Speaking of Montserrat Caballe and Anna Bolena — well, let’s speak of them in the same sentence. From February 21, 1982, a performance of Donizetti’s masterpiece, starring Montse opposite the loggionisti of La Scala. Blood was left on that stage, and it wasn’t all hers. That’s this time on Unnatural Acts of Opera.
Enrico Stinchelli and Michele Suozzo, the hosts of La barcaccia, are not amused by Edita Gruberova‘s improvements on Donizetti’s score for Anna Bolena. (They call her “Anna Mi Bemollena,” or “Anna E-flat-ena.”)
What was probably parterre.com’s first experiment in multimedia, now updated:
Just Jessye!
To salute the American spinto soprano, an assortment of podcasts from Ed Rosen, Charles Handelman and yours truly. Just click on the “play” button and turn up your speakers!
For Good Friday, a decidedly non-traditional Parsifal Act Two. Renata Scotto sings her only performance ever of Kundry in this April 14, 1995 performance featured on Unnatural Acts of Opera.
Finally, finally La Cieca has an updated archive/download page for all the “Unnatural Acts of Opera” podcasts. Enjoy your downloading and please let her know if any of the links don’t work for you. (And, as always, note the Amazon Honor System box in the right nav bar; that’s what keeps the podcasts and the rest of the site up and dishing.)
In La Cieca’s inbox this AM: “I work at the Met and am so pleased to see clarified the entire Erika Sunnegardh mystery. It had actually never occurred to me that the Godfather Himself was behind this, but it makes perfect horrible sense. We (the worker bees) cannot WAIT for him to be history (lower-case ‘h’), but have ambiguous feelings about the future as we belatedly rocket into the 20th Century.”
Cher Public