I could go on singing ’til the cows come home
La Cieca has just learned the scheduled roster and repertoire for the Volpe Farewell Gala to be performed on Saturday, May 20 (and, if all this music stays in the show, part of May 21 as well.) Deborah Voigt will open the program with special material by Ben Moore, accompanied by Brian Zeger. The first of the James Levine stand-ins, Valery Gergiev, will then conduct selections from Ruslan and Ludmilla and Tannhaeuser. (Further baton duties for the evening are shared among Marco Armiliato, James Conlon, Plácido Domingo, Peter Schneider and Patrick Summers.)
The first operatic solo of the evening (“La speranza” from Semiramide) goes to Juan Diego Florez. Further highlights of the first half include a duet from L’italiana in Algeri (Ildar Abdrazakov, Olga Borodina), “O mio babbino caro” (Ruth Anne Swenson), “Una furtiva lagrima” (Ramon Vargas), “Ah non credea mirarti” (Natalie Dessay), the Count’s aria from Figaro (Dwayne Croft), “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Denyce Graves), “Tacea la notte” (Renee Fleming [!]), “Je vais mourir” from Les Troyens (Waltraud Meier), the Prize Song (Ben Heppner), and Marietta’s Lied (Kiri te Kanawa[!!]).
Frederica von Stade, Salvatore Licitra and Domingo (who sings, too!) will also perform a few songs in this segment, and after a “gala film” is shown, la Voigt will return to perform “Pace, pace.”
Susan Graham is first on after intermission with another Moore ditty, followed by Stephanie Blythe (“Ah, que j’aimes les militaires”), Thomas Hampson (Pierrot’s song from Die Tote Stadt), Samuel Ramey (Mephisto’s serenade from Faust), Dimitri Hvorostovsky and Rene Pape in arias from Don Carlo, and the double-barrelled mezzo excitement of Dolora Zajick‘s “O mon Fernand” and Ms. Meier’s Easter Hymn from Cavalleria.
Two numbers from Così fan tutte follow: “Ah guarda sorella” with Mmes. von Stade and te Kanawa, and “Soave sia il vento” with Fleming, Graham and Hampson. The baritone returns with Karita Mattila for selections from The Merry Widow, and then the audience will take a well-deserved bathroom break while the Met Ballet performs a jolly polka. (UPDATE: further clues suggest that this number will accompany an “open” scene change, so the audience will finally learn the meaning of all that yelling and banging that goes on while we sit in semidarkness for ten minutes at a stretch. It’s important that we see this now, because that spoilsport Peter Gelb has vowed to use some sort of voodoo “technology” to facilitate instantaneous scene changes, the way they do on Broadway, at the NYCO, in every European opera house, and, well, basically everywhere in the universe besides the Met.)
James Morris will then lead the Gods into Valhalla, and Susan Graham will bid us all farewell with “Parto, parto.” But wait, the show’s not over yet. In what might best be called the “TBA Segment,” we will (or perhaps will not) hear tenors Roberto Alagna and Marcello Giordani in arias from Cyrano de Bergerac and La gioconda respectively. The legendary Mirella Freni is penciled in for an aria from Alfano’s Risurezzione and a Puccini song, and then comes an item listed merely as “(34. L. Pavarotti).”
Returning to the scheduled program, Mattila, Heppner, Pape, Morris (and Matthew Polenzani) bring the curtain down with the finale to Fidelio under the baton of Maestro Schneider. At this point, La Cieca assumes, Rudy Giuliani will present Volpe with a plaque or something and perhaps make a joke about how he’s expecting Joe to be on time for work. And then The Beautiful Voice will be heard once more asking the musical question “When I Have Sung My Songs.”
I love the high, high and super high notes of the Queen of the Night and would not object if someone were to transpose the arias even higher. Having said that, I’ll admit that the character gains from a more dramatic sound.
I remember reading once that Toscanini had wanted Milanov to sing the Queen in Salzburg, with the arias transposed about a third I imagine. She declined.
One of the most successful Queens in recent decades was Christine Deutekom, precisely because she had a dramatic coloratura sound.
Callasorphan, I think Joan did sing them at some point in the original key and then transposed if I remember correctly- so she probably did refer to then in the interview
rdbellais, I’m sure that you are correct. Sills said that when she sang that high dogs would be waiting at the stage door for her haha–Edda Moser could also let fly with some awesome Es and Fs and beyond. Early in her career.
Can any of you relate why Ricarelli left the Met, and whatever became of her career? She was considered a star of magnitude in the 70s.
ljc, I lived through her losing her voice. By the time she did the Othello film about all she could do was sing in almost a whisper in the upper part of her voice. She did, for a while, do some singing in Italy; however, it always seemed to end in a disaster–why she left the Met, I really don’t know
Ricarelli was another singer they used to death having her even do Turondot (sp?). I loved her but always felt that there were other singers that deserved to be heard and recorded. It seemed once she became the “blond bombshell” the opera powers just wanted her to sing EVERYTHING and she did till there was nothing left
I witnessed the extreme cruelty- Mme Riccarelli sitting onstage in an open air peformance of Aida – opened her mouth to sing just as the heavens opened and everyone had to run for cover.
At the subsequent “replacement” performance two days later, she had left the country and had been replaced by a local.
= one of my lifes regrets as I always liked Riccarelli.
Pity Riccarelli didn’t follow the Freni mold of growth and development- they seemed to have similar lyric voices in the beginning- Riccarelli’s Aidas were the start of her problems- her recordings of Aida and Turandot were highly negligiable
just another tenor and operaguy you are wrong about esclarmonde. yes, the role was written for sybil sanderson but no her voice was by all accounts a larger coloratura voice with the unusual extreme high notes most often associated with a lighter coloratura soprano. you were half correct. as far as dessay singing the role, have you heard the orchestration……too often we assume massenet is for lighter voices but his orchestrations can be overwhelming, especially in the middle voice. if dessay sang esclarmonde, then it would be the end of her career. she has been experiencing vocal problems and i would hate to think that she tackled repetoire too big and ruined her voice. the orchestration for esclarmonde could rival any wagnerian orchestra but the main difference is wagner did not expect you to sing difficult fiortura while the brass is blaring. i do commend you both for wanting beautiful obscure music but i think we should look into the correct voices required to sing it. perhaps gruberova would sing esclarmonde some day. i also agree that dessay has a lovely coloratura voice but i prefer to hear her in what she is comfortable singing. i am never in favor of singing music that’s too big just to appease the masses. i hope you both understand my point.
Ricciarelli was fired by the Met when she cancelled her appearances in Manon Lescaut sometime around 1985. (Freni replaced her.) Her voice had deteriorated significantly by then and she had become a chronic canceller. The Met had scheduled Ricciarelli to sing the Countess in a new production of Le Nozze the next season. Her voice had deteriorated significantly by then and Levine was wondering the wisdom of having her in Nozze. The Manon cancellation was the last straw or excuse, your pick.
Some years later,to get Chailly to conduct a few operas, the Met had to allow him to pick his casts. He brought Ricciarelli back for a handful of Otellos with Domingo. That was it for Ricciarelli and the Met.