Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd Blankfein and his largest investor, The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffett , descended from the mystical heights of Valhalla with some startling news.  They were bearing a new mythical golden ring.  As they held the ring aloft they made a bold proclamation.  They would embark on one of the grandest social entrepreneurial programs of all time by offering some of the rings precious power, about $500 million worth, to capital starved small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs).  The 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative will distribute $100 million per year over the next five years to SMEs through Community Development Financial Institutions.

These lords of commerce have heard the cries from endangered SMEs.  In their infinite wisdom Blankfein and Buffet understand that the real economy needs to resuscitate and incubate the critical SME segment as an absolute prerequisite to a vibrant economic recovery.    The buzz about this news in the marketplace ranged from cynical suspicion at one extreme to puzzled bemusement and  ecstatic aplomb at the other.

What motivated Goldman to announce this initiative is an interesting question.  Was it guilt, greed or a sense of corporate social responsibility?  Some suggest it is a master PR move to counter a growing public perception that Goldman Sachs,  the poster child of government favoritism and bailout largess,  has leveraged its unfair advantage to achieve historic levels of profitability.  Thus enabling management to pay obscene bonuses to company employees.  But capital has no psyche,  and half a billion dollars is a tall bill to underwrite absolution for some phantom form of guilt.  True to its nature, capital always  seeks a place where it will find its greatest return.  Goldman and Buffett are casting some major bread on the receding waters of a distressed economy.  As its foretold in the Good Book , doing God’s work will produce a tenfold return.  If the Bible’s math is correct, thats a lot of manna that will rain down from heaven for the shareholders of Goldman Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway.  Looks like our modern day version of Moses and Aaron have done it again.  Leading their investors across the dangerous waters of the global economy to live in the promised land of happy shareholders.

As one of the world’s preeminent investment banks and purveyor of capitalist virtues,  company shareholders must be questioning how Goldman’s managers will realize a return on this investment?  Has management examined the potential corporate and societal moral hazards surrounding the program?  Surely shareholders have asked when they expect to be compensated for this significant outlay of capital.   The desire to realize gain is a more plausible motivator and makes more sense for an enterprise like Goldman and the storied investment Wizard from Omaha.

Its wise to ascribe the best intentions and virtuous motivations to actions that we may not fully understand.  This program should be viewed as a seminal event in the history of corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship.  Its important to understand that institutions that practice corporate social responsibility do not engage it solely as a philanthropic  endeavor.  Indeed, the benefits of good corporate citizenship pays multidimensional dividends.  All ultimately accrue to the benefit of company shareholders and the larger community of corporate stakeholders.

Goldman’s  move to walk the point of a capital formation initiative for SMEs seeks to mitigate macroeconomic risk factors that are prolonging the recession and pressuring Goldman’s business.   Goldman needs a vibrant US economy if it is to sustain its profitability,  long term growth and global competitiveness.  Goldman needs a strong regional and local banking sector to support its securitization, investment banking and corporate finance business units.   Healthy SMEs are a critical component to a healthy commercial banking sector.  Goldman recent chartering as an FDIC bank holding company may also be a factor to consider.  This SME lending initiative will provide interesting insights into the dynamics of a market space and potential lines of business that are relatively new to Goldman Sachs.  This initiative might presage a community banking acquisition program by Goldman.  At the very least the community banking sector is plagued with over capacity is in dire need of rationalization.  Goldman’s crack team of corporate finance and M&A professionals expertise would be put to good use here.

Goldman’s action to finance SMEs will also serve to incubate a new class of High Net Worth (HNW) investors.  Flush with cash from successful entrepreneurial endeavors, the nouveau riche will be eager to deploy excess capital into equities and bonds, hedge funds and private equity partnerships.  Healthy equity markets and a growing Alternative Investment Management  market is key to a healthy Goldman business franchise.

Community banks, principal lenders to SMEs are  still reeling from the credit crisis are concerned about troubled assets on their balance sheets.  Bankers can’t afford more write downs on non-performing loans and remain highly risk adverse to credit default exposures.  Local banks have responded by drastically reducing credit risk to SMEs by curtailing new lending activity.  The strain of a two-year recession and limited credit access has taking its toll on SMEs.  The recession has hurt sales growth across all market segments causing SMEs to layoff employees or shut down driving unemployment rates ever higher.  Access to this sector would boost Goldman’s securitization and restructuring advisory businesses positioning it to deepen its participation in the PPIP and TALF programs.

The financial condition of commercial and regional banks are expected to remain stressed for the foreseeable future.  Community banks have large credit exposures to SME and local commercial real estate.  Consumer credit woes and high unemployment rates will generate continued losses from credit cards and auto loans.  Losses from commercial real estate loans due to high vacancy rates are expected to create significant losses for the sector.

Reduced revenue, protracted softness in the business cycle and closed credit channels are creating perfect storm conditions for SME’s. Bank’s reluctance to lend and the high cost of capital from other alternative credit channels coupled with weak cash flows from declining sales are creating liquidity problems for many SMEs.   Its a growing contagion of financial distress.  This contagion could infect Goldman and would have a profound impact on the company’s financial health.

The 10,000 Businesses  initiative will strengthen the free flow of investment capital to finance national economic development and empower SMEs.  It strengthens free market capitalism and has the potential to pool, unleash and focus investment capital into a strategic market segment that has no access to public equity and curtailed lines of traditional bank credit. The 10,000 Businesses initiative  will encourage wider participation by banking and private equity funds.  In the aggregate, this will help to achieve strategic objectives, build wealth and realize broader goals to assure sustainable growth and global competitiveness.  All to the benefit of Goldman Sachs’ shareholders and it global investment banking franchise.

