On one of the boards, someone posted a clip of Callas singing Isolde’s death scene and a fan repplied that Celine can totally do that because she’s got the vocal prowess for that…

That said, I don’t think I need to add anything else, do I?

LMAO

The artistic merit won’t be much, but well… who cares? People who actually know real opera will always be regarded as snobs by fans of popular music as long as they don’t acknowledge Andrea Boccelli and Sarah Brightman as legitimate opera singers, so why should we really bother about this?

Of course it is Callas memory that’s on the stake, but her memory has already been stained by such an amount of garbage like the trash they put on the exhibitions of supposedly authentic Callas’ memorabilia that this Céline Dion thing will only be a drop in the ocean of mediocrity.

In the end, it all boils down to the people that have been recognizing and honouring Maria’s true genius by showing her recordings to people who don’t know it and to all those singers after her, younger and older, who look up to her as a model of inspiration for everyone in every Fach. And that is Maria’s true legacy and there’s no pop diva who should have remained the rest of her days singing in the Casino, who can stain that!

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.

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.

“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…

But perhaps I should change it.
How about Richard Gere as the Tapeworm?

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.

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).

John Travolta as Joan Sutherland (recycling his Hairspray get-up)

But my point is that I would have thought that somewhere during the recording process Celine would therefore have discovered already that Pavarotti didn’t read music. Or perhaps she is just larding on the false modesty….

And my guess is also that a properly trained Celine would be a soprano and not a mezzo (she has an ease in head voice when not belting that suggests so) but it ain’t going to be a decently-sized soprano – she would probably be a Gheorghiu ‘I’m only going to use 50% of my voice whenever I get above a G’ kind of girl….

Heaven preserve us.

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