Joyce DiDonato in Maria Stuarda
POSTED at
12:31 PM
31 January 2008
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20 Comments:
Ummm -- Cieca, dear -- Isn't that Joyce as Elisabetta and Fontana as Maria in this performance?
D'oh, La Cieca obviously is suffering a reoccurence of her arterial flow problem. And just as obviously, DiDonato hasn't sung Stuarda yet... though La Cieca contends that the role would suit her voice very well.
Is that the same wig she was wearing in the Met Barbiere?
La Cieca, since we're using The Music Man's "Think" system, I think Trebs can sing coloratura. Nope, didn't work. But you made me laugh. Now, can you make me sign off long enough to go do laundry and buy groceries? Let's all use the "Think" system on me.
Praise Jesus! I thought I was the
sclerotic one, or just having a "moment". Nice scena, but Liz - 1, Mary - 0.
It's Joyce as Elisabeth. Ran into her at a MetOpera rehearsal last week of Manon Lescaut. That was too cool! Great smile on that girl.
any thoughts on why the Met is doing this Maria as mezzo switch?
Perhaps rather than being sclerotic, La Cieca is prescient. Peter Gelb has just announced that DiDonato will sing the eponymous role in this opera during the 2012-13 season. The release states: "DiDonato, a mezzo-soprano, said she will use the version sung by Janet Baker with the English National Opera in the early 1980s. It has Maria as a mezzo and Elisabetta as a soprano _ an arrangement used for Malibran's performances." Oh, and Netrebko will open an earlier season as Anna Boleyn. Gelb had offered her the queenly trifecta, but she declined.
What a funny dress in the second clip.
I'm still mad at Cutler for replacing Kunde in the important Puritanis.
reggiani -- because (as Jane would say) it is a well-known fact that there aren't nearly enough good roles for mezzos in the standard rep as there are fine performers who deserve them. Yet another reason why more great Russian mezzo operas (Orleanska Djeva, Snegoruchka, Tsar's Bride) and more bel canto mezzo masterpieces (La Favorite, Ermione) ought to be showing up on the drawing boards of the great international opera houses. But they aren't.
any thoughts on why the Met is doing this Maria as mezzo switch?
To accommodate a rising lyric mezzo star. And why not?--it was a Malibran role, and Malibran was almost certainly a mezzo. (Though did Donizetti himself help prepare the production with Malibran the way Bellini prepared a Mailbran version of Puritani?) Presumably if Netrebko or whoever wants to take over a revival, the original higher keys can be easily restored.
Nice to see, by the way, that Gelb is actually jumping on a DiDonato bandwagon, at least enough to allow her to carry a new production. I've been worried that Gelb might tend to rely on a limited number of already established stars.
and more bel canto mezzo masterpieces (La Favorite, Ermione)
But is Ermione really a mezzo masterpiece, any more than Armida or Maometto II? The mezzo/contralto among the principals, Andromaca, has the least music.
(Of course, Isabella Colbran, for who those roles were written, was not a high soprano. And at least one mezzo has had success with the prima donna roles in La donna del lago and Otello.)
Since the previous posting about the Donizetti Queens was already so full, I shall comment here and I will try not to repeat much that has already been stated.
First of all, the Met is FOOLISH not to hire someone like Gruberova for RD. She might not be young or glamorous, but if La Gruberova returned to NYC to SING...let me tell you, the Met wouldn't be able to HANDLE ticket sales like that. The house would be SOLD OUT in literally 20 minutes - and if you don't think that people would travel from all over the world to hear her return to the Met, you are smoking something. It would be the BIGGEST event since Leontyne or Sutherland's farewell performances!!
Furthermore, there are other mature sopranos currently singing with good, strong techniques, well seasoned, accurate in style and still with top D's - people like Linda Roarke-Strummer and Jane Marsh - I don't know if Linda ever sang the role, but I'm sure she could (he voice is still perfectly intact) and La Marsh has had great success in the role.
Furthermore, I am a fan of Joyce Di Donato, but I don't think the role of Maria would suit her as well as Elisabetta - that's my opinion. Elisabetta also sits rather high, just as much as it sits low with many High B naturals to be called upon. The studio recording is a bit dry in some places but the live video of Gruberova, Baltsa and Araiza in MS is RIVETING - they might as well be singing Aida and Amneris the way they come for each other!
