Mike Richter is at it again, this time producing some very polished DVD presentations of operatic productions that are not available commerically. At only $15 a disc, Image Mogul is practically giving them away. Here’s a clip from one of the more mainstream offerings, a 1978 Don Carlo from La Scala with Placido Domingo and Margaret Price.
Not that La Cieca begrudges Jessye Norman her Grammy Award (she’s pictured celebrating in Tokyo after the ceremonies), but, honestly, what all has La Jess achieved in her lifetime that she should be given a Lifetime Achievement award? Certainly Norman’s has been a very visible and well-publicized career, but when La Cieca talks about a lifetime of achievement (not to mention “monstres sacrés”), she tends to mean performers like Dame Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek. And talk about them La Cieca does, on this week’s “Unnatural Acts of Opera.” The featured opera is Elektra with Mmes. Jones and Rysanek as Elektra and Klytämnestra, respectively. It’s a live performance from the Grand théâtre de Genève, March 10, 1990. The YouTube video also features Elektra. Unnatural Acts of Opera
Alas, La Cieca can’t comment regarding onstage goings on at last night’s Traviata at the Met (her evil twin JJ is writing about the event for Gay City News), but things were pretty gala in the auditorium as well. Representing the Blogosphere was one of the Wellsungs, Jonathan Ferrantelli, a deux with the always charming Greg Freed. Down on orchestra level, La Cieca noted Anna Netrebko deep in conversation with scribe Matthew Gurewitsch. (La Netrebko, it is rumored, will be singing her own Violetta in New York a few seasons hence, though not, perhaps, in the Franco Zeffirelli staging she saw last night. On dit that Peter Gelb plans to import the Willy Decker production from Salzburg.) Aprile Millo, swathed in mink, held court at the base of the pole that bears her name. Noted in her orbit were ten-percenter Neil Funkhouser, NYCO tenor Andrew Drost and Premiere Opera‘s Ed Rosen. And everywhere La Cieca looked, boys, boys, boys, on a cuteness level to rival that of a David Daniels audience. Were they there for Angela Gheorghiu in the title role, or, could scrummy tenor Jonas Kaufmann (left) have something to do with it?
La Cieca’s faithful spy L’incredibile reports from the Met’s Samson prova that Clifton Forbis is “the most committed artist in this role since Jon Vickers,” up to and including singing the Act 1 B-flat full out over the chorus. (“Quite a contrast to Jose Cura‘s attitude.”) It doesn’t hurt, L’inc adds, that Forbis boasts “Popeye forearms” and “acts the role as Peter Grimes-crazy from the get-go.” The juxtaposition of Marina Domashenko‘s “too far back” vocalism with Jean-Philippe Lafont‘s “too far forward” voice results in our informant’s “overwhelming desire to turn up the volume knob on the mezzo.” Maestro Emmanuel Villaume, [...]
From an article on Teresa Berganza‘s website, “Teresa Berganza, canto as expression of a style”: She’s got black eyes and a white simile . . . . Her voice, the subduing voice of Teresa Berganza is something like the invocation of a mystery made accomplice to the shinning of her gaze; a voice full of magic, that isn’t an intention of itself but natural meaning to the service of a sentiment. She insufflates on a song both the ideal lyric purity of a melody and the taking of an existentialist dramatic passion; a voice to and for every vowel; a [...]
“I sang Violetta that year, too! Tony Tommasini said it was the best thing I ever did! They never even broadcast it in the United States! They were too busy giving a big build-up to that crap you were turning out.” Video
The New York Post‘s Clive Barnes is going to blush beet-red when he hears from the publicists (or the lawyers) who handle Placido Domingo. In a review of the Met’s Rigoletto, Barnes refers to PD as “the 72-year-old tenor.” Domingo admits to 65, though some gossips have long sniped that this figure doesn’t add up with the dates of his earliest documented performances. (La Cieca might as well say right now that there are even a few Placidophobes out there who would add, “and they got the ‘tenor’ part wrong too,” but she’s not even going to go near there.) [...]
You would think that La Cieca would climb on her very high horse about the elementary school music theater in Colorado who riled up parents by showing the “Who’s Afraid of Opera?” version of Gounod’s Faust to her students. And certainly some of those parents overreacted in the good old American way. (One mom called the show “a satanic video,” when the real problem is the cheesy production values and Dame Joan Sutherland‘s mushy French diction.) Oddly enough, though, La Cieca is inclined to take a contrarian position on this issue. Even when performed by a Dame Commander of the [...]
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