I went to see "Romeo et Juliette" at the Met tonight. This production really must be cursed - first Villazon dropped out as Romeo because he was sick, then Nathan Gunn dropped out as Murcutio because he too was sick, and tonight... at the last minute, Joseph Kaiser dropped out because he wasn't feeling well and Marcello Giordani (who sang the role of Edgardo in Lucia the night before) stepped in at the last minute to take over. Oy. It turned out he was excellent in the role. I thought Netrebko was wonderful as always - no she's not capable of playing young and innoncent but at least she sounded great , and that long aria just before she takes the potion was especially fabulous. Brilliant singing from the leads aside, whoever designed that set I think took the concept of "star crossed lovers" a bit too far - designing the whole thing around some sort of bizarre astrological clock was just totally wrongheaded. And let's face it, the set was just downright ugly. The only scene that was at all interesting from a visual point of view was the floating bed scene (a scene made extra by Netrebko's sexual antics upon said bed - I guess she figured as long as she's not doing the innocent thing, she might as well have as much fun as possible with her on-stage hubby...). Of course, any fond memories of that bed scene were semi-ruined it's follow up... namely when as Juliette runs toward the bed with a sheet about to jump on it, and it floats away out of her reach... and she just stands there with her arm in the air reaching for her bed as it floats off stage. That was good for an unintentional chuckle.... Also good for a chuckle was the poorly adapted final scene. The music and singing were gorgeous as always, but unlike in the Shakespeare, after Romeo drinks the poison, Juliette actually wakes up, they sing an excited duet about how they're going to run away together, until Romeo remembers that he took the poison, and so he sings some more before collapsing, at which point Juliette finds a dagger to stab herself with, at which point the not yet dead Romeo gets up again and sings some more before actually dying (there may have been some more singing from the stabbed Juliette too, I forget). I mean, I know it's opera and all, but this is the sort of drawn out death scene that gives opera a bad name.
Anyhoo, quibbles aside, as least there was beautiful music up on stage tonight. And I'm looking forward to seeing the production again in December. Roberto Alagna is rumored for Romeo, but with this production's track record, I don't have high hopes.
Oh, this afternoon I went to see "Wolves in the Walls" at the New Victory. I basically went because it's based on a (children's) book by Neil Gaiman, and it was created by Julian Crouch/Improbable (the team responsible for "Shockheaded Peter," which I did not like, a "Spirit," which I did). Well, all I can say was it was definitely children's theatre, and I don't think that's either party's strong suit. It was all pretty bland. The story went something like this: a little girl hears wolves in the walls of her house. she tells her brother, then she tells her mother, then she tells her father, and no one believes her. Well, there indeed were wolves in the walls. Yadayadayada. The best part was the little girl's pig puppet (which basically acted as a teddy bear) and I was fun to watch her and the wolves play with it. Other than that, it was pretty dull stuff. I usually enjoy children's entertainment (I still watch and enjoy far too many shows on Nickelodeon) but this was low level stuff even for me. One plus was that I got to see the inside of the New Victory Theatre for the first time, so that was exciting. According to the program, the theatre was originally opened by Oscar Hammerstein and was home at one point to the long running "Abie's Irish Rose." It was then bough by Minsky and turned into a burlesque house, then later turned into an XXX movie theatre, and finally into a children's theatre in 1995. So it was fun to think about the history of the space. But I don't really recommend seeing the show, unless you have a little kid to drag along.
