Since this week’s Unnatural Acts of Opera podcasts feature a classic live recording of Bizet’s Carmen, La Cieca thought it might be fun to remember the legendary chanteuse Leona Anderson with a clip of her performance of the Habanera. La Anderson, who was once described as “the missing link between Florence Foster Jenkins and Mrs. Miller” is perhaps best remembered from TV’s Ernie Kovacs Show, where she shared warbling duties with Edie Adams and Yma Sumac. Both the Bizet selection and this encore are excerpts from Anderson’s 1957 LP Music to Suffer By.
Curtain call at a recent gala event. (Note, toward the end of the clip, Denyce Graves holding up the bodice of her strapless dress!)
David Gockley talks to a gay paper about fisting. (Well, when you’re running the San Francisco Opera, knowing these things is surely part of the job description.)
La Cieca doesn’t want to get all pedantic here, but she does want to point out that the phrase Mirella Freni sang at the end of her rambling monologue at the Volpe gala was not from Act 3 of La boheme. Or rather, the musical phrase reappears in the opera, but the version Freni sang was obviously meant as the tag of her scheduled encore, “Sole e amore.” This number is a parlor song written by Puccini in 1888, and he recycled the main melody later for “Addio dolce svegaliare.” “Sole e amore” is one of the songs that Michael [...]
For your Sills-related listening enjoyment today, this collection of Bubblecasts. And here’s Our Beverly singing Zerbinetta — the hard way.(As seen at Beverly Sills Online. From YouTube, Beverly Sills on Video.
Joseph Volpe‘s memoir The Toughest Show on Earth (see, La Cieca can get the title right when she wants too) is a book about a working-class kid from Queens who wanted to be Rudolf Bing when he grew up. Or, rather, it’s about a stage carpenter who was bright enough and ambitious enough to do catch Bing’s eye during the disastrous lead-up to the first Met season at Lincoln Center. I’m not sure how accurate the details are in Volpe’s story of how he “fixed” the set of Franco Zeffirelli‘s Antony and Cleopatra (especially the Zef’s meek acceptance of an [...]
When she’s dressing for a gala and she wants to stand out from the crowd, what’s a diva to do? Well, she can hire Angie Dickinson‘s hairdresser, but then confuse the issue by making her dress out of window sheers. Or she can go for a classically simply mother of the bride dress, and then forget to wash her hair. For the divo, though, nothing screams “gala” like a tuxedo from the Gaylord Ravenal Collection. One non-fashion related note. If you’re singing a trio and you think you might want your voices to blend, the three of you might want [...]
At long last (but far more than worth the wait!), the latest episode of The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm is online. If you haven’t listened to this marvelous series, well, you just don’t know show biz. And, before La Cieca slumps into unconsciousness, please let her thank the almost 100 participants in tonight’s live chat on the Volpe Gala. Frankly, without the chat, La Cieca would have found the whole thing a crashing bore (all except that Hvorostovsky/Pape/Zajick sequence in the second half) and probably would have switched the radio off. La Cieca promises her cher public that “Chez [...]
We interrupt this liveblogging with this bulletin: James Levine didn’t show for the Volpe Gala. (Obviously he wasn’t going to conduct, but not even to walk out onstage?) What’s more, Rudy Giuliani didn’t show either. And Uncle Joe himself didn’t even make a speech. Oh, God, how they must all hate him!
11:40: Then Rene Pape matched Hvorostovsky, then Zajick matched (topped?) them both, then who the hell had the idiotic idea of doing the Easter Hymn with a mezzo who can’t sing it and the chorus apparently stoned or else in another city? (Oh, and did you notice the long, noisy scene change afterward? Vintage Volpe.)11:05: Finally, SOMETHING that sounds like it belongs on a gala. Hvorostovsky may not sound quite that huge in the house, but it’s a star voice performing like a star. Stunning breath control (and a fine sense of line) in the first phrase of the “Io [...]
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