Kiri gets it right
POSTED at
1:42 PM
13 January 2008
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34 Comments:
Wow - I wouldn't have expected such a passionately committed and intense performance from "that placid dame." Plus, she looks fantastic, and the voice is still in excellent condition; the last note of the aria is exquisite. Thank you, dear Cieca!
She did this production all over. I saw it in LA, the last time she sang the role (or any other role) she was quite magnificent. I recognize the supporting cast here: Lucy Schaufer and John Matz. They were both superb in this; somebody needs to release this on DVD.
John Matz. Oh, what an oppertunity wasted.
But as the video clearly says, it is from Monte Carlo! Lucy Schaufer was Erika there too (as in D.C. and L.A.) but the Anatol is David Maxwell Anderson. Nor is this I believe the same set that was used in D.C.-- not sure about L. A.
It's definitely not the DC set - they used the DC production at NYCO this season. What year was this? She sounds stunning. The last live performance I saw her in was the Capriccio at the Met bcak in '98. She was definitely a class act...AND she knew when to bow out.
and I don't remember ever hearing such good diction from her!!
that's one of the first things i noticed too--the diction. excellent!
the production looks better than the nyco one hands-down.
I believe the year is 2001. Vanessa was not a role i would have associated with her before she took it on, but she really did make it her own. Here she is certainly in splendid voice and dramatic too! Not cold like she often was/is. They need to release this on DVD!
I'm the one that's stunned- after reading the snide remarks about Kiri for so long I can only be glad and relieved that she is at last getting a bit of credit.
Sure she wasn't great with Verdi and a few other things, but in the stuff that suited her she was nearly always VERY good. ;0)
Kiri sounds great. She was one of my favorite voices in the 80's. Her DVD of Der Rosenkavalier is very moving. I love the moment at the end of act one where she looks at herself in the mirror and realized that Octavian is gone and tears come down her face. I wish they would release the DVD of her Marschallin from the Met with the great Troyanos and Judith Blegen and Pavarotti.
I saw her in recital in the 80's. She sang a whole performance of art songs and then one of her encores was "Vissi d'Arte" and she opened up her voice and it sounded thrilling to me.
Tonight, I was flipping through the music channels on my Cablevision, when I heard Kiri singing Mozart's "Chi Sa, Chi Sa". I remember the Mozart album well. I think a certain diva, who shall remain nameless (Renee Fleming), should listen to how Mozart should sound when sung well, without crooning. And then she should go to Youtube and watch and hear Teresa Stich-Randall in Mozart. Anyway, until Kiri herself started crooning, she was one of my favorite sopranos. And if you ever get a chance, I once found, but no longer have, a recording she made in New Zealand when she was about 18 or 19, maybe 20. She had just won a contest down there. Her coloratura was wonderful; she snag, among other things, Una Voce poco Fa (in English).
baritenor - can you please explain what you mean by saying "John Matz. Oh, what an oppertunity wasted." He was good as Anatol, I thought, and also sang a very good Pinkerton in LA around the same time as this production of Vanessa. As an Operalia winner, it should be no surprize that he also sings quite a bit in Washington. I don't believe he has ever sung at the Met.
I never heard, doubt I shall ever hear, a Fiordiligi to match Kiri's; her Donna Elvira and Countess were glorious too, and her Pamina was charming. I also liked her in Boccanegra, Arabella, Capriccio and Rosenkavalier -- though she was just a touch (a touch?) mamoreal in the latter, and I prefer a more human, less goddess-like Marschallin. Her Violetta was unfortunate, but she acted it well -- the only time I thought a Violetta in Act III was on the brink of death.
Where IS John Matz? Such a promising, Italianate, LOUD sound from a strapping youngster, but I have not seen his name around for a couple of years now.
I believe the NYCO Vanessa came from San Diego, and DC and LA used the same production (as they usually do).
hans - DC and LA did not use the same production. DC had the same production as NYCO (and Seattle a few years previously). LA used the production seen in this video. Both were cheap and ugly. I agree about Matz though. What's he been doing?
can some kind patient person please define what "crooning" means?
According to Operabase.com, John Matz was scheduled to sing Macduff in Macbeth in Washington, DC, March-April '07, and Rodolfo in Bohème Nov-April '07. But nothing is listed for the future. I wonder if this is up to date.
Crooning, as I used it, means that someone has started sliding all over the place, beyond the bounds of portamento. It's what happens when singers get to the point that either divaliciousness gets the best of them, or their technique starts to fail them. Moffo did it, Sutherland did a lot of it, Fleming does a lot of it. Needless to say, it's not a compliment.
Oh, and Kiri did it. It's a certain preciousness in the singing.