Goldman Sach’s has always been a market leader.  We salute Goldman Sachs’ initiative and welcome its success.

In  September of 2008,  Sum2 announced The Hamilton Plan calling for the founding of an SME Development Bank (SDB).  The SDB would serve as an aggregator of capital from numerous stakeholders to focus capital investment for SME manufactures.   More on the Hamilton Plan can be read here: SME Development Bank.

Risk:  SME, bank, recession, unemployment, credit, private equity

You Tube Music: 10,000 Manaics, Natalie Merchant: Dust Bowl

In Norse mythology, Líf (Old Norse “life”[1]) and Lífþrasir (Old Norse “the one striving after life”[2] or “thriving remnant”[1]), female and male respectively, are two humans who are foretold to survive the events of Ragnarök by having hidden in Hoddmímis holt, and after the flames have sated, to repopulate the newly risen and fertile world. Líf and Lífthrasir are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the underlining meaning and origins of the two.

I’m thinking that this may have already happened in the great flood roughly 4-5k years ago as this would have been the beginning of our current thought process designated by Adam and Eve which then tells me that perhaps the tower of Babel happened first… **teehee** But Adam and Eve are ideas or groups of people as the hebrew word Ad-hem means “Red Earth” and Eve is …well…could be the mother of our current civilization and the eating of the fruit forebodes our current affairs.

Let me explain:

I had been doing some research into the Medicine wheel and it’s involvment with the 2012 prophecies, since these traditions are almost exactly alike in most regards (Mayan-western corner designated by the color Red and earth (as in Red People) and Norse-The northern corner designated by White and Fire(white people)) I thought perhaps there had been African (being the south and black corner designated by water) and an Asian tradition (designated by Yellow and Air in the East). I’d like to find them.

Thats all i’m going to cover right now because I need to get off of here and I need to outline my other post because I think it get’s better but it correlates to this one.

Our entering into the 5th age has already happened a long time ago and the cycle has repeated itself as we are entering into a new fifth age…it’s awesome!

I thought most of this up in a dream once…crazy.

Any opinions would be great.

Via 2012 forum…

http://2012forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&p=180485

O Ornitologia entrevista (em inglês) o encenador Graham Vick a propósito da nova produção de O Crepúsculo dos Deuses, em cena no Teatro Nacional de São Carlos até 24 de Outubro.

Interview in english with Graham Vick that heads the new Götterdämmerung production at Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, in Lisbon, until 24th October.

Richard Wagner – Götterdämmerung – Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts the Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro della Radio Italiana, 1953. Recorded live, mono sound. (EMI):

1. Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt (Orchester)
2. Graham Vick – “I’m not going to tell you anything at all”
3. Weialala Leia…Im Wasser Wie Am Lande (Flosshilde Woglinde Wellgunde Siegfried)
4. Graham Vick – Anything changed?
5. Trauermusik (Orchester)
6. Graham Vick – “I try to keep myself as impervious to politics as possible”
7. Fliegt Heim, Ihr Raben!
8. Graham Vick – Crisis Ring?
9. Grane, Mein Ross (Brünnhilde)
10. Graham Vick – Are you a Wagnerian?
11. Feuermusk Zurück Vom Ring! [excerpt]

I just posted an update of the ValhallaFreqEcho Audio Unit, that should fix some bugs people were encountering with Logic. The plugin assumes stereo-input, stereo-output, but the older version of the AU wasn’t enforcing this. I changed the code so that it can only be instantiated on stereo tracks. I will work on having it run with mono tracks in a future release.

Download the new version of the code here.

I meant to post something from Götterdämmerung during last week’s brief survey of Ring selections, but the access and technology gods conspired against me.

After sampling several different versions of the Immolation Scene, I decided on this 1972 English-language recording with the British soprano Rita Hunter (1933-2001) as Brünnhilde and Reginald Goodall conducting the Sadler’s Wells Opera Orchestra.

To make it easier to follow along, I’ve also included Andrew Porter’s translation, minus the detailed stage directions.

BRÜNNHILDE
(To the Vassals)
Sturdy branches,
building his pyre
now bring to the shore of the Rhine!
Bright and clear,
kindle the flame:
let the hero blaze
in splendour and radiance on high.
His horse bring to my side;
he and I together must join him,
I shall share
that pure, holy flame
with the hero;
we both shall blaze in the fire.
Obey Brünnhilde's command!

The sun in radiance
shines from his eyes
the purest hero,
though he was false!
Untrue to Brünnhild'
true to friendship!
From the wife who loved him,
while he betrayed her,
he was barred by his sword.
Never was man
more loyal to friendship;
never was man
more untrue to his promise;
never was known
love more faithful.
And yet he was faithless,
broke every promise,
a treacherous lover -
none falser than he!
Know you why that was?

(Looking upward)
Oh you, guardians,
look down and hear me!
Turn your regard
on my shame and my grief;
and learn your eternal disgrace!
And Wotan, hear,
you mighty god!
By his most valiant deed
he fulfilled your desire,
but he was forced
to share in your curse -
that curse which has doomed your downfall.
He, truest of all men,
betrayed me,
that I in grief might grow wise!
Now I know what must be.
All things, all things,
all I know now;
all to me is revealed.
Call back your ravens
hov'ring round me;
they'll bring to you those tidings
you have both feared and desired.
Rest now, rest now, o god!

