here's the thing y'all the building is fire architecture and design fire musicians fire etc etc…read moreyes. I came for il trittico by Puccini, one of my faves. Yes, the end of suor Angelica made me cry, haven't seen that kid stunt in another rendition before. I'm completely on board with the modernization of set design, costuming thing that they're introducing, think that's really cool.
HOWEVER, and it's a big, big butt: the sound balance was completely off for me. The singers were amazing, the instrumentalists were amazing, conductor amazing but in the middle of the floor seats you almost couldn't hear the vocalists, esp lower parts of soprano. Bass and tenor parts were mostly fine, don't think there were any alto arias. but man the soprano balance was kind of rough. This could be attributed to a lot of things, I know, but y'all gotta ensure that the listening experience is fire for everyone at that price point. Puccini has such amazing ways of building tension and beauty, and a lot of it was lost for me in this (of course, beautiful) wave of lower strings.
OTHER than that, completely perfect. ensemble skills (timing) perfect, drama and acting perfect, and I quite enjoyed the set and costuming. The neon signs were a little on the nose tho lol.
minor point - what on earth was the fascism thing in Gianni Schicchi it's been two days and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the point of that was. Im all for inserting stuff like that, but don't really know what the sort of purpose was in relation to the story of Gianni schicchi. maybe my media interp skills need to be refined hmm. (does not affect my rating)
9.8/10, unfortunately. came expecting PERFECTION from the Vienna city opera, can't in good conscience give y'all 5/5 when something so big was off for me :(