More proof (as if any were needed) that 70 is the new 50: “Viva la Diva: Gala zum 70. Geburtstag von Grace Bumbry.” The concert (performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival on July 17 of this year) featured the septuagenarian siren in a demanding program of arias and scenes from Aida, Ernani, Les Troyens and the complete third act of Tosca!
La Cieca offers her cher public a pair of Querschnitten from this historic concert:
“…the veteran dramatic soprano Gwyneth Jones, who, at the age of seventy, has lost remarkably little of her decibel capacity, made a comic tour de force of the Queen of Hearts. Memories of Jones’s Elektra at the Met added an aura of menace to her antics; when she sings, ‘Off with their heads!,’ you stroke your own neck a bit nervously.” Alluring Alex Ross reviews Unsuk Chin’s opera Alice in Wonderland in the current New Yorker.
Dame Gwyneth and underling in Alice in Wonderland. Photo by Wilfried Hoesl.
The nice people at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland cannot be happy about last minute changes to this past weekend’s concert schedule caused by late cancellations by James Levine and Renée Fleming. Maestro Levine, advertised for concerts on July 20 and 22, tendered his regrets on July 16, noting “My doctors have strongly advised me not to travel but to stay calm and collect my energies.” Also collecting her energies (or whatever) was La Fleming, who pulled out of the the July 22 performance on four days’ notice, i.e., July 18.
Barbara Bonney emerged from a mysterious year-long hiatus in her career to substitute for Fleming at the July 22 gala, where she sang the soprano part in the Mozart Requiem in d minor. The other soloists, all thankfully enjoying robust health, were Anne-Sofie von Otter, Kenneth Tarver and René Pape. In lieu of Ms. Fleming’s art song portion of the program, Thomas Quasthoff performed Schubert lieder. Wielding the baton for this program and the July 20 opener was Manfred Honeck, future Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
The American soprano, whose voice Toscanini called “the find of the century,” died Tuesday in Vienna. She is heard here singing “Crudele… Non mi dir” from a 1960 performance of Don Giovanni. Teresa Stich-Randall
As if the third act of Parsifal were not enough for a single podcast, La Cieca and her sidekick Milton Host are surprised in the studio by a visit from The First Lady of the American Musical Theatre. Eventually TFLOTAMT has to leave the studio to prepare for her evening performance, and Milton and I can finally get on with the Wagner. It’s a 1964 performance from Bayreuth featuring Jon Vickers, Thomas Stewart and Hans Hotter, with Hans Knappertsbusch conducting. Unnatural Acts of Opera. UPDATE: La Cieca was informed earlier this evening that iTunes was not showing the most recent [...]
As La Cieca is sure her cher public has heard, the term “to ski” is now used widely in Craigslist personal ads to indicate an interest in recreational use of cocaine. The divine Grace Moore here demonstrates how these ideas became associated.
First: who is the singer? Second: why is she singing this aria? Who and why?
Cher Public