The Metropolitan Opera goes to the movies
Eighty years ago! This film was a part of the first “Vitaphone” presentation in New York in August 1926. Soprano Marion Talley was 19 years old and in the first season of her three-year Met career when this scene was filmed.
Wait a minute. I am quite frankly shocked that people are attacking Fleming’s technique. Fleming has EXCELLENT technique. She has AWFUL taste. Let’s not confuse the difference. Fleming can do anything she wants with the voice, and that is part of the problem.
McDonald cannot sing operatically anywhere near the level that Fleming can. I mean I know it is popular to bash Renee but let’s do it for the right reasons.
Audra McDonald IS NOT an opera singer. She never has been. She was trained at the Juilliard School and was an abject failure because that was not where her specific talents lie. She is a MAGNIFICENT musical theater singer and that is it. Fleming is not looking to do musical theater although I am sure being encouraged to by promoters and management to sing it because it is more palatable. She is not good at it.
McDonald is not trained to sing louder than a microphone and her top is shaky at best. She rarely sings above an A because it is not secure. However, she is an immaculate, tasteful artist that does not go beyond her limits and selects her materials wisely. She was to the manner born unlike Fleming in this repertoire. However, Fleming is one of the best interpreters of Mozart and the lighter Strauss of her generation
M-F Tenor:
That is all true, though I due have problems with her Donna Anna. My biggest advice to Renee: stick to the same rep Schwarzkopf and Te Kanawa did. Your Countess is killer and your Marshallin is damned good. I just don’t want to hear you in Verdi beyond the occasional Traviata. So please, no more Leonoras.
As for Audra McDonall, I wouldn’t want to hear her in mainstream opera, to be honest, but she’s becoming a sought-after crossover singer: remember her fantastic performance of Le Voix Humane in Houstun? She’ll be doing Mahagonny in LA next Month with Anthony Dean Griffith and Patti LuPone. I’ll give the full report.
Dear M-F Tenor:
I read my post again, and I’m sure it was clear, (although who knows what people read in between the lines) I said, “how you can sing operatically in pop music”- at no point did I suggest that Ms. McDonald was going to take over Lucrezia Borgia, did I? The whole post was about how to do pop music well, nothing more. Although the comment on her taste is true enough, Fleming’s singing on the Mormon Tabernacle Choir debacle was technically substandard as well, which was the root of my post. I do wish people would read the posts more carefully before going off on them, although I admit having done it on occasion myself.
It’s true, Audra sings that rep excellently, and has good taste when she sings. The only thing that bugs me from time to time is when she gets a little nasal. Also, I find her to be more of a mezzo than a soprano – just personal opinion.
But yeah, Ree-nee has good technique for the most part, but she just has all those damned weird notions about how to sing something. And whether or not promoters are begging her to do crossover, she’s done it MORE THAN ONCE, and most often badly. Then she comes back from doing that and sings the classical rep even worse than before, IMO.
I must say though, I was shocked when I listened to Charlie Handelman’s podcast in which he included a Korngold aria off of Fleming’s latest CD, and it was the best singing I’ve heard her do in years.
Who knows, maybe she’ll eventually figure out what good singing is again before the unknowledgeable public starts believing that her current crappy way of singing is the way opera/classical music should be sung.
Question? Where did the nickname “Rapunzel” for Anna Netrebko come from? I find it quite obscure, much like how the folks over at Operachic refer to Zefferelli as Frengo.
Martin Bernheimer’s review of Putritani in the financial times:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/906ac83c-9a79-11db-bbd2-0000779e2340.html
Thanks for the Bernheimer review- he nailed it. Everyone who hates and loves Netrebko should read it, as he brings some common sense middle ground to the topic.