We report, you decide
UPDATE: Soprano Renée Fleming has issued the following statement:
"Today, December 3, 2007, is the 84th anniversary of the birth of Maria Callas, the greatest interpreter of the role of Norma in the 20th century. In honor of this great artist, I have decided to reaffirm my decision not to sing Norma indefinitely. As a gesture of respect for this magnificent bel canto stylist, later today I will not visit her grave where I will not leave a wreath in remembrance. Further, at my concert tonight in Baltimore, I will not dedicate any of my encores to her memory. As a soprano and single mother, I feel it is the least I can do."
Fleming's publicist, Mary Lou Falcone, refused to comment on this statement.
La Cieca now continues our coverage of this week's most earth-shaking story, the decision of Renée Fleming not to sing Bellini's bel canto masterpiece Norma. Our latest report is from Fox Eyewitness News Channel 12, WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island:
Renee Fleming ... will join the Boston Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin."La Cieca has now received word that "The Story" has just achieved international coverage. In Canada, the Pierceland Herald ("The Voice of the Heartland") reports that "the opera ['Norma'] wasn‘t included in the Tanglewood schedule being released Friday. Instead, Fleming was listed for the Aug. 2 concert performance of Tchaikovsky‘s Eugene Onegin'." The Saskatchewan-based web site goes on to confirm the "just didn't fit" quotation.
Fleming, however, has decided to ditch plans to perform Bellini's opera "Norma" with the orchestra next summer. Her publicist says the role "just didn't fit."
Be sure to check back here at parterre.com frequently for new information on the
Mistletoe Crisis" as it unfolds.
Labels: fleming, la cieca ci guarda la cieca ci vede, mistletoe crisis
POSTED at
2:01 AM
47 Comments:
La Cieca, I love you very much, but this is getting a little tiresome. Okay, Renee (or Renaaaaaay whichever you prefer) has dropped the role, and the world can breathe a sigh of relief. We get it. It's recieving some news coverage. We get it. It's funny. Now can we please move onto something else, like the PBS "Viewer's Choice- Great Performances at the Met" thing tomorrow night. Trebs' Puritani made the list. Discuss.
Sorry La Cieca, that above anonymous was me. Pushed wrong button. Oops.
I hope this does not become the "Spears" tabloid story of the opera world! Get a life people.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I'm sorry, It's just ...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That incapacitated me far more than it should've. And I'm in the camp that believes Renaaay has a good Norma in her.
Oh, and did you hear? Renée Fleming will be singing in a concert version of Eugene Onegin rather than the expected Norma. The latter just didn't fit, I think?
Wow La Cieca, we all know your biases, but this is probably getting beyond/beneath funny. What did she do to you anyway? I'm trying to refuse to believe that it's that rumor about her declining a parterre magazine interview in your (and her) very early years. But I'm beginning to believe it-- because of the very personal nature of your barbs. It's obviously not an argument about the voice (or the mannerisms, or whatever qualitative thing), it appears, because this is about a role that she has NOT sung yet. And if it's about the "fit", well then by pulling out of Norma she agrees with you. But perhaps the only way you'd be totally satisfied, La Cieca, would be if she pulled out of every engagement, and retire now. (Or if she finally agreed to an interview with parterre?) This has ceased to be parody a few blog posts ago. What it is now is plain mean spirited, and, more tragically, predictable, which is in its own way, and in this particular period in our media history, a bit amusing, in the Fox News sort of way. (The title of this post "fits".)
Lucky for Deborah Voigt that she did her parterre interview-- or else she may have been a better target of your venom. An average voice, average talent, with not much soul-- but she gets positive "press" here about 95% of the time. It is becoming clear.
Fleming's publicist should announce a concert of international favorites in Parsippany with Paul Potts, I heard they both have a huge following in the town. And if they sing the Phantom of the Opera duet, I'm sooo there.
