Winterreise conversation with Joyce DiDonato and Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Audience/artist conversation with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Joyce DiDonato, following their premiere performance of Schubert’s Winterreise on December 13, 2018, at the Folly Theater, Kansas City, MO. Conversation moderated by Harriman-Jewell Series director Clark Morris. www.hjseries.org

[@frogmouth]

I would be fascinated . I love Schreier Hotter Fischer Dieskau and then Fassbaender, Stutzmann Christa Ludwig. I can't imagine Joyce doing it but I admire very much her devotion to story telling and getting to know the text in such detail so I hope it is recorded some time.

[@brettgoulding2613]

It will be amazing to hear the collaboration of these two Twitter Icons.

[@helenespierman151]

Looking forward to hearing this extraordinary collaboration next December 15 at Carnegie Hall!

[@ciociosan]

"If I have a key to the city I'd give it to you. But I don't have one; not that I'm bitter." 🤣

[@renzo6490]

There is something archetypal about the figure of the Hurdy-Gurdy Man. I recognize him as an image first encountered in my childhood. His origin is Eastern Europe. Why do I think he might be Jewish? The Fiddler on The Roof. The Rag Picker. The Outcast The Stranger among us who has looked upon things we all shy away from and so, we shy away from him all the while knowing he has something wise and terrible to teach us. Someone recently said to me that more than being loved, we need to feel that we belong. I thought about that and it feels right ! Family, Religion, Nation, City Class Sexual orientation Local Sports Team College Fraternity Political party These are things we belong to. We support them. We exalt them. We defend them. We oppose those who attack them. We feel elated when another member of our tribe succeeds. What does it feel like when we belong to no group? Who among us does not belong to any group? The beggar. The homeless The elderly living alone. The black man in a white world. The mis-shapen The grotesque. This is the Hurdy Gurdy man.....the Leiermann The one we fear because he lives our greatest nightmare. But when we are dying we feel the ultimate alone-ness. We are alive but no longer belong to the world of the living. Perhaps Schubert, who was dying when he wrote this, was making common cause with the Leiermann. Outcasts... together. " May I come along? Will you play my song ?"

[@suzannederringer1607]

Interesting that Joyce is doing this as the Girl whose parents rejected the Dude, as I've always called him. She's reading his Notebook and looking back. I think that works for a female Singer. I always took the same approach to DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN - This is the young Girl's Fantasy of how she would make her Young Man suffer even to the point of killing himself. Girls can be cruel. The young Apprentice may not even have been interested in her but he's the New Kid on the Block and she's daydreaming about a Tragic Love Affair in which he's so unhappy that she won't be his Sweetheart that he kills himself. But I don't believe the Dude kills himself. He's REALLY angry and hurt and bitter and despairing but he comes out of it at the end. Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar. The Organ Grinder is the first living person the Dude connects with as he's coming back to Reality.

[@jotge.3444]

I love them because they a wonderful. But for me the only interpreter of this opus is Fischer-Dieskau.

[@carlosurbanejasilva1881]

The only? Let's not overdo it.

[@frogmouth]

Roman Trekel, Peter Schreier, Hans Hotter, jonas Jaufmann Nathalie Stutzmann, Brigitte Fassbaender, Alice Coote, Christa Ludwig not to mention their wonderful accompanists.( Gerald Moore, Inge Södergren, Sviatoslav Richter, Eisenlohr, Deutsch. There is no such thing as a definitive or best performance. Everytime I listen I discover something new.

[@nursebridgie]

Thomas Quasthoff tho