My heritage
I claim from the hero.
Accursed gold!
Terrible ring!
My hand grasps you
to cast you away.
You sisters who are wise and graceful,
you Rhine maids who dwell in the waters,
I shall obey your advice:
what you desire
I'll give to you:
And from my ashes
gather your treasure!
This fire, burning my frame,
cleanses the curse from the Ring!
There is the Rhine,
the Ring shall be pure;
preserve it,
and guard your shining gold
whose theft has cursed all our woe.

Fly home, you ravens!
Tell your lord the tidings,
what here by the Rhine you have learned!
Past Brünnhilde's mountain
take your flight,
where Loge's burning!
Summon Loge to Valhall'!
For the gods' destruction
soon shall be here.
So cast now the flame
at Valhall's glorious height.

Grane, my horse!
I greet my friend!
Can you tell, my friend,
to where I must lead you?
In fiery glory
blazes your lord,
Siegfried, my hero and love.
To follow your master,
oh! are you neighing?
Lured by the fire,
the light and its laughter?
I too am yearning
to join him there;
glorious radiance
has seized on my heart.
I shall embrace him,
united with him,
in sacred yearning,
with him ever one!
Hi-a-ya-ho! Grane!
Ride to your master!
Siegfried! Siegfried!
See! Brünnhild' greets you as wife!

HAGEN
Give back the Ring!

So… the circus came to town last week, and now it has departed in a cloud of dust and a hail of booing (some of it mine – never done that before!) amid the storms of applause.

Valery Gergiev, the Ossetian wizard, attempted the impossible – all four operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in four days, with his Mariinsky company from St Petersburg (formerly the Kirov) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

I can’t really comment on all four, since for two of them I was behind the glass, working.  But my friend Diana did come to all four and took me to the other two (thank you, D!) so I got the general idea.

Did Gergiev succeed?  No.  Over-hyped, over-conducted, mostly beautifully played;  under-cast and under-sung, with very few honourable exceptions (it does not bode well for a Götterdämmerung when the loudest applause is for the Alberich);  over-designed, over-lit, under-rehearsed;  and, above all, under-directed.

This is surely Gergiev’s fault:  my feeling is that he doesn’t think anything is important except what he thinks is important, namely his conducting and the fact that he has ‘achieved’ this impossible feat at all.  He is quoted in interviews as saying that he wants to get away from the tyranny of the opera director:  having evolved his overall concept with designer George Tsypin (master of the enormous stage-cluttering useless object:  remember the giant cracked glass bottles in his Theodora from Glyndebourne?), Gergiev proceeded to sack or alienate at least four directors along the way (including Johannes Schaaf – ‘too German’ – and Opera Factory’s brilliant David Freeman). 

Finally he has brought in a fifth director, Alexander Zeldin, who has a Russian name but is British and as far as I can tell speaks not much Russian;  worst of all, he is only 24.  With the best will in the world, nobody aged 24 can have more then the haziest notion of how to direct this Everest of the operatic repertoire, which countless directors, conductors, scholars and analysts have spent whole lifetimes trying to understand.

I fear he is not really a director, but a ‘crisis manager’ and director of traffic, brought in to salvage what is left of previous attempts to make the original concept work.  By the time we got to the end of Götterdämmerung, it was impossible to discern any attempt at understanding the piece or the drama, or even listening to the music, for heaven’s sake.  Of all composers, Wagner tells you in every bar precisely what is going on, dramatically and emotionally;  just open your ears and listen (and read his stage directions!).  And please, try sitting out front and reading the surtitles, and then you will understand why the audience sniggered at things that were clearly in the text but were not happening on stage.  Ho hum.

Gergiev’s original concept was a fascinating one:  finding parallels between the Nordic myths that Wagner drew on and his own native Ossetian Nart sagas, he gets Tsypin to fill the stage with 30-foot effigies of Nart gods, and tries to get away from conventional Teutonic readings of the cycle by finding links with other mythologies.  Well yes, fine.  But (as my boss, Judi Palmer, said) it might have been a nice concept if anyone had done anything with it.  There were interesting ideas, such as making the ‘gold’ and the ‘Rhine’ out of shimmering masses of actors’ bodies;  but these ideas were not thought through or related to Wagner’s text, so failed to take off. 

Moreover, the stage was constantly invaded by troupes of meaningless ‘supers’ who wombled about, performing mysterious rituals or generally getting in the way of the action.  No, please!  When will they ever learn? – more means less.  The more ‘extras’ you have on the stage, the more you dilute the tension and drama of the principal characters.

Talking of which, any sense of Personenregie (the meaningful psychological interaction between the characters, which is where a decent director earns his wage) was almost non-existent.  Critics complained of the 1930s silent-film arm-waving and static out-front poses (which, not incidentally, meant they were facing the prompt box) which were all that most of the singers could muster by way of ‘acting’.  Honourable exceptions again:  Wotan and Fricka in their confrontations;  Wotan and Brünnhilde (mostly) in theirs;  the character of Mime;  and once again the magnificently sung and acted Alberich (Nikolai Putilin:  Gergiev tries to make the enterprise survivable by double-casting principal roles on different nights, but Putilin got to sing all the Alberichs).

