2. The opera itself, as captured in the Met's 1982 Christmas Day telecast. Oh my god, what a beautiful score! And I don't have one here to look at. That shall be rectified. Again, I just skipped and sampled my way through it, but this will be thoroughly digested this week as well.
I, too, would like to see it performed with younger leads, but Blegen and von Stade are wonderful as is Rosalind Elias. And what a trip back to the early '80s at the Met. (Credits like "Gil Wechsler, Lighting" are burned into my brain.) It looks and sounds like everyone's at the top of their game here.
This video, too, is a bit primitive looking compared to their later telecasts, but it is what it is. However, the execution is great. During the really lovely overture, the orchestra is exceptionally well captured by the video cameras. It's almost more satisfyingly executed than in later performances. I was also blown away at the sight of two players I'd known to some extent in school, barely ten years after we'd all left Cleveland. Here, they looked like Cleveland was just yesterday. But I digress! For me, one piece of bad news. Someone had the brilliant idea after the opening passages in the overture to cut away from the orchestra and show costume designs while the music played. At first I thought we might be seeing something the audience was seeing. But no. It was like watching a dull picture "gallery" as an extra on a DVD. We don't get back to the orchestra until the final passages of the overture. Did they think that because this attracts so many families that the kiddies would get bored watching people play? Oy. A thousand times Oy.
