once more she opens the door
Three-time World’s Best-selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year Céline Dion apparently has not come to her senses in the eight months that have passed since her Las Vegas farewell. As La Cieca warned you last year, the québécoise canary is planning a crossover into the cinema, specifically a biopic in which she, Céline Dion, will portray her idol Maria Callas.Â
Now, don’t panic, filming hasn’t started yet and there’s still plenty of time to get a violent protest movement organized. Still, Dion’s Divina continues in development, according to La Presse:
Céline Dion a chanté pour Kent Nagano à Berlin, en juin. «On voulait voir si Céline est capable de chanter de l’opéra,» explique René Angélil [i.e., Monsieur Dion]. «Si elle doit faire le film sur Maria Callas (avec la productrice Denise Robert), il faut qu’elle y chante, sinon ça ne sera pas intéressant.»
La Dion went into her audition with Nagano imbued with the enormous self-confidence for which she is celebrated. Says Céline:
«Moi, sans prétention, je peux tout faire, mais il faut que je me prépare. Nagano m’a demandé si je connaissais tel ou tel opéra, si je lisais la musique. Par trois fois, j’ai répondu non; ça partait mal, mon affaire! Mais il m’a tout de suite mis à l’aise en me disant que Pavarotti, je pense, ne lisait pas la musique lui non plus.»
Finalement, je lui ai chanté deux extraits de Carmen de Bizet que je connaissais. Je lui ai dit que j’étais mezzo-soprano. Ilm’a répondu: ‘Je ne pense pas. Tout ce que vous venez de chanter, c’est soprano’.»
And Nagano’s reaction to Céline’s Seguidille? Angélil exults, «Après l’avoir écoutée, Kent Nagano lui a suggéré deux choses: des leçons de chant et une classe de maître avec une grande chanteuse d’opéra (la soprano italienne Renata Scotto).»
I agree that if Dion trained her voice operatically, she’d probably be a soprano. With the exception of those melisma riffs, her genre of music doesn’t call for alot of head voice.
What I don’t understand (and clearly I’m not alone) is why Celine would actually have to sing in this film? Even a real opera singer is not going to successfully emulate Maria’s singing. They should stick with dubbing. Hearing Maria’s recordings might end up being the only good thing about the film (aside from the chest-thumping of course).
Since Celine’s acting chops are not really tested, let’s surround her with some of the best Hollywood has to offer:
Evangelia Callas – Judi Dench
Jackie Callas – Natalie Portman
Aristotle Onassis – Benicio del Toro
Giovanni Battista Meneghini – Philip Seymour Hoffman
Jacqueline Kennedy – Kate Winslet
Elvira de Hidalgo – Helen Mirren
Tullio Serafin – Ben Kingsley
Young Renata Scotto – Ellen Page
Renata Tebaldi – Marion Cotillard
Giuseppe Di Stefano – Joaquin Phoenix
Sir Rudolf Bing – Ralph Fiennes
Franco Zeffirelli – Roberto Benigni
Luchino Visconti – Ian McKellen
Carlo Maria Giulini – Daniel Day-Lewis
Leonard Bernstein – Adrien Brody
Franco Corelli – Johnny Depp
Tito Gobbi – Javier Bardem
Giulietta Simionato – Salma Hayek
Herbert Von Karajan – Viggo Mortensen
Walter Legge – Simon Cowell
Elizabeth Schwartzkopf – Amy Adams
John Ardoin – Paul Giamatti
and Tom Cruise as the Tapeworm
Of course, all singing will be dubbed except for Johnny Depp, Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard and Amy Adams, who as you already know, are established singers.
Miss Ping # 67: hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Melot’s Younger Brother, you had me in stitches with your cast! Bravissimo!
Thank you, rlatromba.
But perhaps I should change it.
How about Richard Gere as the Tapeworm?
Dazzling, wicked, MYB, a feast for the imagination.
In other diva news:
“ARTS, BRIEFLY
Fleming and Floyd Receive Swedish Award
Compiled by Julie Bloom
The American soprano Renée Fleming and the British rock group Pink Floyd received the Polar Music Prize in Sweden on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse reported. The awards were bestowed by Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden, in Stockholm. The winners received about $156,000 each. Ms. Fleming, right, was honored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, “in recognition of her sublime unparalleled voice and unique stylistic versatility.†Nick Mason and Roger Waters accepted the award on behalf of Pink Floyd, selected “for their monumental contribution over the decades to the fusion of art and music in the development of popular culture.†The Polar Music Prize was founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, the publisher, lyricist and manager of the Swedish pop group Abba. The prize has been awarded since 1992. Last year it was shared by the composer Steve Reich and the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins?
Why does Renee need this money? Or recognition? It seems perverse to reward people for being famous and rich…
Ok now I really want to hear Dion sing soprano. All the rest I think is speculation… Considering the fact that nobody can portray Maria Callas, while singing, I do not agree. Callas did have the most peculiar voice, and I think this is why it should be possible for someone with a peculiar voice to play her character. I dont know if it makes sense to you, but for instance, somebody said agnes baltsa (forgive me if i spell that wrong) to play her and thats typically wrong because can she go as far as callas in some of her diphtongues (if that word exists in english) ? Of course she has the right register and is an incredible opera singer but can she do a real french held “IN” which sounds horrendous to the hear, but is the correct vowel to do in “train” in les tringles des sistres ? I say screw the original recording. I want an actress and a singer actress to play the character, and play the voice. Of course the character will not be a copy of who was callas exactly, you will still see a bit of the actress in it. And of course the voice will not be callas’ but she could play the peculiarity, even if in the end it’s not exactly the same.
In a word give me a honest performance with a freak unconcerned of usual beauty cannon (english ?) voice, with the appropriate rigor and dramatic expression research and I will be pleased.
that comment was way too long.
La Cieca – I have a treasure here, sent two days after the divine Nicola Kirsch won our car-crash-Tv programme ‘Stars in their Eyes’ ‘as’ Maria Callas. The public bought it – even though the Paul McCartney- and Whitney Houston-alikes were a thousand times better, and out came the CD. The four more this lady was contracted for don’t seem to have materialised.
Mind you, I played Nicola’s ‘Casta Diva’ alongside Maria’s to two opera-illiterate friends and asked them which they preferred – and they chose the vaseline-lensed, utterly spineless Kirsch. Yer punters really do want to hear Italian opera treated as a words-don’t-matter, brain-in-bucket Ocean of Tranquillity, hence the success (?) of the Opera Babes and their ilk.
Scaramuccio, you must forward a link to lacieca@parterre.com.