Maazel's 1984

(Note: This post has been updated (2) as of 12:58 AM Eastern on 26 May. See below.)

I spent the better part of this afternoon giving a cold and casual listen to the BBC3 Webcast from Covent Garden of Lorin Maazel's new opera, 1984.

I read most of the Brit critical press' coverage of the opera's premier performance, and came away a bit shell-shocked as, in the past two decades or so, I've rarely seen in the mainstream press such vitriol and outright condemnation hurled at a major new work. This opera must surely be one humongous turkey, I thought to myself on reading the reviews. I mean, like, Wow!, a turkey and a half, fer shur.

While I freely confess that a cold and casual listen, and via a Webcast to boot, is no proper way to assess any new work, much less a work as complex as an opera, I came away from that Webcast thinking the Brit critics nothing short of hysterical in their savage assessments of the piece, which assessments I now suspect had less to do with the work per se, and more to do with things political and extra-musical. The opera is, on first hearing at least, nowhere close to being a turkey. True, the music is, for a not insignificant part of its length, derivative, or even imitative, of a half-dozen other composers I could identify. But so what? As with all works of art, the ultimate gestalt is all that matters and all that counts, and in that department 1984 seemed to me, on this first cold and casual hearing at least, to be just dandy, though hardly, or even approaching, a work on the order of a masterpiece such as, say, Peter Grimes.

In this work, I think Mr. Maazel has nothing to be ashamed of.

Nothing at all.

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Update (12:58 AM Eastern on 26 May): To forestall more eMail inquiring what I meant by "cold and casual," cold means I listened to the opera with no preparation whatsoever, and casual means I listened only half-tuned-in, so to speak. It's a technique I've used for more years than I can remember on a first hearing of a CD or radio broadcast of a work new to me, especially a contemporary work. I sort of half-listen while going about my business with other things to see whether something about the work will jump out at me and compel my full attention. Sounds like a crude test, I know, and I suppose it is, but while it's hardly fail-safe, it's astonishing how often it's predictive of my ultimate response to the work on a careful and considered hearing.

Update (7:53 PM Eastern on 25 May): Professional oboist and blogger Patricia Mitchell of Oboeinsight, who also listened to the BBC3 Webcast, has another view of 1984. Needless to say, I disagree with Ms. Mitchell's take, generally, and her,

Oh. Really ugly moment. Bad voice. "Why there's no you ..." in case that tells any of you where I am in the opera. (Am I dissing a great singer? Oh dear. I hope not! It's probably just the poorly written part, similar to Star Wars poorly written dialogue which makes the actors look abominable. Yes?) "I'm so blue without you. So bluuuuuuuue." Bad poetry too. "Tell me why, tell me why ... there's no yoouuuu." Ah. Now we move to the blues. I get it. She's blue so the trumpets play the blues. Got it.

I think, badly misses the point. That old-fashioned, 1950's, dopey pop love ballad she's above making sport of was, I immediately understood, supposed to sound like an old-fashioned, 1950's, dopey pop love ballad. That was the whole point of it given where it comes in the story (the point where, if I was following correctly, the two "sexual criminals," Winston and Julia, confess their Big Brother forbidden, old-fashioned love, vowing never to betray each other).

Or so I understood it.