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From:  John Alexander Blyth <BLYTHE@B...>
Date:  Wed May 10, 2000  3:19 pm
Subject:  My 'Ring' field trip


I unsubscribed for a week and a half to go to the Met production of the Ring.
My little note is a version of something I sent to a friend.
Heil Dir! Liste!
Yes, I am quite Wagnerized - it was a great experience, though those
things are loooo...ooonnnnnn......nnnnnnggggg! Felicity Palmer, 56 years
old mezzo, was for me the jewel of the cast, as Fricka, though Jane Eaglen
as Bruennhilde didn't disappoint, she event sang the bel canto trills and
cadenzas that most Bruennhildes don't or can't do. I've never heard so many
people sing Wagner in tune! Stig Andersen was an amiable Siegfried; James
Morris the Wotan i.e. THE Wotan; Sieglinde was beautifully sung be Deborah
Voigt; John MacCurdy's Hagen got off to a slow start - he was much better
in the last couple of acts of Goetterdaemmerung than at the start - looked
(intentionally?) like Mussolini. I'm pretty much convinced from this that W
wouldn't have like those nazis at all (remember the nazis?)
Siegmund was well sung by a young (well he looked and sounded young) tenor
called P. Domingo. Alan Held, a very impressive baritone, sang both Donner
and Guenther. I don't have the info in front of me, but I think the Freia
sang Gutrune as well - anyway she was great! Etc. etc. The orchestra was
louder that the singers from where I sat, but apparently in the main part
of the auditorium the singers came across as louder! Acoustics! Who'd a
thought!
NYC is a safer, friendlier city than I recall it being - I think its days
as an extreme danger zone are over, and central park is just lovely - a
biggg oasis in the citttty.

John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada

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