It is enormously refreshing, after reviewing Carlos Kleiber's version of Der Rosenkavalier with less than enthusiasm last month, to be able to hail a fine new version, this time from Zurich Opera. This ambitious opera house has not always hit the jackpot -- their recent DVD of Tannhauser, for instance, was almost uniformly dismal. But now they have come up with something really rather wonderful.
Almost everything about this new Rosenkavalier is impressive -- the crisp, vividly recorded orchestral playing, the often astonishing singing, the acting (sometimes incorporating profound insights), and the unusual, stylish staging. For once Hugo von Hofmannsthal's great libretto, one of the finest in all opera, gets its due. When watching these DVDs you really do believe the soloists genuinely feel what they are singing, and in a sharper, more abrasive way than is usual even in good modern opera productions. On two occasions the Marshallin collapses onto the ground, for instance, overcome with emotion. There are no powdered cheeks and demure smiles behind fans in this production.
Rosenkavalier is about an older woman losing her lover to a younger one. This production, following the feelings expressed by the Marschallin in her great Act One monologue, extends this theme to a lament for the inevitability not only of aging but of death as well. This fits less well with the comic scenes, but is strongly moving in the great climaxes with their powerful undercurrents of transience and loss. Even in the Act Two duet where love is born between Octavian and Sophie, an aged retainer is seen behind and between them, trembling and white-faced like an aghast death's-head, horrified perhaps at his own decrepitude, and at the innocence of the two youngsters, seemingly unaware of what the years will do to them. He dies as the curtain falls.
In a generally strong cast, Vesselina Kasarova's Octavian is particularly impressive. Her voice is thrilling from the start and continues to be so. Malin Hartelius's Sophie is also wonderfully clear-voiced, and Alfred Muff's Ochs unusually genial and amusing. Pride of place, though, must go to Nina Stemme, far and away the most psychologically convincing and memorable Marschallin I have ever heard.
Instrumentally, too, this is very fine, beautifully recorded and played with instantly recognizable feeling. Listening to it, you come to think once again that Richard Strauss's opera contains some of the most sublime music for the stage ever written.
With its minimalist sets and eclectic costumes, this is a production that could have been stylish but soulless. That it isn't is almost entirely due to the conviction and committed performances of the principal singers. With all this going for it, the use of the same set for the first and last acts really doesn't matter very much.
All in all, this is a musically fine, visually fresh and everywhere sensitive and intelligent Rosenkavalier. That innovative gimmicks, of which there are quite a few, aren't allowed to detract from the often painful emotions of the principal characters is one of the strongest
reasons for recommending it.
I did not expect to enjoy Vienna Boys' Choir Sings Mozart, a re-issue on DVD (apparently especially for Taiwan) of a video dating back to 1989. It has its moments, however. Almost all the items -- sacred numbers performed in Vienna's Hofburgkapelle -- date from the composer's youth. It's strange to think that the longest piece, the Missa Solemnis KV 139, was written when he was 12, about the same age as the boys who here sing the treble and alto parts, both choral and solo. He actually conducted its first
performance, himself a boy wonder too, entrancing a fashionable audience, and earning a good fee for his delighted and ambitious father.
The small instrumental ensemble and the strange quality of boys' voices make for a pleasing combined effect. The DVD leaves you pondering anew the old question of why it is boys rather than girls who have these evocative vocal tones prior to puberty. Mozarteans in particular will be keen to collect these rarely performed early works.
Andre Rieu is at it again, plugging away at over-familiar old favorites and trying to find ways to make them new. This time in Love Around the World, it's seemingly on board a German ocean liner on a round-the-globe trip. Rieu plays away on his violin, a massed choir soars in the background, and ever-adoring fans purportedly laugh, love and applaud. It's easy listening, sweet music, call it what you will, all colored by Rieu's agreeable personality.
An added zest and high spirits is part of the recipe, and that too predictably arrives. It's hardly classical music. Some sections are virtually indistinguishable from travel publicity (it's always summer with Andre Rieu), while others resemble an old-folks' party. But huge numbers of people enjoy these Europe-centered shows, and that can't be a bad thing. However, Rieu's earlier Romantic Paradise (reviewed in the Taipei Times on Feb. 29, 2004) was far more infectiously exhilarating, as well as being a good deal longer. And it has to be said that one track, any track, of Stephane Grappelli, an infinitely greater popular violinist, is worth any number of Andre Rieu DVDs.
April 14 to April 20 In March 1947, Sising Katadrepan urged the government to drop the “high mountain people” (高山族) designation for Indigenous Taiwanese and refer to them as “Taiwan people” (台灣族). He considered the term derogatory, arguing that it made them sound like animals. The Taiwan Provincial Government agreed to stop using the term, stating that Indigenous Taiwanese suffered all sorts of discrimination and oppression under the Japanese and were forced to live in the mountains as outsiders to society. Now, under the new regime, they would be seen as equals, thus they should be henceforth
Last week, the the National Immigration Agency (NIA) told the legislature that more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) risked having their citizenship revoked if they failed to provide proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration within the next three months. Renunciation is required under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), as amended in 2004, though it was only a legal requirement after 2000. Prior to that, it had been only an administrative requirement since the Nationality Act (國籍法) was established in
Three big changes have transformed the landscape of Taiwan’s local patronage factions: Increasing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) involvement, rising new factions and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) significantly weakened control. GREEN FACTIONS It is said that “south of the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪), there is no blue-green divide,” meaning that from Yunlin County south there is no difference between KMT and DPP politicians. This is not always true, but there is more than a grain of truth to it. Traditionally, DPP factions are viewed as national entities, with their primary function to secure plum positions in the party and government. This is not unusual
US President Donald Trump’s bid to take back control of the Panama Canal has put his counterpart Jose Raul Mulino in a difficult position and revived fears in the Central American country that US military bases will return. After Trump vowed to reclaim the interoceanic waterway from Chinese influence, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an agreement with the Mulino administration last week for the US to deploy troops in areas adjacent to the canal. For more than two decades, after handing over control of the strategically vital waterway to Panama in 1999 and dismantling the bases that protected it, Washington has
RSS