Placido Domingo is booed at Bayreuth
mainThe singer, who takes conducting gigs wherever opera houses thinks his name might sell extra seats, waved the stick in Walküre at Bayreuth last night.
The booing began at the end of Act 1. Tempi were slow to the point of slack.
Frank Castrop’s production is admittedly freakish and may have attracted some of the dissent.
But Anja Kampe as Sieglinde, John Lundgren as Wotan and Catherine Forster as Brünnhilde were cheered to the rafters.
Domingo, 77, took it like a pro.
UPDATE: Why they booed Domingo
The Nordbayerische Kurier, the Bayreuth paper, is pretty damning too, at one point suggesting:-
War es von der Regie gewollt oder schwang da noch eine andere Ebene mit, als Catherin[e} Foster zu der Stelle „trotzt’ ich deinem Gebot“ auf den Boden stampfte und gezielt zum Dirigenten blickte?
” Was it the director’s intention, or was there another level in which Catherine Foster stomped her foot on the floor when singing “trotzt’ ich deinem Gebot“ (I defy your command) and stared straight at the conductor? “
It was at best a mediocre performance and a substandard one by Bayreuth standards. So was the previous evening’s Fliegende Holländer. Abysmal singing in both works and, in the case of Die Walküre, abysmal time beating. The absence of nuance, colors and coordination was at the level of any 4th rate venue you care to remember. Glad some had the balls to boo the impostor that is Domingo.
+1
A player in the Met orchestra (who shall remain anonymous) once described Domingo to me as “a wonderful singer and an absolute train wreck of a conductor – we try to avoid looking at him.”
What would be more scandalous, the list of all famous conductors who never made it to Bayreuth, or the list of conductors who should never have made it to Bayreuth?
I wonder when Simon Rattle will make his Bayreuth debut. That venue as well as NYPO are strangely missing from his biog.
Simon has made it clear that he will not conduct in Bayreuth given its history. He left the annual European concert on May 1 to Paavo Järvi this year.
What is your source?
See the interview below 49.20, though he doesn’t actually say never:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9WxBOqJ_kg
His reasoning is unclear. He seems to refer to the connotations to the geographical place, not to the persona of Wagner, since he apparently has no problem conducting his music.
But in that logic, how could he ever accept to become the chief conductor of the BERLIN Philharmonic? Bayreuth was a summer retreat for the crazy Nazi with the funny mustache. But Berlin was the center of it all. It doesn’t make sense.
How could you then ever set foot into Munich or Vienna, conducting there?
Bayreuth will be taken over by young hot attractive beautiful female conductors like Karina Canellakis and Barbara Hannigan. They will make Bayreuth great again and ensure that men no longer conduct over there.
Keep beating that drum, lady!
I already suggested this attacking Katharina as a stage directoress and Festspiele direktoress .. though my predictions do truly come closer to reality than your somewhat desperate wannabe choices … i proclain the Festspiele’s lady conductors: Madonna and Jennifer Lopez
Why on earth does,nt Domingo just call it a day and retire
He’s an addict. He couldn’t stop if he wanted to.
He is “driven”. Unfortunately, it’s hard to stop being a conductor once he/she is driven.
Call it what you like…
It’s Frank Castorf, not Castrop (as in Castrop-Rauxel, the town in the Ruhr Area).
Yes, and his (well-publicised) Ring production is being performed for the sixth year running, so the audience could hardly have been surprised.
Not the full Ring, only Walküre.