sleigh bells bling!
Ali K in da house!
A garden of Diva Blingees is right after the jump.
-
- It’s Pat!
-
- JAGgle Bells!
-
- A Christmas without Hilde Gueden is No Christmas at All!
-
- Buon Natalie!
-
- Enzo’s roses for Zylis-Gara!
-
- Joy from Enzo Bordello!
-
- schweigundtanze!
-
- Peck the Halls!
-
- Gualtier shall marry the Miller’s son!
-
- Merry Chacowhacko!
-
- Harry Muscles presents Miss Price!
-
- Ma Melisande!
-
- Have Yourself a Cheryl Little Christmas!
-
- Ali K in da house!
-
- Frau Kammersaengerin!
Well, at least Caballe didn’t break the headcheese platter. I was played once a video of Caballe where she as Salome was on the floor Salomevating over Jokanaan’s head. She took both hands to the platter on the floor, and leaned on it: there was a loud crrrrraaack – it split in half and broke. I think she giggled.
LeonidasLover, I am so glad you brought up Libuse. Benackova delivered one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen. In the long final aria her voice gradually opened and became more and more immense and enveloping, the tone full of indescribable color. The audience, which didn’t know the opera, went mad. Great Krunoslav (off being happy I ween) says his mother who had heard Flagstad, said it was the closest to Flagstad she had ever heard. Bit with worshipful respect, it never seems to me that Kirsten sings with a lot of color (the tone is glorious enough) and Benackova had all this stupendous array of colors in her sound.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas, and many beautiful sings in 2009,
Karnal Jones
32-
Hier bin ich, treue bis zum Blog!
Anent my mother– she had a Wagner-loving father, a Wisconsin boy who spent some time in Berlin and lucked into hearing people like Leider, Bohnen and Kipnis early on. He took my mother and uncles to the Met as junior high schoolers so she is the only person I know among several that I know who heard Flagstad who heard Flagstad **in her earliest years in America**, before the postwar return: Elsa and Elisabeth in 1937 and 1938.
*That’s* what she said Benackova in that epochal LIBUSE reminded her of– not so much in tone color as in absolute, unimpeded flow and control of a huge, beautiful untrammeled sound.
I was there too. An unbelievable night.
Amen to all the Benackova love! I flew to NYC each year 86-88 to hear the 3 Czech operas Queler programmed for Benackova, who was amazing in all. Although I wasn’t crazy about Libuse per se (the first time I had heard her in person), I do recall being floored by that astonishing final scene. But it was the Rusalka the following year (done at Avery Fisher rather than Carnegie as it had been postponed due to Benackova’s illness) that I remember as one of the truly great nights of my opera-going. I walked across the street to a pay phone right after and called my then-partner floating 10 feet off the ground and raved to him that I had just heard the most ravishing singing in my life. Over twenty years later, I think I pretty much still feel the same way!
#35 : Mein lieber Hippolyte, I think I’ll pass on the hairdo, but what lovely memories you stir of Benackova’s Rusalka, certainly some of the most thrilling vocalism I’ve ever heard. I’m rather ashamed to say that I was somewhat bored by the Libuse (my ignorance of the work, I’m sure) untill the final tableaus, where the voice, as others have said opened up and was brilliant. She was, of course, the Jenufa of choice in San Francisco, Carnegie, and the Met, and excellent, though, sharing the stage with my Goddess, Leonie, she remained HER step-daughter.