These links to local news are either the same Associated Press release or else derived from it. These are automatic feeds. (As automatic as La Cieca's reaction to anything Fleming.) I'm willing to bet that Indian and Chinese news websites also have the same things. Not out of the ordinary, you see.
This is very elementary, if one bothers to know how news is disseminated. Of course, La Cieca is not a journalist, so he can't be held accountable to not knowing such things.
I agree with Jacob S. Give it a rest, Jimmy J!
In all fairness, La Cieca did post that clip of Renee singing a Korngold aria that was just lovely. And La Cieca gave credit where credit was due by writing something positive: "Totally pulled together, a class act, doing what comes naturally...call it what you will, but fair is fair, this is great stuff!" (I'm quoting this from memory, so I might not have it totally correct, but the spirit is the same.)
Whether or not it's a personal grudge for La Cieca, she obviously had the class to acknowledge Renee's gorgeous performance in that one instance. Don't we all have that one singer whom we despise and we wonder why he/she is famous and why everyone else is drooling over him/her even though we think that singer is a total fraud? For me it was Studer back in the '90s. I though her voice was plain and boring. But I acknowledged that her Salome was a tour de force. But I just didn't understand why she was on every opera recording all of a sudden.
Ah, perfidious queens that you are! How can you turn against La Cieca thus? Does she deserve your sly comments and calumnies? It is quite clear she is teasing, and more fool the lot of you for failing to recognise this.
We are often reminded when on the subject of Renee that we can simply avoid her performances if she is not to our taste: likewise this highly amusing blog. Stay away, and most of all, don’t post if the content offends you. Go and buy Renee’s latest CD (I picked up ‘Homage’ for only £5 in HMV on Oxford Street a few weeks ago) in support of the disparaged one. I think her back is broad enough to take it. Really, sanctimonious opera queens are the end.
Anyway, off to hear Barbara Cook tonight: what could be more wonderful? Perhaps if Renee were to open the show with ‘Glitter and be Gay’ . . .
Slow news day, eh? It's like TV news: this latest post is driven by the image. (We got the picture, so it's a story, see?!) It's just an excuse to run a clever photo illustration, nothing more. (And it is quite clever, yet, I tire of the topic).
Perhaps not being as Flemming obsessed as others I saw this more as a jab at one of those CNN or FOX news broadcasts where they focus on an unopened door for hours:
Announcer: And here is the door. The door which will shortly open. We currently have no information on who is behind the door but as soon as we do.....
Did I miss the point? Though frankly boys and girls the subject of Mme Flemming and Norma is becoming a trifle frayed around the edges - much like the voices of some of the singers who are attempting the role.
I am of the camp of "when you get your own blog you can dictate what goes on it". People get over yourselves. It was funny and our dear La Cieca has always seemed rather prescient - this will become (and already is) the buzz of the opera world at the moment.
BTW when do we get that Frosch review?
Chill out ... this is hysterical, Cieca. You'd think it were Ian McKellan retiring from the stage the way this is being handled. It's just someone deciding not to sing something. Happens all the time, and often way more last minute or publicly. Renee and her people could have just let this slip--God knows Pavarotti was way less up front about switching out of Forza.
As always, Leontyne put it best (I'm paraphrasing): "That's not the department of Verdi's that suits me best."
La Cieca is the one who needs to get over it. This personal grudge has been going on for at least the past 12 years, maybe longer. And it says way more about La Cieca than it does about Renee.
Meanwhile in all of the Norma non viene crisis ... it's Maria Callas' freakin' birthday people! I know our cheeks have just dried from commemorating 30 years without her, but raise a glass, put on a Norma CD, and honor the woman!
lola get a sense of humor, child. This is her blog, La Cieca can do what she wants, and personally I think she's doing a great job in the comedy department. Fleming is a joke, so why not laugh?
She's a musical amoeba blessed with blonde hair and blues eyes for God's sakes. If she were black and chubby she wouldn't have become America's Sweetwhore, she'd be still singing jazz in sleazy night clubs.
Er ist blind, blind, blind.