So I’m sorry, Mr Gergiev – you do need a director.  Please, engage someone who has a sense of theatre and some decent operatic experience, and a grasp of the broad picture:  David Freeman would have been good, as would David Pountney or Francesca Zambello (but please, Francesca, no supers).  Even Graham Vick or Peter Hall, who knows?  John Cox?  John Copley?

And don’t tour this production on no rehearsals (it was beyond belief that it has already been seen around the world, in the Far East, the USA and Europe, including Cardiff);  I know for a fact that at Covent Garden only Rheingold had a complete play-through, and the other three received only technical rehearsals with piano or brief top-and-tail sessions with the orchestra (and the Brünnhilde was asking the director how she should act the final scene of Götterdämmerung only two hours before the show started;  had she really never done it before?). 

And although the orchestra played their hearts out – (amazing brass and woodwind sounds particularly, but the short-measure strings were sometimes scrawny, and Wagner’s six harps would have been nice rather than two, which used to be all very well for the old Sadler’s Wells tours but is inexcusable for a major international company) – ensemble was understandably not always as precise as it should have been.  (As one of the reviewers tactfully put it, ‘The players did not seem to have this music in their blood’.) 

Gergiev’s conducting, despite occasional manic bursts of exciting fast tempi, tended towards the slow if not downright catatonic.  So often the music almost ground to a halt, with one broken phrase after another limping along between pauses – which cannot work unless you have a John Tomlinson, or dare I say Bryn Terfel, to carry a long line at such a dangerously slow pace.

I could go on, but you get the idea, especially if you have read the reviews.  Please, Mr G, don’t try this again, at least not until it has been decently directed and rehearsed.  It was really an insult to put this shambles on the stage of one of the world’s great opera houses and expect to get away with it. 

Oh, and it’s also an insult to stretch your intervals, late starts and slow tempi so that the evening ends almost an hour later than advertised – with the result that people missed their trains, audience members (including us!) had their interval dining arrangements messed up, and one ROH usher was mugged on the way home because it was so late.

What a pity.  Expectations were so high, and it could have been so good.  No use telling Valery Gergiev to slow down and take more time to put a decent show together (as Wotan says, ‘How can I stop a rolling wheel?’);  but maybe the promoters, Victor and Lillian Hochhauser, could think twice before taking so much money off so many unsuspecting punters to import this appalling mess. 

Wagner’s music (and what amazing things there are, especially in Götterdämmerung!) deserves better, and gets it in just about any other production than this one.  A depressing and infuriating experience. 

BOO!!

photo by Natasha Razina, borrowed from The Independent – thanks!

The one consistent thing that you can say about this ring is that it is inconsistent, and that inconsistency continued to the very end.  Were any threads tied together?  Nope.  Did the production come together, in the way that Keith Warner’s Covent Garden Ring did?  Nope.  Did we expect it to?  Not really.

So, starting at the beginning:  the Norns were dressed Woodbird-style with beaded head-dresses and meadered around with those dancer-types rolling around their feet connecting what looked like garden hose with some funny-shaped implements threaded on to it.  The timings when the rope snapped were miserably handled.  “Es ris!”  Indeed it did.  Then we come to the new Brunnhilde and Siegfried, and again a mixed picture.  Larisa Gogolevskaya’s mezzo-ish vocal qualities, interesting and not unattractive in quieter and lower-lying passages, became horribly unwieldy and sounded worryingly strained in more declamatory moments.  Whilst she was an improvement on yesterday’s Brunnhilde, by the time she’d sent Siegfried on his travels I couldn’t help wondering if she would make it to the end.  Siegfried (Viktor Lutsyuk) was on a par with yesterday’s, which was a pleasant diversion from some of the other things going on around him.  What he lacked (comparatively) in acting commitment, he made up for with a slightly easier voice for the higher-lying passages, sounding more fully the Heldentenor.

Waltraute was Thursday’s Brunnhilde (!) and the comparisons between the two in their great confrontation scene were unfortunate.  Olga Savova’s narration of Wotan’s preparation for the end of Walhalla was dramatically intense and finally it felt like something was catching fire.  That sense of growing drama was built upon in the Gunther/Gutrune/Hagen scene that follows.  All three singers – Evgeny Nikitin, Elena Nebera, Mikhail Petrenko respectively – were vocally and dramatically up to the standards that the Covent Garden stage has come to expect and it made for an unexpected highpoint in what can sometimes be a rather dragging domestic drama.  And speaking of dragging, they had to put up with some quite bizarre costumes.  Basically, Hagen, Gunther and their menfolk appeared to be wearing autumnal Laura Ashley dresses [see below].  But even that couldn’t detract from some good singing and acting. 

Brunnhilde rose reasonably well to her altercation with Siegfried in Gunther disguise (although confusingly looking just like Siegfried so maybe the Tarnhelm’s powers are fading).  In fact, she was an energetic performer which got round some of the vocal shortcomings.  As we emerged from the interval, the disappointments of the Prologue were behind us and things were set fair for a positive experience.

Nikolai Putilin has been a consistent performer throughout and got a much-deserved rousing cheer from the audience, and his scene with Hagen was indeed very effective, leading into the return of Siegfried and the summoning of the vassals.  It would be too much to expect any detailed acting or characterisation from the chorus, and sure enough they milled about, formed lines across the front of the stage to face Gergiev and sang in a lusty but not particularly accurate way.  The act continued with a tense and effectively played oath and plot to kill Siegfried, with Brunnhilde finding a dramatic thrust to compensate for some rather wild pitching and some growling declamations.  We left for the long interval in reasonably buoyant spirits.

