Holy....!
More photos of Erwin Schrott and (by the way) a story about the Washington National Opera's new production of Don Giovanni at PlaybillArts. (A Don G. this hot may well transform DC to AC!)
Labels: barihunk
POSTED at
8:52 PM
26 October 2007
More photos of Erwin Schrott and (by the way) a story about the Washington National Opera's new production of Don Giovanni at PlaybillArts. (A Don G. this hot may well transform DC to AC!)
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23 Comments:
Mr. Schrott seems to have done a bit of "manscaping" since his last Don Giovanni:
http://jcarreras.homestead.com/files/SchrottDonGiovanniLondon071.jpg
Totally OT, but Guleghina is doing a killer Lady M on Sirius tonight!! I'm a Gruber guy, but Maria's hitting on all cylinders tonight!!
Next time, WNO might think to hire a conductor too!
I do think that Guleghina has improved a lot over this past Monday's broadcast. The coloratura will never have the Callas accuracy that people may want to hear in a Lady Macbeth, but the voice is more secure, healthier, and definitely up to the job to deliver a command performance of the Lady.
i just got back from the performance....I thought gulgehina was awful in the opening aria and cabaletta. Her voice has definitely lost some of its power and bite to say the least. She had some great moments, especially in the great choral sections and sang a glorious glorious sleepwalking scene. I thought the best voice of the night, however, belonged to Mr. Pittas whom I dearly hope the MET gives some larger roles to. Perhaps if he loses fifty pounds they will be so inclined. Lzujoz or whatever his name is was a total non-entity throughout the entire performance. Could they really have gotten nobody else?! Lady M, I understand; only urmana or zajick would have been an improvement over guleghina, but there are so many baritones who could sing macbeth better than him. The production in general was in my opinion, quite entertaining. Macbeth is not an opera that comes off well without great voices unless of course you have enough distractions in the right places i.e. lasers, crystal balls etc.
Noble also solved many mid-act set-change problems the opera poses. I took someone who has never been to an opera and she enjoyed it very very much, so either way, the production worked on some level.
also, has anyone seen the CG don G schrott was in w/ netrebko? It seems quite scandalous from the pictures (i.e. don g having "his way" with elvira).
Glad you all like the photo. I'll do a Photo Journal when WNO (not to be confused with WNO) has all the production pics ready.
Do we suppose that Mr. Borodina will perform half-naked when he switches from Leporello to Don G?
Trebs was in Washington on Sunday night, singing at a private do for the World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings. Deutsche Bank rented the Kennedy Center Terrace Theatre and Brian Zeger accompanied. Don't know if Scrott was at Treb's performance. He might have been rehearsing Don G.
I'm seeing Don G on Monday, 10/28 and yes, Nerva, I do dread the conducting. As Zach points out, Schrott has been doing some gym time since the Covent Garden Don G.(lats, pecs, biceps look bigger). So the visual part of the performance at least should be interesting. But any more bulking up and Schrott will look like Ah-nuld.
As mentioned in a previous thread, will be interested to see if Tommasini "reviews" the show while Schrott is in it. (And even if he doesn't review, he might still take a gander...)
BTW, Schrott is only singing the first four WNO performances, then Ildar Abdrazakov, Schrott's Leperello, takes over as the Don. Ildar's brother Askar does the rest of the Leporellos.
Was that body achieved naturally, or is there a little helper at work? Singers have punishing schedules: where do they get the time to get bodies like that? I do wonder what will happen as the likes of Schrott and Gunn age, the body turns to flab, and all that is left is a mediocre voice.
If the majority of major directors and designers around today (and perhaps always) didn't bring the baggage of their sexuality and the homoerotic ethic to bear, would we be forced to suffer such a pantomime? This is short lived titillation for aging opera queens and hack-critics, and may ultimately lead to vocal standards dropping further.
What the heck is wrong with short-lived titillation?
If only Senor Schrott could (un)dress like this in his upcoming LA performances as the Don. Unfortunately, the costuming for the LA production is strictly Krusty the Klown plays "Dracula."
http://press.losangelesopera.com/2002-03/don/don19.jpg
Scifici: I saw the CG Don G three times. It was fairly vanilla sexually speaking -"cheeky" rather than "provocative", exactly in the spirit of the libretto IMHO. The photo with Martinez you mention looks worse (or better, if you prefer) than on the stage. Indeed I didn't notice such an "entanglement", so to speak, on the stage - I think he was only pushing her away during the "brava" bit, and the photographer happened to get an "interesting" shot by accident. Even the shirtless bit in the end was not *that* eybrow-raising; then again, I'm heterosexual and was more interested on Trebsie's legs- of which she showed pretty little by her usual standards! (yeah, yeah, I was also interested in the music, before you ask, it only happens to be my favourite opera).
