tour de force
La Cieca has just learned that veteran soprano and beloved camp diva Katia Ricciarelli is treading the boards again, this time not in opera houses but rather on whatever it is they call the Italian version of the Straw Hat Circuit. The bionda bombshell is currently touring in a play with music by by Peter Quilter entitled Gloriosa!, playing the legendary Florence Foster Jenkins:
Una cantante ricca di fascino che Quilter rende ancora più seducente suggerendo l’idea di una donna coraggiosa e determinata ad ottenere il massimo dalla sua vita, una donna che insegue i suoi sogni e ne affronta le conseguenze. Un’occasione per Katia Ricciarelli di mettere in luce quella parte del carattere che sicuramente divide con Florence Foster e che certo non le difetta: la determinazione e il coraggio.
La Cieca naturally expects any of her cher public who may be in or around Italy in the coming months to make every effort to witness this latest effort of La Ricciarelli, “artista multiforme e dalle infinite curiosità ,” as the press release puts it.
There are 2 videos of KR singing Ebben…the black dress video and the gold dress video. I like the black dress video better; in the gold dress one she ends the aria by spreading her arms in big broadway gestures which don’t fit with the lyrics IMO. If someone more knowing than moi about vocalism could check out both videos and tell me what I should be hearing it would be appreciated.
KJC: I like the black dress video too, although she seems in a bit better voice overall in the gold dress video to me. In the black dress video she tries to sing the vast majority of the piece pianissimo (marking?).
Notice in the gold dress video she takes it VERY slowly and milks every syllable. She also makes most of the entrances late, most noticeably the first one, when the conductor turns to her and gestures politely for her to enter, about 2 beats late. He’s probably thinking to himself “sing you stupid cow”.
There is also a blue dress video, taped outdoors somewhere. In that she doesn’t seem to be in very good form, although it could just be the miking/acoustics.
Her hair was always a problem too, wasn’t it? Its always like she is copying things she sees in Italian fashion magazines from the 40s.
KJC: there is a third KR rendition of the La Wally aria, the one in the turquoise dress with the really big puffy Alexis Carrington type broad shoulders… She sings the best in that one. More honest sound, less self-indulgent, more supported, more spin to the tone and less whobble and swoop from note to note.
the photo of KR standing there looking ecstatic or something and the red headed woman looks a lot like a photo from an old Miss America pageant, with Miss Am. and Lenora Slaughter, the old lady who used to run the pageant.
She looks like Bette Midler before her big slim down.
Her Luisa Miller was the pinnacle of her Covent Garden career. She sang it in three successive seasons with first with Pavarotti, then Domingo and finally Carreras and Bergonzi alternating as Rodolfo. She was also a very touching Elisabetta in the mid-1970s – I saw this in Covent Garden, Paris and Munich around the same time – and her Desdemona was the finest around for several years. I missed her Ballo and Aida which critics said were too heavy for her (as was her Leonora in Il trovatore) but she was a lovely Mimi, Giulietta in Capuleti and Lucia in the “simplified” – no high notes – Caballé version. I wish she had sung some Mozart roles in London. She might have been a divine Contessa and Donna Anna. Armerjacquino is right about Plowright – unfortunately her career was ruined by her pushy, greedy manager of the time.
The “simplified” Lucia is actually closer to what Donizetti wrote; most of what we identify with Lucia are interpolations by sopranos and conductors who wanted more coloratura. I love Riciarelli. I think her recording of the 5 act French Don Carlo is wonderful (and how much better I think the opera is in its original form and language). I also remember an album she did that included Bellini’s beautiful song Vaga Luna… pure gold. I also like the earlier Verdi operas she recorded (though no one sings Luisa better than Moffo).
Yes her Medora in “Il Corsaro” at the beginning of her career was pretty special. I really like her Hélène in “Jérusalem” with Carreras in 1975 which was also pretty excellent. “I Due Foscari” on Philips was fairly high-ranking too… But one of her idiosyncracies was just that of being able to surprise you and turn in a very special performance just when you were ready to write her off (… again!).
Interesting news. I saw the Sweet Biscuits in recital in Bergamo maybe a decade ago or less, and much of it was pure filth. Yet I would gladly have given all that for a few golden phrases in the Maria Stuarda excerpts she did. And, yes, I warmed to the nostalgia of the audience and the vecchie at the back crying ‘Sei bella, Katya’!
Regina dell fate says: “Armerjacquino is right about Plowright – unfortunately her career was ruined by her pushy, greedy manager of the time.”
Wasn’t said manager he also her husband? And he still is, I believe. I think she should have dropped to dramatic mezzo years ago. She’d have made a good Eboli, for instance.