality, and when this combined with James Levine’s masterly conducting of his Metropolitan Opera forces, the result seemed hard indeed to improve on.
Photo: Taipei Times
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless