blood wedding
La Cieca hears from several authoritative sources that Diana Damrau will sing the autumn revival of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met, replacing the gravid Anna Netrebko.
La Cieca at this point can only image the wattage of the dramatic sparks to be generated between la Damrau and her Edgardo, Rolando Villazón!
UPDATE: Although there’s no audio of Damrau singing Lucia (the Met production will be her role debut), here’s something in a neighboring Fach:
I think Damrau is around 35, maybe? Not blutjung.
The Onegin with Villazon in Berlin is in September 2008. Also according to Opernglas…
I think the assumption that there are “no people” out there who can sing certain roles is poppycock.
Just because the Met’s “talent scouts” who supposedly are going all over the world listening for new singers doesn’t mean they are actually listening in the right places or to the right singers.
I heard a butterfly last year that KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF, and that soprano will never ever sing it at the met, because she’s 5’10″ and while CERTAINLY not fat, is not skinny either. It’s ridiculous. They really don’t know how to cast. I’m sorry. I love the Met, I love their productions, but CASE IN POINT: they are mounting a new Carmen for GEORGIOU!??!?! Donnez-moi un break, people.
Thanks for the clarification, Hippolyte.
I’m guessing that the Christie Entfuhrung would be a candidate for least popular recording on parterre, then. Schafer’s the fourth principal in it that I’ve read a kicking of on here…
Well, I spent the last 2 weeks listening to the soprano who will always be my touchstone for lyric-coloraturas. I know I’ll get flamed for this, but I recently bought Moffo’s French Arias and Verdi Arias disks on vinyl, which have never been out on cd as far as I know. My bro-in-law converted them to digital for me, and I posted them all to Youtube. The French is from 1975 and she has some problems, but even so, better than Dessay, Gheorgiu, Damray, and Trebs. And the Verdi? My first reaction to hearing the Salce, Salce was Rennnnaaaay who? I agree with comments I just read about casting at the Met. I sometimes wonder if my ears are f***ed up, but then I decide it’s not me after all.
I hear from friends in Austria that the Schubertiade
folks are notoriously touchy about not only cancellations
but terms of contracts being correctly observed. So
“huffy” statements from their PR people are the norm.
Re: priorities for casting at the New Met. they are most
concerned with marketability of the artists, it seems
to me. And singers will be trained with that in mind, I
believe. Dame Joan has said, in response to queries,
about her interest in current opera productions, that
she simply doesn’t bother with performances any more. She
condemns the preoccupation with novelty, and says further that the singers are not being peoperly trained.
Hippolyte – I saw Schäfer’s Cleo and Alcina – both in Amsterdam – and I agree, among the most horrible Handel singing currently paraded before the public (has anyone heard her ghastly Bach record on that was the first disc of an exclusive DG contract, which seems to have produced nothing since?). Isn’t Schäfer a Matthew Epstein protégée, which presumably explains why she still gets work everywhere. My rule of thumb now: if Schäfer is cast in a new production, wait for the revival. Sorry to disagree with Amerjacquino again, but I thought she was at her feeblest in the Act III trio of Rigoletto at Covent Garden. The voice is thin, wiry and shrill – I just don’t get her career.
Re Rolando in the Met Lucia Lucia – I think you can all forget about that. A list of his 2008 opera engagements says Don Carlo at the ROH in June, then Roméo sans Nebsie’s Juliette in Salzburg, Lenski in Berlin in September/October, a return to Covent Garden for another Hoffmann series – seven performances – November/December
and then three Bohemes in Vienna around Christmas. I also hear he has cancelled the new Luisa Miller in Vienna with Nebs, so maybe the new “dream couple” is on the rocks before it has got up and running…….Their Boheme recording will be out in May/June. Did anyone see Nebs’s interview in the London Times in which she said he hadn’t spoken to her since his rest last year!
Regina della fate:” My rule of thumb now: if Schäfer is cast in a new production, wait for the revival.”
Absolutely. A corollary: “Schaefer’s is the one cast to skip if they’re mounting more than one.”
But Mr. Gelb, not over-concerned with *vocalism*, likes her because she’s thin and stylish so we in NYC will be enduring her in inappropriate roles for some time.
Correction to Regina delle Fate: Nebs and Villazon will have to have spoken to each other – they are currently filming “La Boheme” in Austria.
The photos are here:
http://operachic.typepad.com/opera_chic/2008/02/the-wintry-land.html
The famous chemistry is palpable in these photos. Also what do you think of Netrebko’s “lady in red” Mimi? Definitely no shrinking violet virginal gamine there!
Also, isn’t Villazon being replaced as Don Carlo in London or has he been announced for it? I heard rumors of Jonas Kaufmann replacing him.