Passing the baton

The one on the left is Dan Ettinger, by far the best thing about the latest of the Royal Opera House's inexorable La traviata revivals. The one on the right is his erstwhile mentor, The Other Dan.

Remarkable, isn't it?

But it was not always thus. Back in 2009, the then-newly appointed General Music Director of the Nationaltheater Mannheim looked more like this:

 

 

UPDATE - Thanks to Simon Morgan for pointing out that Dan E has gone on the record to say he's not Dan B's son.

 

Comments

[Michael]

Gosh, differing opinions, I hated his conducting, as it seems did most of the audience. It all seemed so arbitrary with the tempo: fast, slow, fast for no apparent reason or connection with what was happening on stage.

I thought he looked more like Mozart in Amadeus to be honest - it did cross my mind that it might not have been entirely accidental...

[inter mezzo]

I've been twice (neither was opening night, which probably makes a difference) and I don't recognise your comment about arbitrary tempos at all. Did most of the audience really hate his conducting? How could you tell?

[Colin]

I saw the matinee with the Damrau cast (I thought Damrau herself was by far the best thing about it, by the way), and though there was a lot good about Ettinger's conducting, there were also some really bizarre moments. What comes to mind most readily is the chorus reacting with horror to Alfredo's insult in act two - on those "va, va"s, he slowed the tempo down hugely for the first five, then raced off for the rest, before returning to his original tempo for the next phrase. This seemed unjustified dramatically, musically, and textually. I'd been really involved in the performance until then, but that made me remember that I was in an opera house.

But as I say, there was a lot that was good about his work, too, and I don't really understand all the vitriol thrown at him on Twitter.

[Michael]

Just that the audience reception was very lukewarm at best when he took his bows at the beginning of each act and certainly at the curtain call - I've never heard it so muted except perhaps for Eliot Gardner's horrible Figaro in October. Can't say I disagreed.

[inter mezzo]

Well, I enjoyed JEG's Figaro hugely too, and I didn't notice a muted reception from the audience on the night I went, either.

[Ruth]

It does make a difference. The tempi on opening night, when the press were in, were simply bizarre.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

The applause for Ettinger last was pretty tepid. I really do think it's the worst conducted Traviata I've heard at Covent Garden in well-night 30 years of opera-going. His tempi were all over the place and the singers seemed to be struggling and gasping for breath to complete their phrases at his turgid tempi. None of the principals did themselves complete justice last night, and I think Ettinger was responsible. Also the at the Damrau performance I attended she cast him some fairly desperate looks and the ensemble between pit and stage was consistently shaky. If Ettinger was the best thing about these performances, the singers must have been chopped liver.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

That slowing of the tempo at Va, va, va, va was just the most absurd of his wilful eccentricities. The conducting reminded me of Sinopoli's Verdi at its most mannered. Mind you, it was a great night for the timpanist who seemed to be on a roll (sorry!). :)

[Nikolaus Vogel]

If the stories coming from Floral Street are to be believed, the ROH Orchestra didn't hugely enjoy JEG's Figaro - and personally I think his re-ordering of music in Act IV is just daft/weird. If Mozart considered that "interrupted" aria, he either thought better of it, or was persuaded that it wouldn't work. Presumably the House wasn't best pleased at having to re-block the production, either. Was McVicar consulted, I wonder? All of which might explain Gardiner changing his mind about replacing the late Sir Colin for the current series of performances. I won't be putting money on him getting invited back soon.....Looks like Minkowski is their "period" conductor of choice next season.

[inter mezzo]

Everybody knows Gardiner can be difficult - remember when Christof Loy walked out on his own ROH production after a row? I'm amazed the ROH have invited him back at least five times if they're as averse to his ways as you claim. I doubt if any professional orchestra expects or even wants their employers to book conductors on the basis of amenability.

[John]

Will you be reviewing these Traviatas, IM? You've offered us some tantalising morsels but I want to read your full report!
***************
Intermezzo replies - It's unlikely I'll have time but I'm sure you can find tons of reviews elsewhere.