The Rhinemaiden/Siegfried scene was efficiently done, and then the real highpoint was Siegfried’s death.  Some really classy singing, I thought, and real dramatic pathos, most particularly immediately following the stabbing.  So far, then, so good(ish).  But hereafter it all went a bit wrong.  Siegfried’s Funeral March started atmospherically and that real sense of the significance of what has happened in dramatic terms began to build.  Two things then slightly marred the experience:  Gergiev’s approach to the music became hurried and lost the sense of majesty that is needed.  All the while, there was the most flaccid meandering about going on on the stage, with bodies unceremoniously cleared off stage and Siegfried paraded around, then put into a pointy boat and paraded around again before being put in the middle for the immolation scene.  Slightly frustrating, but nothing compared to what was about to happen.  The Gutrune/Gunther/Hagen squabble was well-realised, but Brunnhilde managed to come onto the stage about two lines too late, so projected surtitles heralded that something was supposed to be being said, she arrived up the steps at the back of the stage just as the surtitles said “I’ve heard children crying over spilt milk but no laments for a hero”, the prompter audibly shouted “Kinder!” and the line was duly delivered…  oh blimey.

New Yorkers: How about that thunderstorm last night?!  My boyfriend and I woke up to these huge claps of that set off car alarms.  Long Island City must have been towards the centre, as the lightning was striking in tandem with the thunder, too.  Talk about a polyphonic spree…  Before veering totally off-topic, I will rein myself in, but I do want to say that the weather was a big reason for our move back to NY from LA.  There is nothing like a good East Coast summer thunderstorm (or, thinking ahead, the first good snowstorm).  LA’s weather?  Earthquakes, Floods/Mudslides, and Fires.  It’s like living in Götterdämmerung, except no one there has HEARD of Götterdämmerung.  At least during a pretty standard rainstorm, someone in New York is thinking of Rossini’s storm music from Barbiere di Siviglia…

I actually didn’t listen to an opera today, because the next opera (after Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo) is Monteverdi’s L’Arianna (1608).  Apart from about 10 minutes of aria (now known as Arianna’s Lament, or “Lasciatemi morire”), it hasn’t survived.  Which is a bummer because the next Monteverdi opera comes 32 years later.  Mind the gap, as they say on the Tube.  So do I count it as an opera, or do I pass it over because it’s not complete?

While debating this, I listened to about 20 versions of Lasciatemi on YouTube, including one by yodeler, source of my pre-teen romanticism, and apparent opster Jewel.  Yes, “My-hands-are-small-I-know-Who-will-save-your-soul” Jewel.

Seriously?  Seriously.

I listened to a really out-of-sorts version by Corelli, who (in tandem with the rather flushed out orchestra) made it sound more like a long-lost Puccini aria, a winning albeit shortshortshort version by Anne Sofie von Otter (who also yodels–she and Jewel should team up!), and probably the most complete version by Anna Caterina Antonacci (our lady of the hot CD covers).  It sounds best in Antonacci’s chocolatey not-quite-soprano, not-quite-mezzo.  In fact, her voice is as wily and enigmatic as the piece–packing a punch in the time frame but concealing a greater whole.  The brief remains of L’Arianna gave me a tremendous opportunity to compare and contrast a slew of recordings, which in turn shows how malleable a supposedly rigid singing style (that of on-the-cusp Baroque) can be and still be effective to the audience.  It also gave me time to reflect on Antonacci, who according to The Times is happy to be out of the reflection pool usually taken up by the Netrebkos and Villazons.

Maybe it’s that we’re both Bolognese, but I really dig her and her ethos as the sort of indie chick in opera.  The paring down of the Opera Singer (capital letters), the stripping of diva-dom, may hurt marketers in some ways–a name is a big seller–but in other ways it can be a good card to have–a name is also a pressure to some, a feeling of being outside the cult.  Until he started working for the Met, my boyfriend didn’t know who Renee Fleming was (I know, he was lucky).  He  raised on Glimmerglass Opera, a house that champions young artists and unknowns and consistently churns out stunning productions and stellar casts.  Antonacci would have fit right in had she been an Italian/American who grew up in Brooklyn.

Not everyone needs to be a diva or divo, these indie darlings who remain off-radar either by choice or as a side effect of over-saturation may (like so many restaurants in my nabe) look like nothing on the outside but turn you on your ear once you get in.  It’s hard for them to become overrated because they’re so under-rated.  But for the intellectual opsters, those who go to BAM with a copy of The Economist tucked under their arms or listen to Mendelssohn while hunting down the best pink lady apples at the Greenmarket (think Woody Allen’s characters from the 70s and 80s getting life today, which is also ironically what his next movie is sort of about), this could be just what they’re looking for.

And all that from 10 rather obscure minutes…

Das Bühnenbild gibt schon erste Aufschlüsse: Die “Götterdämmerung“, der letzte Teil der Tetralogie des Wagnerschen “Rings” spielt immer noch vor Wandfragmenten, die mit Pyramidenschaumstoff beklebt sind, allerdings ist ihr Zustand eher bemitleidenswert. Es geht bergab.

Der Rest der Bühne ist wie immer vollgestellt mit Dingen, die – mehr oder weniger dem Alltag entrissen – zur Tonerzeugung dienen.

