Results tagged “diefledermaus”

Seattlest had two very different opera experiences this past weekend, and we wanted to share both with you. (We know Seattlest’s own MVB has already favorably reviewed one of them, but we wanted to add our own two cents.)

Last Saturday night Seattlest trundled off to McCaw Hall for opening night of Die Fledermaus (running through January 28). We were a little doubtful about just how much fun the operetta (a word that means, "before there were Broadway musical-comedies") would be. General Director Speight Jenkins had cast some giant-voiced Wagnerians in the leads of a lithe, witty farce and it seemed counterintuitive, to be frank with you. With an icing-thin plot involving an extended, not-very-funny practical joke, Fledermaus only works if the Viennese tendency to waltz in the face of disaster perfectly balances the sad reality of a couple who have gotten tired of each other and are looking elsewhere for fun.

Obviously the streets of the Emerald City will be empty between 1-5pm on Saturday, when the Seahawks play, but what are people doing the rest of the weekend?

The Tuba is the red-headed stepchild of the orchestra; always shunted to the back, never in the spotlight. But not anymore! Tonight, the Tuba will finally get its due. The Seattle Symphony is pairing Seattle Symphony Composer in Residence Samuel Jones’s Concerto for Tuba and Orchestra with Tchaikovsky’s much-loved "Pathetique" Symphony (No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74). The world premiere (of Jones's piece) was Thursday but you could go today and still say you’d been to the premiere. We sure aren’t going to tell anyone.

Seattlest, as promised a few weeks ago, recently saw The End of the Affair (by Jake Heggie) at Seattle Opera. We went the last weekend, and we didn’t tell you about it, but here’s the thing: in our opinion, if you missed it, you didn’t miss much. It was well-sung, the sets were quite nice, and we were entertained. But. In this case, the contemporary music did not do it for us. There were few arching melodies, no show-stopping arias. And without those, opera becomes – even to us, aspiring opera singers that we are – boring.