Jet'Dillo

Mrs. Jetdillo and I will be doing a stopover in Munich on March 7th 2009.
We'll be heading back from Trieste(TRS) the morning of the 7th, spending the day/night, leaving for SFO the next morning.

I was going to take her to see the "Falstaff" performance that night at the Bayerische Staatsoper as a special treat(We are aware the performance will be in Italian with German subtitles).
What's appropriate dress for an event like that ?
Is suit and tie adequate or are you expected to dress more formally ?

Our general plan after getting into MUC I think was to check into the hotel, drop off our things and then roam around the city for a bit before heading back to change for dinner and the performance.

If you have a favorite restaurant you'd like to recommend for that evening, we'd love to hear about that too.

Mit vielen dank,
JD

LH7119

The Nationaltheater (the big opera house) is an elegant theatre and requires
elegant dress (compared to Berlin where nobody gives a hoot if you turn up in jeans). As it is not a first-night and not the opera festival in July dress-codes
are mixed.
Depending on your likings for food there are two popular places for Bavarian
food opposite the opera house: Spatenhaus and Franziskaner. They cater
mainly for the after-performance crowds. Both are expensive and so-so.
If you want to go, have your hotel reserve a table. The best addresses for
Bavarian and international food are around the (as strange as it may sound) the Hofbraeuhaus, where the *rated Mr Schuhbeck has a bistro and a restaurant. Hofbraeuhaus is within walking distance of the opera.
The bistro is very highly rated and reservations a must. If you want it very
elegant take the bistro at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten (one block from the opera) which recovered from its previous slump.
If you do not wish to have supper so late try the restaurant within the
Nationaltheater (basement) and make a reservation before the performance
or for the interval.
Enjoy your stay !

LH7119

P.S.
Your performance starts at 7pm and ends at 10pm with two intervals
(see Bayerische.staatsoper.de).
If you want to dine at the operahouse or order drinks for the intervals
the contact numbers are 49-89/894168810 and 8929160704.

Non-NonRev

I "generally" concur that the Nationaltheater is probably the dressiest of the major houses in Germany. My last performance there was about a year ago, a standard (non-premier) performance of 'Il Turco in Italia', and while most males (especially those older gentlemen) were in dark suits, there were still many audience members that were not in "corporate drag", myseld among them - I felt quite comfoertable in my wool slacks and dressy dark shirt (no suit coat and especially no tie - I only wear them when absolutely mandatory).

On that same trip, I attended three other new production premiers (in Berlin (Staatsoper), Stuttgart and Essen), and did not feel self-conscious wearing the same type of clothing as above. I had plenty of company who were not dressed to the 'neuns'

This does not discount the fact that there are some places where a dress code really in enforced, such as at LaScala (in the stalls/orchestra, at least). And I did attend a few San Francisco Opera opening nights back at the end of the Kurt Herbert Adler administration, going all the way and wearing white tie and tails.

Non-NonRev

Re: Falstaff: Sounds like an interesting cast. I like Soltesz (he conducted the premier in Essen that I attended last year) and Harteros is absolutely top casting. Maestri, although not that old, has been doing the role for a number of years, including the 2001 performances at Bussetto that marked the 100-year anniversery of Verdi's death. A snippet of that performance is available on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioJ97SsT_Q

It looks like it is an updated production.


(I was lucky enough to hear the 1982 Los Angeles Philharmonic production of Falstaff under the great Carlo Maria Giulini, a cherished memory for me).

Globaliser

Does this mean that the opera festival is more dressy than normal?

We're going to a show at the Nationaltheater on a Saturday night next month, during the festival. We were hoping not to have to bring smart clothes. But I don't want to do the wrong thing.

Any help with what we (man + woman) should be wearing would be much appreciated.

Non-NonRev

Globaliser,

Since I've not been to the Nationaltheater during Festival time, I e-mailed a friend who is a native of the area (although he now lives in NYC) and who regularly attends many of the summer European festivals. Here is his response:

The dress codes, which really don't exist as they used (to) are a bit less formal then in the past but many visitors still wear long evening dresses or smoking (black tie) for the men. Since it is not a premiere or Wagner or Strauss (which also tend to be more dressy) I would think they could get away with a short fancy cocktail dress and dark suit for the man. Really dressy are the openings in all three places.

(Note: The reference to "all three places" concerned Salzburg and Bayreuth).

This seems to concur with the information that LH7119 previously provided.

What are you going to see? The "Figaro" and the "Elisir" are fairly staid productions, but Stephen Kimming's production of Don Giovanni is NOT traditional, in any sense of the word

Globaliser

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to ask for me! That's a great help for planning.

We're going to see Tosca. I was intrigued by the idea of Karita Mattila singing it, and we decided that seeing her in Munich was easier than going to NYC (both for distance and date clash reasons). She'd better not go sick! We organised this before discovering that she's singing Tosca here in London next season. But it also gives us a good excuse to go and see some friends who live just outside Munich.

Many thanks again - it's much appreciated.