Kaminski und seine drei Mitstreiter betreten die Bühne, richten sich auf dem wenigen Platz ein, den die Bühne ihnen läßt und dann geht es ab. Die Nornen spinnen am Schicksalsseil und das dies nicht ohne Opfer bleiben wird, hört man sofort, denn bei den mit der E-Gitarre erzeugten Tönen rollen sich einem schier die Fußnägel auf.

Gunther, der Gelangweilte sowie Gutrune die Ehrgeizige werden von Hagen, dem Intriganten mit den langen Fingernägeln, dazu angestachelt die frische Beziehung zwischen Siegfried und Brünhilde zu zerstören. Mittels Zaubertrank gelingt dies auch und Hagen wirbt mit Unterstützung des gedächtnislosen Sigfrieds um Brünhilde und Gutrune hat den jungen, schönen, starken Helden schon längst um den Finger gewickelt. Der Doppelhochzeit steht nun nichts mehr im Wege, läßt man die wehklagende Brünhilde mal außen vor. Wotan knurrt kettenrasselnd seine Zustimmung. Dann nimmt das Schicksal seinen Lauf und das Ende kommt unaufhaltsam. Die Götter gehen unter und die restlichen Protagonisten ums Leben.

Selbst in der letzten Reihe der Kammerspiele – die sich dadurch auszeichnet, daß kein Lüftchen der Klimaanlage sie jemals erreicht – sitzt man gebannte 1,5 Std um das Zusammenspiel von Text, Musik, Klang und nicht zuletzt der mimischen Darstellung von S. Kaminski zu verfolgen. Er läßt sämtliche Personen vor den Augen des Publikums entstehen und ist sich dabei für nix zu schade. Und das macht einfach nur Spaß. Nicht zuletzt auch wegen seiner Mitspieler, die zwar optisch kaum in Erscheinung treten, die aber für einen Klangteppich sorgen, ohne den die ganze Vorstellung nur halb so beeindruckend wäre.

Kaminski on Air – “Götterdammerung” / gesehen im Deutschen Theater Berlin – Kammerspiele am 29.04.09.

dedicato al raffinato Giovanni C. ed al Maestro Roberto O. amici di Facebook e non solo.

DOMENICA 26 APRILE PROVA GENERALE DI
GOTTERDAMMERUNG
(IL CREPUSCOLO DEGLI DEI)
La quarta e ultima delle quattro opere che costituiscono la tetralogia
L’anello del Nibelungo di
RICHARD WAGNER

Questa rappresentazione rimarrà nella storia.

Il connubio tra Wagner, Zubin Mehta, l’Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino e i catalani della Fura dels Baus ha toccato apici di assoluta eccellenza.
Dopo aver assistito alla Prova Generale del Crepuscolo degli Dei si ha la netta sensazione di aver partecipato a qualcosa di epocale.
Alla fine ovazioni per tutti gli interpreti ed una vera e propria delirante ovazione per Zubin Mehta.

Il pubblico della Prova Generale è molto competente (non considerate me).
Non si avvertiva infatti nessuna patinata sensazione di prima teatrale, ma solo una grande crescente passione musicale che ha coinvolto tutti ed ha avuto in Mehta il suo profeta.
Il Maggio Musicale Fiorentino proporrà nel mondo questa importante opera.
Il Maggio Musicale Fiorentino attraverso quest’opera promuove in maniera esclusiva l’immagine dell’Italia nel mondo.
Questi Enti, per ringraziamento, stanno subendo la peggiore indifferenza delle Istituzioni, mettendo in forse tutta la loro programmazione. Un delitto.
Le scenografie della Fura dels Baus sono geniali e si amalgamano in un tutt’uno con la musica di Wagner mirabilmente eseguita dai Maestri del Maggio.
L’insieme esprime a meraviglia il concetto mitologico di Wagner che si percepisce come esasperata espressione dell’umanità desiderosa di riscatto dal suo ammaloramento quotidiano.

Mercoledì 29 Aprile la Prima.

Verrà trasmessa in diretta dalle ore 18:00 su Rai Tre.

Cliccate qui se volete avere informazioni più dettagliate sul calendario delle recite —>>>

Facile prevedere un enorme successo.

Sigfrid è stata la precedente opera frutto della collaborazione tra Zubin Mehta, il Maggio Musicale Fiorentino e la Fura dels Baus.
Questo lo speciale dedicato da Rai tre.

IL MAGGIO MUSICALE FIORENTINO PER L’ABRUZZO —>>>

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“Absolutely absurd,“ stated Josef Pröll, Austria’s Finance Minister of the conservative ÖVP on Apr. 15 when confronted with the controversial remark by 2008 Nobel Prize Laureate and Princeton University economics professor Paul Krugman with regards to the possibility of Austria’s bankruptcy.

Krugman’s provocative statement with regards to the impact of the financial crisis on Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) at the Foreign Press Club in New York on Apr. 13 sparked high-profile responses and anger in Austria.

When responding to the question of high exposure of Eastern European debt by Austrian banks, and whether that might lead the country into bankruptcy, Krugman responded directly.

“Now it’s a tiny one, it’s Iceland, but that just shows that it can happen, even to advanced countries. Ireland looks pretty bad because of large financial exposure. And Austria would probably be my third candidate in those leads.”

And the New York Times columnist delights himself in his blog two days later of having created a stir by just stating the obvious.

