Originally posted by Maclintick
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The vicar at our local parish church in the 1960s and 70s, where I was a chorister, had the Victorian composer and hymn writer Sir Joseph Barnby as an ancestor."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink -
Because these days it’s an artificial mix so picking up soloists on the main mics just doesn’t work. To be honest even in the old days of minimal micing a soloist would have had an individual mic. - one of those Neumanns that have never been bettered . The ear in the auditorium just “hears “ things differently to a distant mono mic. Or pair . The brain compensates perhaps in terms of aural perception aided by sight.Originally posted by Roger Webb
Yes, that was what I thought - obviously at the beginning of the My Fair Lady sequence, when she walked on in costume she must have miked-up with the head mic....and the chap who 'covered' Freddie M (
) in the Queen 'Rhapsody' ditto - a couple of the choir bits were amazingly effective!....but I noticed Brian May missed one of his cues!....and he admitted as much in the interview after, to his credit - I notice he was playing the guitar made by his father still.....and a wireless system, presumably to his trusty Vox AC30s?!
I was surprised though that the mezzo was close-miked for the Benjamin cantata....she only had a couple of lines to sing and should easily have been able to get over the orchestra and choir at that point.
I thought the BBC engineers did a sterling job considering the complexity of the occasion - apart from forgetting the conductor's mic for her speech - but not for the speech in the first half.....never known the conductor to do one in each half before!
re the conductor - Actually I think she jumped her cue…
Brian was too far back in the mix for me but how many faders are we talking about 50 plus ? there must be a sub mixer helping out. It’s all a bleeding miracle really.Comment
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There were three noisy/drunk/coked-up men just behind me (c. 6th row). One was doing the sobbing, the others appeared to find him immensely amusing. They also sang loudly and tunelessly at any opportunity but especially for Bohemian Rhapsody. I have chosen to think of them as entryist Queen Fans. Audience participation is part of the evening but it helps if you know your limitations.Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View Post
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I finally got round to listening to the "Storm Clouds Cantata" and wish they had put English subtitles when the female vocalist was singing. She had two lines to sing, starting at 2:50, making a total of 45 seconds of music of vocalising out of a 10-minute piece. Yet despite the fact that she was plonked right on the front of the stage, I couldn't understand a word she said, or rather sang. I suppose it was Benjamin's fault for giving the soloist so little to do but they could easily have had a member of the chorus sing those few lines and not subject the soloist to just stand there, gazing out into the auditorium for 9 minutes doing nothing at all!Comment
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It would appear that this irksome trio have provided a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action...Originally posted by duncan View Post
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Thanks Duncan for the on the spot reporting. Sorry to hear you had to put up with it.Originally posted by duncan View PostComment
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Folks might find droll / amusing the presentation of the playlist of this year's LNotP by ORF and by France Musique in their respective languages:
You'll note what ORF omitted in the list from Part 2 (....)
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'Prelude, Fugue and' ?Originally posted by bluestateprommer View PostFolks might find droll / amusing the presentation of the playlist of this year's LNotP by ORF and by France Musique in their respective languages:
You'll note what ORF omitted in the list from Part 2 (....)Comment
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What, what???Originally posted by bluestateprommer View PostFolks might find droll / amusing the presentation of the playlist of this year's LNotP by ORF and by France Musique in their respective languages:
You'll note what ORF omitted in the list from Part 2 (....)Comment
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ORF cut "Bohemian Rhapsody" from the listed roster of works. However, ORF kept "BR" in the actual relay. It is sort of droll to hear a deadpan German-language commentator in the context of the LNoP, isn't it? :)Originally posted by Prommer View Post
Well, for SymphonyCast here in the USA, The Last Night is this week's offering, which makes it the final selection (of nine) from this summer's Proms chosen for US audiences:
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Ah, I see! Thank you.Comment
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One point where I wasn't attentive when I posted the SymphonyCast page link was that Louise Alder got very poor treatment from them, because they cut out all of her contributions to the LNotP except "Rule, Britannia". So no opera / operetta arias, and not even anything from My Fair Lady. There was a practical reason for this (apart maybe from copyright issues with respect to Lerner and Loewe, perhaps), because the SymphonyCast presentations have to stay within a time limit of 2 hours, and the Last Night runs well over two hours even with the interval omitted. So something had to go, and unfortunately, Louise Alder drew the short straw, so to speak.Originally posted by Prommer View Post
As a slight sidebar, LA is set to make her Metropolitan Opera debut in their production of Arabella as Zdenka this month, but I inherently doubt that very many Metropolitan Opera attendees would connect SymphonyCast's truncated version of the LNotP with LA. So it goes. (But at the least, your side of the pond is well represented in this production, with LA, Karen Cargill, and Brindley Sherratt.)Comment
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