[SJT]

Not hearsay but direct input, a lot of the LSO players dislike him hugely. Doesn't stop him conducting them every season, and usually very well indeed.

As it happens, I thought his Figaro earlier this season the best I've heard in the house, tout court, a genuine sense of tight but easy ensemble so informing the airy, sunlit whole that it could afford even to carry two vocal no-hopers, Maltman and Bengtsson. The current revival is absolutely nowhere in comparison (this time round with rubbish servants but very classy aristos).

Apropos Ettinger, the eccentric tempi are slightly less in evidence now that all concerned have found ways of accommodating them in terms of performance: but eccentric they remain, and not, in my view, dramatically enlightening. Last night, Perez had endless trouble cranking out Sempre libera - she even missed a bar out - and kept cracking on the soft As in Addio del passato, as well as mistiming Amami Alfredo and finding herself breathless well before the orchestral climax to the phrase: and this notwithstanding a much more complicit sense of co-operation between Maestro and Diva elsewhere. Hubby gets constricted and more throaty in the passaggio, but unusually never emerges from it heading northwards. Neither sounded at ease with the general upper range of their roles, I thought, for all that Costello is still leagues above his immediate predecessor in the role. Oddly, Dim. Hvor reappeared, subbing for Simon, souffrant, and proceeded to bellow, blasting everything and everybody offstage.

[inter mezzo]

For once I find myself in complete agreement with you on the singing. I wondered, perhaps over-kindly, if either or both of the leads was unwell; I don't hear them often enough to pass judgement. Whatever the reasons, the conducting wasn't to blame for any of the vocal issues.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

There have actually been very few reviews, in the papers anyway, presumably because none of the principals is a stranger to their role at Covent Garden, whereas both Damrau and Demuro were singing theirs for the first time here. There was nothing on The Opera Critic site last time I looked, but maybe a few bloggers have weighed in.

[John]

Could someone who is enthusiastic about Ailyn Perez explain to me what all the fuss is about? I appreciate that she has a very smiley, affable demeanour and seems a sincere, engaged performer, but do the vocal goods really match up to the hype and the record deal? I've heard her a number of times in the theatre now and each time she has suffered from projection problems in the lower range and pitch issues and even the top of the voice doesn't really have that gleaming quality that makes you think "that's a star". Am I missing something? I don't think she's bad by any means - just not any better than an awful lot of other sopranos who are working in the B houses.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

I'm not claiming they are averse to his ways. I merely heard they didn't enjoy working with him on Figaro and then he pulled out of the second series which he'd agreed to conduct after the death of Colin Davis. I suppose it's possible he doesn't want to work with them any more. He would obviously prefer to use his orchestra and chorus than the Royal Opera's. The two casts are strange - last time round duff Almavivas, this time round they outshone their servants, although I don't think either Esposito or Tilling were rubbish. On the whole, I enjoyed the present run more than Gardiner's, but there we are. Good thing we don't all like the same things.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

Is she getting star treatment at Covent Garden? She's been in three operas this season, each of them in the second cast. In Manon and Traviata that was probably right, but her Liu was a great improvement on Eri Nakamura, IMO. It's certainly not a large voice, but it sounded bigger this time round than it did when she last sang Violetta here. I'm sorry to disagree with IM, but I think Ettinger's exaggerated tempi were to blame for her occasional shortness of breath and sense of desperation in Sempre libera. Costello also had a couple of anxious moments in O mio rimorso and I've never heard Hvorostovsky sound more tentative and he has just finished a run of Traviatas with Ettinger.

[John]

Well, she has been garlanded with praise and awards in the USA, has just recorded a cd for Warner and as you point out has done three roles for Covent Garden this season as well as the usual promotional antics. So I would say, yes, in general she is being promoted as a star. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up being called in next year as Alice Ford to replace the increasingly elusive Ms Poplavskaya.

[Nikolaus Vogel]

I'd be more than happy if Perez replaced Poplavskaya as Alice. She was enchanting in the role at Glyndebourne last summer.

[Ruth]

It isn't going to happen, however, as she will be busy singing Violetta at the Liceu at the time.