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.”
Ricciarelli was fired by the Met when she cancelled her scheduled appearances in Manon Lescaut around 1985. (Freni replaced her.)
The Met had scheduled Ricciarelli to sing the Countess in a new production of Le Nozze the following season but was having second thoughts on account of her deteriorating vocal condition. Her short-notice withdrawal from Manon Lescaut was the last straw – or the excuse – and the Met cancelled her contract. (Vaness was the Countess in that production.)
Some years later in order to have him conduct, the Met allowed Chailly to pick his casts. Ricciarelli then came back as Desdemona for a handful of performances with Domingo and Chailly conducting.
And that was the end of the Ricciarelli story at the Met.
itdg, her voice did deteriorate rather quickly much to my horror!
I saw Ricciarelli in the Otello’s they did at Covent Garden with Domingo and Diaz conducted by Carlos Kleiber. I heard Kleiber had wanted Te Kanawa and she wasn’t available.
It was 6th January 1990 and is a night I will never forget. I had only been going to the opera for a couple of years and I just couldn’t believe that opera could be so great.
A few years later, she was meant to do a concert in London with the English Chamber Orchestra. She never turned up and I was told, did not even tell them she wasn’t coming. The audience were only told as the concert had started. A shame, I never thought she had the greatest of voices, but I thought at her best she used what she had to great effect.
la fille, In her very short prime she could be very good especially during the years that she was a little fluffy (pudgy) and had rather bad teeth. She seemed to loose it after she glamorized herself. (NOT that, I’m sure, it had anything to do with her deterioration)
Try to find some of those old Philips’s recordings of her and Jose Carraras–they are really great!
Right . Well Te Kanawaand Von Stade can still sing– very well. The Pace performed by Voigt will be exciting….Fleming will croon and pose and fake her way thru the verdi it will be filth and everyone will clap..etc….Dessay you will hardly be able to hear as though well projected will not “fill” the met nor will Flemings it will sound like Pamina. THe men will be fine …Heppner may be phlegmy hopefully not. Freni will be supreme and suprise you all with an absolutely huge voice now ….Florez’s tenorino will sound nasal and chirp out the high D’s in the Semiramide aria and fill his requirement…..And regarding ALL of this Studer blog- You know it is widely known here in Europe that she had married a very wealthy german speaking industrialist who the PAID for the orchestra etc.of ALL the DG recordings that were issued. Very very simple. She has been out of tune for years and although moments of sanity the voice really only worked in Wagner where she was not forced over A. Her kluckeratura is well known and that traviata,gilda, semiramide,constanza etc….ick. Very squeezed and frail. Her CGarden Aida was a flop no high C…so I think La Studer better stick with the Viennese rep..she is safer there. As for the gala? Well she does not need the money .
Oh and regarding APRILE MILLO–she is a FABULOUS,stunning, correctly aligned soprano and is being ignored by the Metropolitan simply because she shows up “you know who”.. She will not be in this Gala- But lets get real.. Millo gets work in Italy while “you know who” will not be employed by anyone in Italy as they think “you know who” is well…crap. Aprile will be back in fashion sooner than later for all of you who are sick of “you know who”….