Schrott definetely had lots of chemistry in the first scene with Trebska, indeed comaparing the same scene with the one he had with Poplavskaya when Trebs was sick, it should have been obvious to me that something was afoot between the two comely leads. Anyway, the Don and the Donna are almost never together after the first scene so there is little they can do together. Although I must say that the bit where Nebs trembled with a mixture of desire and disgust after he kisses her hand and she realises this was the guy who tried to rape her was brilliant -and subtle- acting.
About the evolution in Schrott's physique: in the 2006 CG Figaro which was the first time I heard him live -and was bloody impressed- he was carrying quite a bit more weight than now. He obviosuly hit the gym and dieted over the last year. Good for him, too - it got him inside Nebbie's pants!
meretrice indegna: physique or no (which doesn't interest me that much as I said), he is a major talent. He has a lovely, although not huge, voice, and is a brilliant comedian by opera standards. His main failing is that he tends to overdo it with the acting emphasis sometimes to the detriment of his singing accuracy and volume. He tends to get carried away by the response of the audience. In the Met Figaro I caught on the 18th he was excellent (vocally I mean) in the beginning, faded somewhat in the middle, but focused on the singing on the 4th act and was brilliant.
He is still young. Hopefully with a bit more care he will develop in to the artist his talent deserved. I'm definetely a fan already though.
First answering Meretrice Indegna. To compare Schrott to Gunn is unfair. Schrott has a nice voice, and has been doing roles unrelated to his sex appeal for quite some time (Rossini's Moise at La Scalla - singing the Pharaoh. Dulcamara on that Elisir with Machado and Esposito at Macerata). He has done such roles as Ramphis, Colline, Roldolphe.
Oh the other hand Gunn has no voice at all, and has from the beginning made his name on the barihunk rep that values basically the "nice looking, moves well" approach over the voice and singing. I doubt he would be able to sing a role that really requires singing.
It is a pity though that Schrott has gone over to the "barihunk" group, and his own standars of singing are going down fast and that is something to worry about. But there is a voice there, unlike Gunn.
On the Guleghina topic, I really doubt Urmana is able to sing a better Lady Macbeth. Her Aida at La Scalla was underwhelming to say the least.
Also please do say WHO would sing Macbeth better than Lucic nowadays? I can only think of Nucci and Alvarez. It is a pity that our standards have gone so low, but it is unfortunatelly true.
The Washington Post's Tim Page panned the production, in a review entitled "This 'Don Giovanni' is more Parry than Thrust" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602273.html)
As someone who is aging, it's always nice to see and hear TALENTED in-shape singers. But I think most of us who have been going to opera for a long time are much more interested in a singer's vocal quality rather than his (or her) physique.
It's the gym bunnies and the people who buy into gay.com and Advocate advertising who are apt to go to an opera performance because such and such singer is buff.
I would trade Cornell McNeill, Tito Gobbi, or Robert Merrill in his prime over nearly all of today's pretty boy barihunks, whose good looks are often not matched by vocal splendor or dramatic acumen.
Simon Keenlyside is an exception; there are few others.
The term "opera queen" gets thrown around a lot here. I've been gay going to opera for 40-plus years and I have never considered myself an opera queen. I am a gay man who loves opera, period. The term "opera queen" is a snide, derogatory term that usually does no credit to the people who use it so flippantly.
Aren't those Kwiecien's pants? Not to mention the basket.....
What about Paoletta Marrocu, or perhaps Linda Roark-Strummer if she hasn't retired yet?
i think it's unfair to say nathan gunn has no voice. i found his voice to be quite good and quite lovely, if a bit "small" (i mean, it's a lyric barytone voice). he may not be the best singer in the world, but you can't just dismiss him totally like that.
speaking of physiques, has anyone else spotted Arpad Miklos at the opera? i saw him once at the Met, wondering if he goes there regularly.
My JC, did I hit a nerve?
Nothing flippant about my use of the term 'opera queen': I would describe myself as one, quite readily, and view the term with affection and a certain amount of pride.
