The Met isn’t interested in you any more as a lyric-coloratura? Well, in that case, why not try transforming yourself into Marilyn Horne?
DRAMA on the front page of today’s NYT Arts section! Ruth Ann Swenson comes out swinging at the Met for “snubbing” her in favor of younger and less zaftig artists. Her current run of Cleopatras in Giulio Cesare is her final contact with the Met*, apparently the end to a 20-season career there spanning over 225 performances.
And now La Cieca is going to throw this one open to discussion from the floor!
CORRECTION: Swenson is also contracted to sing Violetta during the Met’s 2007-2008 season.
Sempiternal Montserrat Caballe, erstwhile Verdian, bel canto specialist, Straussian, lyric soprano, coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano and pop singer, reinvents herself once more as character comedienne.
Presenting La Superba as La Duchesse de Krakenthorpe in La Fille du regiment.
La Cieca (not pictured) reminds her cher public that tonight’s 40th Anniversary of the Met at Lincoln Center gala will be the subject of an online chat right here at parterre.com. The program, starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, begins at 7:00 PM and so the chat room will open at 6:45. Maestro Bertrand de Billy will lead the duo in staged performances of La bohème, Act I (with Mariusz Kwiecien as Marcello); Manon Act III, scene 2 (with Samuel Ramey as the Comte des Grieux); and L’elisir d’amore Act II with Mr. Kwiecien as Belcore and Alessandro Corbelli as [...]
Anna Moffo in a non-operatic facet of her career, as leading lady in the Italian film Una storia d’amore (released in the United States as Love Me, Baby, Love Me!) In this melodrama, La Moffo seems to be playing the “Lana Turner” role, a sexy matron involved with a good-for-nothing pretty boy gigolo.
Cher Public