Lastly, I don't agree with Trebs for Anna Bolena, although she might be good with the character, but she really needs to learn style. They should definitely call Gruberova or Devia for THAT part - the house would be completely sold out...OMG...what a beautiful fantasy that is!
Speaking of Malibran . . . Do you suppose that Gelb offered the part to Bartoli first? If not, this might be another pointed insult. And at one point wasn't Bartoli supposed to be coming back as soon as next season as Cleopatra (in Giulio Cesare)? Anyone know why that was cancelled?
I agree with itdcs re Gruberova, with one demurral: to me she epitomizes glamor.
And whether the works cited by Hans Lick are mezzo showpieces or not, it's a shame we don't see them regularly here.
Furthermore, there are other mature sopranos currently singing with good, strong techniques, well seasoned, accurate in style and still with top D's...
Yes, but do they have the reputations they deserve? Gelb strikes me as a star-oriented rather than a repertory-oriented general manager; more interested in Anna Bolena with Netrebko (or whatever else she wants to sing) than in Anna Bolena with Netrebko (or whoever else wants to sing it) I doubt he would have thought, as we do, of filling the most obvious current gap in the Met's repertory otherwise. As wonderful as works like Ermione are, I suspect we shall just have to wait until one of Gelb's favorites really really wants to do them; he's not going to bring in some relative unknown for a leading role just because she can sing the notes and act up a storm.
Could we learn exactly when and where Jane Marsh sang ROBERTO DEVEREUX? last time I heard her, as the secondary old coot in WAR AND OPEACE in 1990, she sounded near-voiceless. This career has always seemed to me as nearly invisible as the Moffo NORMA and AIDA performances.
God, even if I love J.Baker in some repertoire where she was peerless, that mezzo-Maria Stuart part seemed as weird as the baryton-Werther(but not as awful: why is Albert marking for the tenor?). The english language never helps, of course, but it was quite soporific.
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Bel Cantor: she epitomizes glamour for me too! Sadly many in this world aren't on that same bandwagon. *sigh*
Indiana Loiterer: You're absolutely right, and for me, therein lies the rub. That is one of the big the problems with the industry today.
Ermione is a dramatic coloratura soprano role, it is not suitable for any mezzo.
Nerva Nelli: RD is listed as part of Marsh's repertoire, I do not know where she sang it, but I have heard her recently in recital and I know many other people who have heard her in recent months (Forza's, Verdi Requiem's) and she had a huge success not that long ago singing Verdi's Due Foscari. She is a perfect match for the Donizetti queen - and she KNOWS style!
And to my knowledge, she has not ever sung War and Peace, but I cannot be certain one way or the other.
And we've all been sitting here disappointed with the Lady Macbeth at the Met...why isn't Linda R-S singing it? The woman's voice is still fresh and full as ever and si isn't fat, she isn't old...I'm sure the Met could convince her to come back and put aside teaching for a few months.
Indiana, this from Wikipedia:
Maria Stuarda (Mary Stuart) is a tragic opera, tragedia lirica, in two acts, by Gaetano Donizetti, to a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on Friedrich von Schiller's 1800 play Maria Stuart.
It received its premiere on December 30, 1835 at La Scala, Milan.
The subject is based on the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) and her cousin Queen Elizabeth I. The king banned performances of the opera, and Donizetti responded by removing large segments of the score for use in a different work, Buondelmonte. However, the soprano Maria Malibran forced a premiere at La Scala and ignored the censoring revisions, but a ban by the city was enforced.
Realizing the impossibility of a run in Italy, a London premiere was planned, but Malibran's death at the age of 28 in 1836 cancelled the project. Except for several productions of the Buondelmonte version, the work was neglected until 1958 when a production in Bergamo, Donizetti's hometown, brought the original work into popularity. The premiere in England was held on March 1, 1966.
When forced to simplify part of the music for the original Elisabetta, Donizetti scribbled on the margin "But it's ugly!", and further on refused a change, writing "Do it, and may you live for a hundred years!"[1]
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