I have only heard Gunn once, as Harlekin in Ariadne, in the first showing of the CG production by Loy. He was so terribly boring: run of the mill seems a compliment he was so undistinctive. Schrott, is however, in another league. His Figaro at CG was excellent: I saw it four times, and he extracted something different each time. I hear there was a real diva clash between he and McVicar: I assume it was owing to the latter's sexual frustration. Yet another example of the Emperor's new clothes: has our dear Glaswegian actually directed anything which has truly moved one, or illuminated one's understanding of any work with which he's been involved? Ah, the stories I could tell, but even the cloak of anonymity forebears further speech. I am, however, looking forward to his ENO Rosnekavalier, but I really did fail to see what the furore about his Agrippina was about. So the leading lady snorted some white poweder during her bravura aria: apart from fleshing out the rumours about the uninspired hand directing the scene, what did it tell us? Sweet nothing, that's what.
As for Guleghina and Urmana, I have heard them both in the Phylida Lloyd production at ENO, and must say they were both fine. Guleghina 6 years ago, if memory serves me right, was in great voice, and the acting was ok, although she was being hampered by a luke warm Michaels-Moore, which may have held her back. What's happened to him by the way? Urmana was fine Vocally, although she 'pleaded our indulgence' owing to some sort of illness. Of course, the audience was on her side, as we were expecting little. The tessitura is certainly better suited to her than that in Aida: she simply does not have the ability to spin a sustained line or produce reliablie pianissimi which Aida requires. She is a great blood and thunder merchant however.
I heard Senor Schrott in the LA Opera DG a few years back; the same production that is being reprised this season. He was good then - big voice, comic, fine usicianship. I am looking forward to hearing him again.
The production on the other hand, leaves much to be desired, and while I have season tickets, I don't look forward to another three+ hours of this tribute to the director's ego all over again.
The production misfires in so many places. Characters randomly pop in and out of the trap door so often that by the time DG makes his final exit, it's just another trap door
moment. For those that don't hear the irony in the orchestral accompaniment, a line of kick-stepping dancing nuns accompanies the Catalog Aria. The end of Act I solves the problem of DG's escape from the masked avengers by having him sprout bat wings and fly away.
The cemetery scene - the whole point of which is that a marble statue moves his head and speaks - and Mozart takes such pains to build the music up for that moment - has no moving, talking statue on the stage; just DG and Lepo speaking to a blank wall. On and on.
When will this era of Opera as Director's Extended Ego be over? If the director's ideas aren't as good as Mozart's and daPonte's (and let's face it, chances are they won't be), why can't they just leave it alone?
Sorry, I meant CG, not ENO earlier
Well you certainly have my "full" attention now. . .
dnitzer- Completely agree with regards to productions. Give me something that truly does enlighten and work, or give me standard. Don't trash my opera, you dumb divo directors!
I agree with the assessment of LAO's production of DG, but Schrott was a fiasco in that production, only marginally less so in the later Nozze. I put him in the same category as Gunn. Schott MAY have more of a voice, but he chooses not to use it, since he insists on "acting" the role rather than singing it. That either Schrott or Gunn gets contracts at major houses is a very depressing situation from a vocal point of view.
Heath, I have not seen Arpad Miklos at the Met. What opera was he attending? Gentlemen in his profession (the oldest...) are often pressed into duty as arm candy for wealthy gay men escorting them to cultural events like the opera. I would be delighted to hear that Arpad is an opera fan, as many opera fans I know are fans of him!
One porn star who is a big opera fan is Michael Lucas who I have seen at the Met many times and at Carnegie Hall with or without his wealthy older boyfriend. He is very opinionated and passionate about opera.
There was a seventies and early eighties porn star Johnny Dawes (real name Brian Lee) who died of AIDS who was a voracious opera aficionado and was working on a biography of Alma Gluck that he died before finishing.
At least two male porn stars have appeared on the Met stage as "extras" - Raymond Dragon and Frank Vickers.
To get this subject back to opera, I saw Guleghina as Lady Macbeth at her second show last Friday the 26th. She was operating on all cylinders and seemed ready to meet all the challenges head on. The beat the role to a draw in my opinion - the voice is a big notes instrument not a little notes instrument. But she attempted everything and some things worked better than others but she had a lot of vocal trumps all night. Exciting and charismatic are two words that come to mind regarding La Guleghina, and they don't come to mind all that often these days at the opera.
Gualtier Malde
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