Evidently, Krugman’s comment has revived a debate of the past month when media reports, such as by the Austrian daily Die Presse (‘When, exactly, will Austria go into bankruptcy?’), circulated, sparked by concerns of high account deficits in the CEE countries.

Austria’s banks (not including Bank Austria and Hypo Alpe Adria as foreign-owned), Pröll clarified, have lending exposures in the CEE area of about EUR 200bn – approx. 70% of Austria’s GDP – but they are apposed to savings deposited of 85% of that amount.

The Finance Minister also dismissed the scenario of a complete deficiency of lending, but rather estimates that 10% might have to be bailed-out. The latter seems inevitable, as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) estimated already in February 2009, that bad debts are likely to exceed 10% of lending in the CEE countries.

Indeed, the severe financial troubles of Austria’s neighbours highlights the huge investment Austria’s banks did since the 1990s in the CEE countries. They are the exposed of all financial institutions invested in the area, led by Raiffeisen with 54% of its risk-weighted assets, and Erste Bank Group (38%).

Evidently Josef Pröll set off for a ‘face-list’ trip to Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and the Ukraine in mid-February promoting the Austrian government’s proposal for a financial stability pact for the CEE countries.

However, Pröll’s good-will tour sparked fresh concerns for the Austrian financial sector. The Romanian online business magazine Wall-Street consequently titled on Feb. 17 ‘Romania can drive Austria to meltdown.‘ At the same time, Austria’s daily Der Standard estimated that 10% failure of CEE lending would lead to crash of the Austrian financial sector.

Not surprisingly, the rescue plan failed to convince the other EU members, as it seemed motivated by Austria’s self-interest only.

Krugman’s pointed comment therefore, might be exaggerated as Austria’s bankruptcy seems unlikely at this stage, but has a valuable point: The European governments should not dismiss nor underestimate the effect a widespread financial collapse of financial institutions inevitably has when the CEE countries are not stabilized.

If this part of the financial crisis is mishandled, Daily Telegraph columnist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard predicts a “debacle (that) is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.”

Austria would then certainly play the leading role.

Wer zu einer Robert Wilson Inszenierung geht, der weiß, was ihn erwartet: ein Fest des Manierismus, ein Artefakt, dem jeglicher Bezug auf eine wie auch immer geartete ‚Wirklichkeit’, jeder Hinweis auf eine konkrete Zeit fern liegen. Es gibt kein Bühnenbild, nur Lichtschattierungen und Lichtbalken. Es gibt mit Ausnahme der für die Handlung unentbehrlichen Gegenstände wie Hagens Speer oder Siegfrieds Schwert und Tarnhelm praktisch keine Requisiten. Und Speer bzw. Schwert und Tarnhelm tragen die beiden Gegenspieler gleichsam wie materialisierte Leitmotive ständig mit sich herum. Die Kostüme sind lange Gewänder, die an mönchische Kutten erinnern. Gestik und Bewegung sind bis in die kleinsten Regungen durchstilisiert und ritualisiert. Auf der Bühne agieren keine Menschen, sondern Wesen aus einer fernen unbestimmten Urzeit oder vielleicht auch Untote, die ihre Leidenschaften, von denen die Musik erzählt, verhalten und rituell, im Wissen um ihr auswegloses Geschick  und gleichsam innerlich unbeteiligt, noch einmal nachspielen, auf einer Bühne, auf der sie durch die Lichteffekte immer wieder zu Scherenschnittfiguren werden:  Schattenrisse aus dem Totenreich.

Und da ist es nur konsequent, dass ein bleicher Siegfried nicht als „Held“ bei den Gibichungen hereinstürmt, sondern wie eine Geistererscheinung aus der Unterwelt aufsteigt, dass sich Brünnhilde im Finale wieder auf die Grabplatte legt, auf der sie Siegfried einst gefunden hatte und dass das Feuer, das die Götterburg erfassen soll, eher an  das Feuer eines Krematoriums erinnert. Götterdämmerung als Totenweihefest. Einen Neuanfang, mag die Musik ihn auch im Finale suggerieren, gibt es bei Wilson nicht. Oder vielleicht doch? Verweisen die Todesriten, in die Regie, Bühnenbild und Lichtgestaltung die Götterdämmerung transformiert haben, vielleicht auf altägyptischen Totenkult? Vielleicht auf Isis und Osiris?  Ich weiß es nicht.

Wir haben in den letzten Jahren die Götterdämmerung als Fantasy- und Märchenspektakel, als Metatheater und Traumtheater, als Parodie der Tragödie, als Military Show und Rockeroper, als Zitatenkonglomerat aus Film, Malerei und Literatur gesehen. Nichts von alledem findet sich bei Wilson. Ob das Zürcher Publikum die realitätsfernen, zeitlosen Mysterienspiele, die Wilson Manier mag? Ich weiß es nicht. Nach der zweiten Pause lichteten sich die Reihen. Ob man nun Wilson mag oder nicht. Das Zürcher Orchester unter Philippe Jordan spielte einen wahrhaft hinreißenden Wagner.

