tutte le torture
Say what you will about Sylvie Valayre, the lady is certainly game, as can be seen both in this Regied-out scene from Nabucco:
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… and this production of Macbeth where (apparently) the Konzept for the Lady was “Patti LuPone meets Patti LaBelle.”
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Yes, indeed! A Pink Flamingos (Fenicottero Rosa) I’ll have to leave the casting to Sanford (Bless his clever mind.) But may I interject: I do think that Dawn Upshaw would be perfect as Connie Marble. And depending on fach requirements, it could easily contain a signature role, if you please, for Famous Quickly depending, of course, upon color needs and tessitura extensions.
@ VerdiLover: Oh yes, it is possible to sing that worse. Imagine all those Grubers, Neves, Marrocus, Guleghinas and so on who are just screaming around. I havn’t heard a better Abigaille since Varady in Paris in ’95. And I’m very sorry Valayre had to sing in this awful staging, she would deserve something better!!!
Has Francesca Patanè sung Abigaïlle anywhere? I heard her once, as Turandotte, and she sounded like a potential Lady M and Abi. I heard Paoletta Marroccu for the first time recently in Italy. Oh dear, not a major voice.
Honestly I dont hear any difference between this disaster and the Guleghina trainwreck in, say, Macbeth, except that Guleghina actually has the voice to sing Lady Macbeth. Both have faulty intonation, imprecise coloratura, throaty sounds, yells and screeches on the upper range. I dont hear why she is considered special.
This girl looks (and sounds) like a little cat trying to roar like a lion. It is sort of ridiculous.
My question about casting isn’t who’d play Divine, but who’d played Edith Massey?
please don’t lump neves with that group. at least, she has A VOICE!
Patane just did an excellent Lady M in Malmo.
Sorry, VerdiLover, but I don’t hear any “faulty intonation, imprecise coloratura, throaty sounds, yells and screeches” in Valayre’s singing. In contrast to Guleghina who also is, besides of everything you just named, always flat in the high register.
I prefer a slim, well projected voice (and Valayre’s voice is projecting very well) to a “bulldozer sound” like Guleghina, who of course has the bigger voice, but NO technique.
@Stella Barbare: Neves just got fired from La Scala because she was such a desaster as Lady Macbeth…
Those curious about Miss Patane– I just read that she is doing TURANDOT in Philadelphia next year. The Albanian soprano Jaho who recently made surprise ROH and Met debuts is Liu and Francesco Hong is Calaf- has anyone heard him?