Morir, si pura e bella?
UPDATE: Not only are Gli Alagni scheduled for Aida at La Scala in 2006 (as noted yesterday), La Cieca has just heard that Peter Gelb has promised them a new production of Carmen at the Met in 2009-10. And, yes, Gheorghiu is the Carmen, not the Micaela. This is all at least four years in the future, so don’t book your tickets yet. Actually, this tidbit could have waited a few days (or years) but La Cieca wanted an excuse to post the scrummy photo of Bobby as Radames. Doesn’t he look like he’s about to say, “My father rules many lands and peoples, and that is why they call me Prince?”
La Cieca has just heard that the honor of opening the 2006 La Scala season will go to Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna, who will grace a new production of Aida. Please let La Cieca be the first to congratulate maestro Riccardo Chailly for persuading these two megastars to take on the roles of the Priestess and the Messenger — now, who do you think he will get for the leads?
The most reliable source of all (i.e., himself) states that a long-term career goal for Rolando Villazon is … Wagner. Don’t panic yet; he’s talking Lohengrin sometime around 2015, as reported at Mouvement Nouveau.
I am sure it will be as glorious as her Tosca excerpt here at the Met (NOT!)
As for Alagna, At the Levine gala, after Alagna sang and then Kraus sang, a friend of mine turned to me and said that Kraus should go back stage, slap Alagna in the face and say to him “never sing anything that I didn’t sing and you will also have a forty year career.”
Piccolo Ftha.
Renee is probably on the phone to Ms. G saying, “Girl, those Scala people are brutal!”
There is something wrong in the world today. And I’m shocked at Maestro Chailly, who normally is very good at choosing voices for his performances and recordings. Either he is losing his mind or some political agenda is working behind the scenes that we don’t know about. I really wish the ‘Love Couple’ would just shut up already! Both voices had (have?) such great potential, but neither are capable of delivering much of worth. Maybe if they stuck to their appropriate fach’s they wouldn’t sound so awful most of the time. I think he’s better than her in alot of ways – I have to say that I did enjoy his recording of Contes d’Hoffman (with my goddess, Natalie Dessay) and neither sound terrible in Romeo et Juiliette – he sounds far better than she – mainly because she has already wrecked her voice beyond conceivable repair! Lord knows, after Aida is through with her, she might never grace an opera stage again! Ahh…I guess I shouldn’t tease so. Well Angela and Roberto, should you find yourselves stuck in that 4th act tomb for the rest of eternity, I’ll make sure that I sing the Trovatore Miserere in your honor…let’s see, I’m scheduled to sing Leonora in….3074…in one of my next lifetimes. Until then!
Every young voice student should be forced to read about singers who “overparted” themselves and lived to regret it.
Perhaps the best story involves Nellie Melba who sang the “Siegfried” Brunhilde with Jean de Reske because she thought he advised her to. People think he had really advised her to sing the Forest Bird with him, not Brunhilde. (This is the same person who, when the Covent Garden audience was rhythmically chanting “Martinelli!”, thought they were changing “Aunti Nelli!”)
Anyway…remember Roberta Knie? Susan Dunn? (Zerlina and Despina should not aspire to be Brunhilde and Aida.)
People should look at careers like Kraus’s and Freni’s and realize that…as Callas is rumored to have told a young soprano…”You sing Norma and you can be a famous Norma for five years. But sing Adalgisa and you can be a famous Adalgisa for forty years.” It might not be true that she said it, but it is true.
Hard to fathom why so many singers choose roles that appear totally wrong by just about anyone else. Can’t they “feel” what’s not natural for them?
Many lyric sopranos have attempted Aida: Freni, Ricciarelli, Tucci, Tebaldi, Mitchell, Gallardo-Domas, even Albanese tried it towards the end of her career. Except possibly for Freni, the role took its toll on all their voices.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s unfair to judge the singers before they’ve actually sung the role. (Something about the benefit of the doubt..?) Looking back it seems to me that just about every singer there’s been has tackled some “wrong” role at one time or another. Ultra-lyric Ferruccio Tagliavini used to sing Tosca. And Alfredo Kraus, that paragon of vocal health, sang in Boito’s “Mefistofele” in Chicago in the mid-1960′s. Surely not a role that one associates with a lyric tenor.
And Rysanekfreak already mentioned what is possibly the best known case: Nelly Melba as the Siegried Brunhilde. To Melba’s credit, however, she sang the role only once, recognized the mistake, and stop singing for a year to recover from the damage inflicted.
ITDG, it’s good to have you back. Thought you had deserted us, just like The Interpolator. I was getting ready to sing “Il tenore e mobile qual piuma al vento…”
[[Please let La Cieca be the first to congratulate maestro Riccardo Chailly for persuading these two megastars to take on the roles of the Priestess and the Messenger -- now, who do you think he will get for the leads?]]
I must admit, that just made me laugh out loud.
I wonder when they’ll take on Tristan und Isolde, probably sometime after Samson and Delilah out of the way.
As the man wrote in Demented, these days miscasting is a fach of its own.
Well, as cute and cuddly as Bobby A looks in his Radames drag, I still prefer Bo Skovhus…or Rodney Gilfrey.
By the way, I recently heard an announcer pronounce it as “Rah-dames,” second syllable rhyming with “games.” Most amusing.
Well, if we don’t want Bobby A singing Radames, what roles should he take on in our humble opinions?
How about Vasco in “L’Africaine”?
Has he done Jean in “Herodiade”?
Ernani?
Stiffelio?
Alagna looks better with his clothes on.