baby love
La Cieca has just learned that Anna Netrebko, who is currently awaiting the September arrival of her first child, has withdrawn from her scheduled Met performances as Mimì on December 29, 2008 and January 3 matinee, 6, and 10, 2009.
According to a press release from the met, the soprano “has decided that she will need a few more weeks than originally planned to be ready for her return to the stage” following the birth of the Schrott Tot. Maija Kovalevska will replace Netrebko for the Bohème performances. Netrebko promises a return to the company on January 26 in Lucia di Lammermoor.
Madame Quickly: a fast rush through wikipedia revealed that Erna Sack was flexible enough to sing Norina, Zerbinetta, and Gilda, and Flagstad spent
years singing musical comedy, operetta, and Agathe and Aida!(Wish there was a recording of her Aida) Two very flexible divas.
My first memory of opera was seeing Roberta Peters on The Dinah Shore SHow, singing the Vilja-lied. As soon as she started to sing, I decided I wanted to sing (and be a soprano, but oh, well). I really miss the days of TV variety shows. I’m old enough to have watched The Ed Sullivan Show (with chinese food on tray tables). Where else could you see Topo Gigo, Mama Cass, plate spinners, Senor Wenclas, Stiller and Meara, and Anna Moffo all on the same night?
Way back in the early ’50s before we had a TV there was a weekly radio show prbly on NBC called The Railroad Hour, usually with Rise S and Gordon McCrae and they would sing excerpts from what I found later were 1912 or so operettas–Chocolate Soldier or Babes in Toyland(Victor Herbert kinda stuff). I wish I knew if someone at NBC had made any recordings from this show. It was one of the last gasps of “refined”(bad wording I know) on radio.
Could we refine our terminology here, ladies? Sarah Brightman clearly has musical talent. She can sing and she is a trained musical theatre singer/dancer. She is not an operatic singing talent, but neither is she a voice that is studiobound and requires pitch correction and all sorts of artifical effects added to it before it can be released to the public. I don’t like her voice, but she cannot be damned with being called talentless, and as someone said earlier in the thread, she has never attampted to position herself as an operatic soprano…
Sanford said: My first memory of opera was seeing Roberta Peters on The Dinah Shore SHow, singing the Vilja-lied. As soon as she started to sing, I decided I wanted to sing (and be a soprano, but oh, well). I really miss the days of TV variety shows.
I say: I didnt ever latch on to it as a kid, but i do recall absolutely knowing who Beverly Sills was from this type of show… Ellen Degenneres does a lot of musical things, lots of time with newer talent… but i had thought i might write her and ask her to consider bringing in opera singers much the way Sanford said… Maybe we should start a letter writing campaign…
don’t forget that great Terrytoon introduction to Opera–The Butcher of Seville–with Oil Can Harry singing The Butcher. 5 think Mighty Mouse was the tenor who saved the cow from Harry.
finger error: 5 should be “I” if anyone wonders whatthe…