Bombshell
La Cieca hears that Audra McDonald will sing the role of Kitty Oppenheimer when the Met presents John Adams‘ Dr. Atomic in the 2008-2009 season. La McDonald, it will be remembered, premiered Kitty’s aria “Easter Eve, 1945″ in May 2004 with the New York Philharmonic under Adams’ baton. The versatile songstress is currently in Houston preparing for the March 4 prima of a double bill of La Voix humaine and a new one-woman opera by John Michael LaChiusa entitled Send (who are you? I love you).
Glamour diva Marcella Pobbe stars in this week’s podcast of Giordano’s Fedora on Unnatural Acts of Opera. La Cieca is experimenting with a new web-based player for the podcast on the site; the advantage is that you can select either the current show or else any of the archived shows from a pull-down menu. Do let La Cieca know what you think of this new gadget!
Also new is one of the latest Google Video selections, a performance by Edita Gruberova in the finale of Roberto Devereux from Munich in 2005:
Cura is my cup of what have you–I’d go to see him nude or otherwise. No I guess the Met is not a leader in bring the most talented to the stage, After all, it took forever for Alexandrina Pendatchanska’s teacher Ghena Dimitrova (sp ?) to get there.
I agree about cura, The Samson certainly helped by libido.He’s hot.It was nice to see a Samson who didn’t look like Dalila’s uncle. For once Dalila probably enjoyed the seduction. and callasorphan, your mom certainly got a raw deal at the Met.
Yes paddypig, my mother was royaly screwed by Bing and the Met. 1950s America just was NOT ready for Maria Callas. I became a Callas-fanatic shortly after her debacle with the Met. Needless to say, I suffered much verbal abuse for my adoration of La Callas. BUT she was my mom and I will always love her. (of course, I find it almost ludicrous the admiration now days–”The voice of the century”, etc. That ain’t what they said when she was singing!)
The way EMI releases “new†compilations of Maria you’d swear that she was still ALIVE. Believe me, they make more money off of the Callas name now that she’s dead than they ever made when she was alive and especially when she was still singing. Ah death is such a career enhancer!
Edita Gruberova says in her biography that she doesn’t like to stay in big cities like New York.
Try to find her I Puritani at the Met, she is incredible ! It will certainly never be released, as the tenor missed his top notes and the conductor (Mr Bonynge) is not very good either at this performance.
The Devereux finale is one of my favorite pieces. Her voice is getting a tad patchy, sure, but there has always been a dearth of singers with the courage to “do” something interesting with this kind of music, and while this performance might be a bit over the top histrionically (and the voice a bit under the pitch), I still enjoy listening to someone who is clearly passionately involved in what they’re doing. If this clip had been from a decade or so ago when her voice was a little stronger, it would have been a prime candidate for the “demented” page.
Again darlings you MUST hear and see Alexandrina Pendatchanska in this role. Mother has spoken!
Prick of a thing to sing – yet she did it and the audience certainly loved it. Sure it wasn’t perfection as most live recorded performances aren’t- but if my Mother or sister could sing like that I’d never have left home- give the lady a break – and the wig gets a ten outta ten!
So I managed to find some clips of this Pendachanska on the internet – I had not heard of her until she was mentioned in these postings. I have to say that she is quite fierce in many respects. For my personal taste, I find her vibrato to be a bit too fast, especially when she is singing legato passages. I also gather that she’s very much a singer and I didn’t seem to feel much artistry or passion conveyed in these few clips. The one clip that did strike me as the most impressive was her ‘Bel raggio’ – amazing coloratura and high notes!!
There is a cd of hers that came up on a Bulgarian cd website, they had some very very short clips of her singing – but enough to know that her vibrato is rather quick. My main concern was that the repertoire she chose to sing was quite diverse – both the aria from Onegin and “Il est doux, il est bon” are arias generally reserved for full lyric and dramatic voices – they didn’t offer a sound clip for the Massenet though – who knows, it might be very good.
Ultimately it seems like she belongs and needs to stay in the bel canto repertoire. It comes across as a sizeable voice with alot to offer. I hate to impose too much of a judgement when I really haven’t heard a whole lot of her singing at this point – but what I can say is that I found the things I did hear to be somewhat uninteresting in terms of phrasing and interpretation. Alas, this doesn’t always mean a whole lot – there were PLENTY of great singers of the past who were just great singers and really didn’t quite make it to the status of “artist.” Sad to say, but Franco Corelli was one of those people – and Lord knows I adore him (and his sexy legs)!!!!
Bottom line is that I thank you for introducing her to me and I will keep myself on the lookout for her recordings and performances – she’s got a magnificent instrument!!
I would like to add an addendum:
Just a passing thought concerning the website that contains a few meager clips of this singer (www.bulgariancds.com), there is also some brief commentary about the cd that may be of interest to read. I didn’t read it earlier when I posted my previous entry…but it seems that one individual who commented on that website got a similar flavor of her singing that I did from listening to those clips as well as some other full legnth arias from a personal webpage about her. After reading his commentary, it makes me wonder if those aren’t the exact reasons why she may not have received much of a response from the audience on that DVD that you mentioned, callasorphan. I’d have to watch it to know better.