Non-NonRev

OMG!!! Not only are you getting Matilla, you're getting the wondrous Jonas Kaufmann as Cavaradossi. He sang the part at the Met in April for a few performances (opposite Racette, and also with Terfel as Scarpia). I heard the performance that was broadcast on Sirius, and he was stupendously good - some kind soul has posted the "Vittoria!" from that performance on YouTube (audio only):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mlq6pAD7ac

The production is by Luc Bondy - very well-thought-out as to the motivations of the characters and true to the story. Some arch-conservative audience members in New York, who seem to confuse over-the-top scenic opulence with musical drama, were angry over the loss of Zefferelli's massive, super-realistic production, but I feel that Bondy honors the intent of Puccini and the librettists, and of Sardou's original play as well.

Enjoy, and please report back on your return!

Globaliser

Wow! Thank you - really looking forward to it now, and I will certainly report back!

Globaliser

Well, we had a great evening. Some things were slightly unexpected: I had forgotten that the show was being broadcast on a big screen in the square. When we saw the screen and the crowd, we were concerned that it might have been for the football, with Germany playing for third place that evening! But fortunately not. There was a red carpet rolled out down the front steps, as if some celebrities were expected - we didn't see any, but it looked like there were random members of the audience being interviewed for TV. And the relay meant that the cast went to take a bow in the square afterwards, which in turn meant that we got to applaud them at close quarters as they came back in - great to see them close up, if only fleetingly.

I agree with you about the production. The only incongruity was the fact that the rope down which Angelotti abseils at the of the piece beginning is left dangling for a large part of Act I. You would have thought that any sacristan worth his salt would have noticed! And the production doesn't entirely eschew major spectacle, as the Te Deum procession is one of the most ornate I have seen.

We were treated to some great singing. Mattila came over less strongly than I think she can, but I still think she is a great stage performer. However, Kaufmann was superb - even if delivering the second "Vittoria!" whilst rising to his feet from a kneeling position is just showing off. Juha Uusitalo was Scarpia. He has an attractive voice, but it just wasn't right for the role because he couldn't produce any real menace in the singing; relying on his acting ability is OK about only 75% of the time because its flow tends to get wrecked by the injection of some rather camp movements and gestures at times. And Fabio Luisi's conducting was interesting: a few unusual tempi, sometimes more expansive than the singers were expecting, and one falling-apart moment. But he also has some novel and worthwhile insights into the detail of Puccini's orchestral colouring.

We had toyed with the idea of going to eat at Spatenhaus or Franziskaner after the show, as suggested by LH7119. However, we were glad that we didn't follow through on that idea, because we could never have got across the square, and instead snuck back to our hotel around the corner.

Thank you again for the advice about dress, which was absolutely spot on. We only saw a handful of dinner suits, perhaps because it was a baking hot day (up to about 33 degrees C), but most men in the stalls were wearing dark suits with ties, with a number of lighter suits or dark jacket and tie in evidence. Possibly for the same reason, ladies were mostly wearing light mid-length dresses rather than evening gowns. It was a less formal higher up in the house, and there was of course the usual small handful of eccentrics, but we were very glad to have been forewarned and forearmed.

Non-NonRev

Thanks for the great and detailed report! ^

The performance was televised live throughout much of Europe on Arte, the pay satellite channel. That would probably explain the red-carpet arrivals, etc. My fervent hope is that the performance is eventually released on DVD and Blu-Ray (the problem is that the Met may release their version of the Bondy production from last October with Mattila and Marcello Alvarez - Alvarez was good, but pales in comparison to Super-Jonas ). Truth be told, I'd like to have both!

It's funny in that, on my first trip to Rome in 1994, some of my first stops were the locations where the three acts of Tosca were staged. Upon entering the Santa Andrea della Valee (sp?) church, I was disappointed in that Zefferelli's version was MUCH more lavish than the real thing. I apprecated Bondy and his designers' emphasizing human scale - it is a "shabby little shocker", after all!

So glad to hear that Karita ad Jonas were in good voice. Uusitalo apparently is one of those hot-and-cold singers. Last April I heard the Met opening night Fleigende Hollander on Sirius, and he was very "off" - yet in a later performance in the run, also broadcast, he was excellent, one of the best Dutchmen in my experience. But you may be right in pointing out the issue of temperament - what comes so natural to a singing actor like Bryn Terfel must be more difficult for the Finn.

Luisi, as you may have heard, is a very busy man - not only is he scheduled to take over as the Opernhaus Zurich mujsic director next year, he was recently named principal guest conductor of the Met and also music director of the Carlo Felice in Genoa. Many of us in the U.S. are hoping that Luisi gets the Met's music directorship when James Levine decides to step down (Levine's health may dictate that jhe only retain one of his two main jobs, the other being the Boston Symphony directorship). Luisi is versatile, with his Strauss being among the world's best at this time.

BTW, Jonas K. goes from Munich directly into rehearsals for the new Bayreuth 'Lohengrin'. It opens on the 25th of this month - I'll be listening on the 'Net.

Thanks again for your post-mortem report, letting us (vicariously) be there, too.