I luuuuuuurrrrrrrrved it, although good golly, that plot made ZERO sense even by Wagnerian standards! Like NOTHING WHATEVER HAPPENS TO ORTRUD IN THE END EVEN THOUGH THE WHOLE MESS WAS HER DOING, wtf??
I knew nothing about the opera or the singers going in, and had even forgotten that this work is where “Here Comes the Bride” comes from. But I thought the production was tremendous, especially in the ways that a very large and mostly static chorus effectively created scenery and crowd movement just with some simple stylized gestures with their costumes. I am totally here for the sky and swan SFX too.
The one design misstep IMHO was Lohengrin’s modern “business casual” costume, contrasting sharply with the very impressive but not gaudy fantasyish-medievalish robes of the rest of the cast. I found out during an intermission interview that Lohengrin’s outfit was a deliberate tie-in to the modern-dress production of Parsifal some years back, see, because Lohengrin is Parsifal’s son ah hah hah I get it.
Big mistake though ISTM: the white button-down shirt and office oxfords really took me out of the story juxtaposed with the in-universe robes of the other singers. Costumer Tim Yip could have put Lohengrin in a more harmonious white jerkin and black boots or something, with a silhouette echoing the Parsifal costumes in other ways, and it would have been a clever and subtle easter egg instead of a constant elbow in the ribs.
More importantly, the singing and acting were superb, it’s been a long while since I’ve seen Met Live or any other high-end opera and I forgot how impressive and entrancing it is! If I had to pick a favorite I think it would probably be Christine Goerke’s magnificently diabolical Ortrud, though goodness knows the music is giving her everything she could ask for to work with. ISTM that Wagner is kind of like Shakespeare in that there’s always plenty of room for a real person to exist inside even the most superficially cartoonish and exaggerated characters, and the cast nailed every one of them.
It blows me away how there doesn’t really need to be anything going on for large stretches of a (good) Wagner opera production other than a couple of singers mostly standing still and singing at each other. The music itself, and the brilliant characterization that really good actor-singers do, provide all the dramatic action required.
While I’m griping about sartorial trivialities, though, I will say that I am NOT a fan of Maestro Nézet-Séguin conducting in a polarfleece jersey, even if he does put on a fresh one thoughtfully color-coded for each act. If dude can go to the trouble of donning rings and a diamond earstud and even gilding his fingernails (all of which looks absolutely kickass and which I fully support) to conduct in, dude can manage to put on a goddamn white tie. NO ATHLEISURE IN THE MET PIT BITTE DANKE.
(hope I am not hurting any feelings there, I just noticed you mentioned him by his first name so if you do know him plz just tell him the music was perfection, skip the gratuitous fashion sniping by random internet Karen.)
No idea, sorry! It seems to take about a year for Met Live productions to make it to MOD, but I don’t know whether every Met show ends up there eventually?