TKLogan must not have been granted an interview too. LOL.
He commands people to "get a sense of humor" and then proceeds with his misogynistic rant a la Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the "We report, you decide" crowd.
Totally LOL.
I think it is a brilliant parody of FAUX news. The thing that shocks me most is that this group has not started RIPPING into the NYTIMES Article today on Netrebko.
Looks like her publicity team is in overdrive and I personally (while I respect some of what she does) don't like the article or agree with most of it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02netrebko-t.html?th&emc=th
Read for yourselves.
Enjoy,
Drew (Erstegeiger)
Oh, my. La Cieca's really done it now. She's totally roiled the Renée Fangurls Association. And we know there is no more vehement gang.
Listen, sweeties. La Cieca didn't call in the Associated Press to announce what La Fleming wasn't going to sing. She has simply reported (mit graphics) a story that has been concocted by others.
This really is one of the most ridiculous news stories of all time, and I say La Cieca has a duty to treat it on her operatic blog of record.
But, oh, the inexorable Renée Fangurls, always on the lookout for blasphemers!
I just heard that Nightline is going to be devoted exclusively to the Fleming Norma Crisis until some resolution is reached.
It has also been reported that it is now being put forward by Vice President Cheney as a reason for immediate invasion of Iran.
erstegeiger, you've been scooped. people have been ripping apart the Netrebko article since this time yesterday - look under the Netrebko thread below.
$5 to the first person who makes a Normastrong or Renaaaaaaaystrong bracelet.
Any takers?
http://cultureonthecheap.wordpress.com
Oh, DirkVA--
you are so knowledgeable about national security and foreign policy -- and you are of course knwolegeable about opera and singing (an indisputable fact). You are just an all around Renaissance "person."
haahaaahaha teeheee heee heee No... or...ma....hee heee
did not fit?!!! ....heee heee so.. Eugene Onegin?
didn't anyone in her publicist office thought ....heee hee heeeeeee never mind....
You get it first. I am predicting that Bartoli will sing Norma some time in the next few underline years. This will not be as Adalgisa.
haahaaahaha teeheee heee heee No... or...ma....hee heee
did not fit?!!! ....heee heee so.. Eugene Onegin?
didn't anyone in her publicist office thought ....heee hee heeeeeee never mind....
I'm sorry, but I think La Cieca deserves thanks for pointing out what is painfully obvious, but not discussed often enough, but the sheer amount of unjustified publicity a handfull of singers recieve for the most irrelevant of
actions. A singer cancelling a role in 2011 is hardly deserving of several paragraphs of space in the paper of record. In a world full of the Iraq war, teachers being beaten for naming teddy bears Mohammed, and the rise of dictatorships worldwide (including the Cheney one), who frankly gives a shit if Miss Fleming sends her regrets.
I was willing to ignore it, but having had La Fleming's botoxed face rammed down my throat with the Met highlights special, I find La Cieca's approach very appropriate. This is too reminiscent of the last 15 years of Domingo's prees agent sending out a release every time the man took a dump. Enough already!
oliviagiovetti you are hysterical. i'm all for it :)
ps: remember when montserrat caballe recorded pacini's olivia di giovetti? love it.
You are all missing the point. The newsworthy aspect of this issue is not that Fleming has cancelled Norma in 2011. It is rather the fact that she had balls enough to even think that she could do it. The headlines have been very kind. They should read:
grossly over-publicized soprano with limited vocal and artistic means comes to her senses for the first time in an inexplicably charmed career and admits to her limitations.