Hans Lick, should that have been marmoreal, rather than mamoreal? Or where you referring to her bodacious tatas?
thanks sanford. Do others agree that is the standard definition? Does it mean something different when applied to pop singers? I'm just trying to make sense of all the times I've seen this word used and can't quite reconcile.
i looked up John Matz and found the operabase listing. I also checked out this coming season at Washington Opera, and he's nowhere to be found. But I found a hunkentenor - Vittorio Grigolo and a hunkonductor (I just coined that word. JJ, you have my permission to co-opt it for your site.) He's Giovanni Reggioli. And Gregory Turay is singing there this season. I saw him on Youtube in a Richard Tucker concert, but where has he been since then?
Speaking of the hunkonducter, there are pictures on his website of him in cycling gear. Hunkonductor in spandex!
sanford- I'm sure the album of Kiri you mention still sits in my mother's cupboard. Like all Kiwi mums - she has a copy and will never throw it out. It has her photo, then a fresh faced young girl (minus nose job) sitting there with her dog- (spaniel).
There was great affection throughout the country for her at that time and everyone knew she was destined for much more. There were benefit concerts etc to help fund her move to Gt Britain and further studies- the rest as they say, is history. Funnily after that there was a time where she became a lot less popular because NZer's felt she had pretty much abandoned them- didn't return to sing for quite a few years.
When she did return, she seemed "haughty" and remote- and in one of the few concerts she gave she not only appeared drunk, missing the top note on Mozart's Jubilate - she also said when she was asked to sing a Maori song "I don't know any- but I'm learning one which I am saving for Melbourne!"
As you can imagine this went over like a French kiss at a Christening- and the local paper wrote a huge article on her complete with a very Diva -like cartoon of her in a fur entitled "Perfect Pitch".
She fled back to Britain and it was some years later when a much "nicer" Kiri re- emerged to do concerts and appearances in NZ, that the locals again warmed to her and the chilly past was forgotten.
In recent years she delighted much of the population but got seriously offside with some Maori radicals when she slammed the laziness etc of the modern Maori youth- basically told them to get off their backsides and work hard like she had and to rely less on welfare.
This struck a real chord with NZ'ers and so I believe she is as popular today as she ever was. Now you've got me wondering- did that early album of hers (all to piano accompaniment) survive the years of the big frost in Mum's cupboard? I must ask her. ;0)
RUXTON< CALL UP YOUR MUM THIS VERY INSTANT! You realize that if you find it and it survived, you will have to post it all on Youtube and send the mp3's to La Cieca for posting here.
Sanford, since you seem to be an expert on crooning, could you point us to some YouTube videos with examples of operatic crooning by the divas you mentioned.
John Matz spent much of the 2006-2007 season singing with the Hamburg Staatsoper.
He was given the new Hamburg production of "Boheme" in Autumn 2006, and was crucified by the German reviewers.
I'm not sure why. I heard one of the November 2006 performances, and he was OK--and he certainly did not deserve the vicious reception he received.
What I meant by referring to John Matz as a wasted oppertunity was this: John Matz was a golden boy...Operalia winner, Domingo mentoree, and he had the help of one of the best voice teachers in the biz, Cesar Ulloa, who I know quite well. Unfortunetly, he basically started listening to the wrong people and took on a bunch of engagements that he was not ready for. Plus, he started acting like a divo before he actually WAS a divo. Now, nobody wants to work with him.
The LA production came from Monte Carlo - nothing to do with the DC one. The MC/LA one was directed by John Cox with designs by Paul Brown.
Does anyone else think that Vanessa would make a perfect role for Renaaay? Eternally youthful and all that ...
I always think that the big vocal difference between Kiri and Renee was that the former was/is a natural musician (even if that meant she was mostly a little dull), while Renee always thinks too much about everything she sings.
Lordy Lordy sanford- I don't know how I'm going to go about that if she has got it- easier said than done :(
Nonetheless, I will ask.
I always thought crooning was a kind of unsupported or badly supported soft singing. Sutherland never did that, although in slow music she tended to get rather "moony" in her search for expressiveness (but when the music got going, watch out!). Crooning is something better done by people who sing into microphones. Bing Crosby was the king of that. In opera singers, when done excessively, it will eventually kill their high notes (as it happened to Moffo)
Perfidia, your moony and my croony are the same thing. And to the person who asked for examples, you know I won't be able to find that stuff when I need it, but I'll keep looking and post it when I find it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as4czz45zRY
Cecilia Bartoli singing "Yon Moon O'er The Mountain" from her latest album. Overly precious and not even sung full voice. Breathy and unsupported. Croony.
Apologies. I am only going to comment that this is Vanessa and you can buy it on House of Opera. Very nice.
Good for Kiri. I always thought she was underappreciated in her prime, but the video shows that there is still an intact voice, an attractive presence, and she isn't as careful as she used to be.
As far as I can tell, Sutherland didn't croon, not in the strict meaning of the word. Her voice was always well supported. What she did, which is also done in crooning, is get really droopy (better word than moony) and rythmically flacid when singing slow music. I don't hear her doing the kind of unsupported singing that Bartoli does in her Maria album. That to me is closer to real crooning.
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