parterre box

50 comments

• hndymn says:

  Just—WOW. Not a single note out of place, and the ending just takes your breath away. Thanks, Cieca…

  on May 5, 2008 at 10:47 AM
• jack jikes says:

  Wonderful – such extraordinary diction and expression! I like the change from her normal tent outfits – let us all avoid safe sartorial taste – you showed the way Jesse.

  on May 5, 2008 at 11:09 AM
• ray says:

  Wonderful.

  On you tube you can hear and see her again at her finest I DREAMT I DWELT IN MARBLE HALLS. The way she phrases and tapers the end of phrases sounds like Heifitz playing a Strad.
  http://youtube.com/watch?v=dbRYEvZVoag

  For me this is perect singing and she looks like a goddess.

  Re her weight loss. She is reportedly battling illness but has been at a much lower weight for a while. Lost a lot for the Makropulos Case and mostly kept it off.

  You can see that in her last operatic telecast (known to me) of Ewartung/La Voix Humaine from Tokyo 2004.

  Ray

  on May 5, 2008 at 11:17 AM
• jatm2063 says:

  Sounds gorgeous. Beautiful expression of the text. As for her appearance she is quite large, but not weird looking like so many of the big ones are so it isn’t distracting. I think I’ll listen again.

  on May 5, 2008 at 11:56 AM
• Lucky Pierre says:

  jessye was at her thinnest at one point back in the 90′s, i think. i saw her as ariadne at the then met’s new production (the current one?) and she was quite svelte, more so than today. she sang quite well but what i remember the most was that ruth ann swenson stole the show that night as zerbietchka. i remember seeing some other photos at the time and she didn’t look so good — the head looked too big, you know, sort of like oprah at her thinnest. her weight has of course fluctuated since. she doesn’t look good as thin woman — she’s truly big-framed and she looks better a bit padded, not obese necessarily, but as a big girl.

  did jessye ever sing donna anna or donna elvira?

  on May 5, 2008 at 12:16 PM
• Gualtier Maldè says:

  Pierre,

  Norman sang Elvira with James Levine I think in Cincinnati sometime in the early 70′s. I don’t know about Donna Anna but I think Mrs. Claggart remembered her covering the role at Covent Garden around the same time.

  BTW: after the Vec Makropoulos at the Met, Jessye withdrew from several operatic contracts including the Met to concentrate on losing weight. Evidently a doctor told her she was not going to live very long at then size.

  A friend who saw Jessye at the Met opening last Fall said she was even thinner than last Thursday. She is certainly thinner now than she ever was in the eighties or nineties, perhaps in her entire adult life. However, she looks tired, stooped and stiff and lacks the radiant presence she had even five years ago.

  Give my life to Attila at the next football game.

  on May 5, 2008 at 12:51 PM
• Gualtier Maldè says:

  Oops, not my life, my love.

  They were once the same thing but youth doesn’t last forever, dahlings…

  (cue for melancholy violin music in the background)

  on May 5, 2008 at 12:52 PM
• iltenoredigrazia says:

  She did have a beautiful voice.

  She wore that dress often including, if I remember correctly, the Centennial Gala. A composers poster sort of thing. I assume she had it specially designed for her.

  on May 5, 2008 at 12:52 PM
• kashania says:

  Thanks for the clip, La Cieca.

  I doubt Jessye ever sung Donna Anna. She had the coloratura chops (including a trill) but the role would have been too high for her.

  on May 5, 2008 at 1:05 PM
• Sanford says:

  I think Jessye would have better as Fiordiligi than Donna Anna. With her bottom (you should pardon the expression), Jessye would have rocked Per Pieta.

  on May 5, 2008 at 1:19 PM