Let me introduce a new idea here: It just may be that La Cieca is a tad more sophisticated than this Ship of Queens (Note: I avoided the obvious word, Fools), when it comes to journalistic matters, and her postings relate really to the ridiculous journalistic response to a non-news item about Fleming. That R. F. will NOT sing a certain role is hardly news; she's not singing Isolde, either, Mary Lou, shall we release a statement? I have a sense that the Fleming PR machine saw a chance to gain some press for R. F. in the face of the collapse of the Met's casting for Norma, and to ride the back of that old news nag they put out a release. Cieca's point is not to make fun of R.F., it's to show up a cheap journalistic/PR trick for what it is. All concerned will deny this, but I have a sense La Cieca, in her wisdom, has it right. It's not about R. F. -- really, so little is these days. And that's just the point: she wanted some news coverage. So, troops, cool it and let Mother La Cieca have her way through this. You have lots more serious matters to be concerned about, like Obama winning the Iowa caucus -- talk about Gotterdammerung!
MrM
I recall the response of the New York Herald Tribune (remember, old timers?), to Eleanor Steber's dog, Paco, running off down Park Avenue.
Edgar Vincent arranged a photo of poor dog-less Eleanor seated in the window mournfully looking for her pup's return (he did come back and later appeared in Der Rosenkavalier), a decidedly non-news iteam. Yet the press ran the picture. Why? Obvious: Vincent wanted his client's name in the paper, and the New York media picked it up -- it was all pointless. Come to think of it, however, Paco running off was at least a bit of news compared to the idea that a certain soprano wont sing a role. Hell, I refused an offer of the Peoria, Illinois Grand Opera to sing Lohengrin; let's feed that to the AP wire and see what happens! Or, 'baritenor' wont sing The Composer in the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre's new Ariadne; god! Stop press! Oy!
MrM
anyone else catch the great performances met opera viewer's choice program on pbs?
How in the hell did Netrebko's Elvira beat Sutherland's Lucia???
WTF?!
"if i put this on do you think i'd have her high c. there's never been a more beautiful voice." - say it! renee does a nice job with these, even if her pronunciation of "la donna e mobile" isn't as good as the lady from pbs :) seriously, renee did very well with dove sono and she and dmitri are very moving together. and if all ends, as it should, with leontyne at number one.
Boo-hoo! The local PBS affiliates in Washington, DC and Maryland aren't showing the Met Viewer's Choice program! Instead we get a Great Performances presentation of Eric Clapton and Friends playing the blues. Maybe they'll broadcast it later on.
Julio, is there a list of the great MET moments on PBS online? here in the NY area the telecast won't start until 8pm.
doug-
actually, i do think renee did a great job presenting the program, although is it just me or did she seem really ''fidgety''? like she was unable to stay still for longer than 3 seconds.
those people that run Great Perfomances must be real slave drivers. Poor Renee looked like she really needed a potty break.
Julio,
You said: "Netrebko's Elvira beating Sutherland's Lucia? How could this be possible?" It's like in politics. The best candidate does not always win. Maybe Netrebko's "hype" machine bribed the voters! On a more serious note, many never heard or saw Sutherland live, and never bothered to listen to any of her recodings. Alas, everybody's vicrimized by Father Time, and perceptions change over time. Netrebko, whether you like it or not, has been crowned the Queen of our time! Besides, aesthetics and atisic values are subjective. What some like, other hate it!
"I don't believe Bellini's music ever did fit you, my dear."
"NEVER!" cried Reneigh.
"Then the story doesn't give you fits, eh?" the King said.
Nobody said a word.
"It's a PUN," said the King, and all the jurors hastily wrote on their slates.
- Hansel im Wunderreich
Thanks, Sharon, but I am but an 'umble minstrel.
Netrebko's everything is not worth five bars of Dame Joan's Lucia...not in ten lifetimes...not in your wildest dreams.
TKLogan11809, didn't I read somewhere that Renee is actually part black/African-American?
Constantine,
You make a valid point. America's recent taste for "crap" has started to creep into the operagoing audiences as well.
Sigh...
I was never around for the Sutherland era, but I would hope others in my shoes would look back to the greats to really see what opera singing is about, or atleast what "greatness" sounds like. If you don't know your past, how can you create a future?
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I say "taste for crap" because that's the only way to explain the success of "crap" like Paris Hilton, American Idol singers and other tabloid fodder.
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