WAGNER.GOTTERDAMMERUNG (EL OCASO DE LOS DIOSES)

FIL. BERLIN.KARAJAN. LINKS EN 13

Helge Briliot
Thomas Stewart
Zoltan Kelemen
Karl Ridderbusch
Helga Dernesch
Gundula Janowitz
Christa Ludwig

Die Woche beginnt gut.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard vom Telegraph lässt die Sau heraus.
Er verwendet in einem knappen Artikel diese Ausdrücke über unsere Zukunft:

• Weltweiter Zusammenbruch
• Akute Gefahrenstelle
• Götterdämmerung (Er verwendet dieses deutsche Wort)
• Kollaps des österreichischen Finanzsektors
• monetäres Stalingrad
• Osteuropa platzt.
• Das tödliche Feuer kommt näher

Implizit fordert er in seinem Artikel, dass Deutschland blechen soll. Deutschland soll zahlen. Geld lockermachen. Das es nicht hat. Über den Weg von Euroanleihen soll das Land, dass noch am meisten Zaster hat, für die ultraüblen Schulden anderer Länder einstehen. Er schreibt wörtlich “We’ll see about that.” “Das werden wir noch sehen.” Recht hat er.
Denn

1. Sind die von ihm selbst genannten Summen viel zu hoch als dass Deutschland sie zahlen könnte.
2. Würden die Wähler wohl etwas dazu sagen, könnte man meinen.

Hier ist der Artikel:

Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown

The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.

*From every ending comes a new beginning.*

Ragnarok (“Doom of the Gods”), also called Gotterdammerung, means the end of the cosmos in Norse mythology. It will be preceded by Fimbulvetr, the winter of winters. Three such winters will follow each other with no summers in between. Conflicts and feuds will break out, even between families, and all morality will disappear. This is the beginning of the end.

The wolf Skoll will finally devour the sun, and his brother Hati will eat the moon, plunging the earth [into] darkness. The stars will vanish from the sky. The cock Fjalar will crow to the giants and the golden cock Gullinkambi will crow to the gods. A third cock will raise the dead.

The earth will shudder with earthquakes, and every bond and fetter will burst, freeing the terrible wolf Fenrir. The sea will rear up because Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, is twisting and writhing in fury as he makes his way toward the land. With every breath, Jormungand will stain the soil and the sky with his poison. The waves caused by the serpent’s emerging will set free the ship Naglfar, and with the giant Hymir as their commander, the giants will sail towards the battlefield. From the realm of the dead a second ship will set sail, and this ship carries the inhabitants of hell, with Loki as their helmsman. The fire giants, led by the giant Surt, will leave Muspell in the south to join against the gods. Surt, carrying a sword that blazes like the sun itself, will scorch the earth.

Meanwhile, Heimdall will sound his horn, calling the sons of Odin and the heroes to the battlefield. From all the corners of the world, gods, giants, dwarves, demons and elves will ride towards the huge plain of Vigrid (“battle shaker”) where the last battle will be fought. Odin will engage Fenrir in battle, and Thor will attack Jormungand. Thor will victorious, but the serpent’s poison will gradually kill the god of thunder. Surt will seek out the swordless Freyr, who will quickly succumb to the giant. The one-handed Tyr will fight the monstrous hound Garm and they will kill each other. Loki and Heimdall, age-old enemies, will meet for a final time, and neither will survive their encounter. The fight between Odin and Fenrir will rage for a long time, but finally Fenrir will seize Odin and swallow him. Odin’s son Vidar will at once leap towards the wolf and kill him with his bare hands, ripping the wolf’s jaws apart.

Then Surt will fling fire in every direction. The nine worlds will burn, and friends and foes alike will perish. The earth will sink into the sea.

After the destruction, a new and idyllic world will arise from the sea and will be filled with abundant supplies. Some of the gods will survive, others will be reborn. Wickedness and misery will no longer exist and gods and men will live happily together. The descendants of Lif and Lifthrasir will inhabit this earth.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/ragnarok.html

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La película de Luchino Visconti, que toma el nombre de la última entrega de la tetralogía wagneriana del anillo (Götterdammerung), resigue un fragmento tormentoso de la historia de Alemania –desde el incendio del Reichstag por los propios nazis, como excusa para hacer “limpieza” de los opositores políticos, hasta un poco más allá de “la noche de los cuchillos largos” (cuando Hitler decidió barrer a las camisas pardas de la SA, para favorecer el ejército y las SS, anticipando el inminente asalto a Europa).

Una limpieza a la nazi

Esto, por si sólo, ya es motivo para conocer esta película. Pero hay mucho más. Con humor, macabro si queréis, digo que esta película tiene de todo:

• Una gran, rica y poderosa, familia de industriales que es como un nido de serpientes (con el poder de la fábrica como sillón que todos –directa o veladamente- ambicionan).
• La descomposición y desmembración de “la familia” mediante traiciones, engaños, asesinatos,…

Ingrid Thulin & Dirk Bogarde

• Padres autoritarios frente a hijos artísticos, a los que imponen su voluntad con la consecuente humillación, y creciente odio y resentimiento.
• Un hijo con complejo edípico (literalmente, nada de florituras poéticas: ¡incesto!) que siente atracción por las niñas (¡lolicon!)
• Suicidios, asesinatos, fusilamientos,… y ¡nazis!

El monstruo

• Y para los más románticos, una siniestra boda (esto sí es “la novia cadáver”).

Un símil evidente a la boda de Hitler y Eva

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Die Ärzte, Wizo-Nachband 1995, wurden 1997 mit einem Tribute-Sampler geehrt, auf dem relativ namhafte Vertreter  verschiedener Genres Liedchen der Berliner coverten. Wizo coverten den “lame hippie song” (so später im Booklet der “Kraut und Rüben”) “Anneliese Schmidt“.