it takes a villars
Heldentenordiva Jon Villars (center, in mohawk) “basically fired himself by walking off the stage” at a public dress rehearsal for the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Fidelio. According to a report in The Globe and Mail, Villars stormed off stage immediately after conductor Gregor Buhl “loudly sang out a few phrases of the tenor’s part” during the second act. Jumping in as Florestan will be Icelandic tenor Jon Ketilsson and later Richard Margison.
Thanks Feldmarschallin (Commnet 76) for clearing up that point about Jon Fredrick West.
Slightly off topic but it concerns a tenor so…
Going to see Peter Grimes at San Carlo on Friday with a young American tenor Brandon Jovanovvich singing the Peter. I’m not familiar with him. Any thoughts or opinions?
Also looking at pictures he seems a bit young – and I might add too good looking – for the role. But that could give the opera with so many levels, one more dimension.
In regards to comment # 82, sometimes we get locked into a certain look and age for certain roles, when neither has really been indicated by the libretto. As long as the ages and looks are believable in the plot, why not go for something different? Old people have sex lives, people fall in love with fat people, an old witch can be timelessly beautiful and the town drunk can be a young man.
Sometimes a certain look becomes a tradition because it was defined that way by a particular artist and people come to expect it. If the portrayl is honest and well executed, the audience is usually very accepting of such changes. It’s when the changes aren’t logical with plot, and the effect the composer was trying to convey is warped beyond recognition that the audience in general feels annoyed and cheated.
Ortrud—were there two productions of “Fidelio” in Seville?
In 2007, Robert Dean Smith sang Florestan there, not Griffey. RDS indeed sang the role of Florestan very well.
The Villars story in barebones form was reported in today’s NY Times
I have seen and heard Brandon Jovanovich three times in performance: 1) in Jonathan Dove’s Flight in Boston (where he had a hook up with another male character that I wished hadn’t been mostly off-stage); in Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Mines of Sulphur (where he played a hot, violent hunk); and as Turridu at NYCO, doing pretty well, I thought.
He’s a tall, good looking man, with a nicely sized medium weight tenor, excellent acting skills, and a lot of presence. He will definitely not have the same physique du role that we are familiar with in the iconic Grimes of Jon Vickers or of current, excellent Grimes, Anthony Dean Griffey.
re:21 = and one could assume the Villars is using his own costumes in this production, as I understand he is a big burly leather queen.
78 – Leontyneschiava – Spill, Miss Thing! Spill! LOL
Perhaps he was not fond of the way, Florestan was bound ‘in bondage’ in this production???!!! After all there is a right way and a wrong way… for some people. It can pot some people off their game.
# 86. On January 26, 2009 at 10:36 am, balabanov11 muttered:
re:21 = and one could assume the Villars is using his own costumes in this production, as I understand he is a big burly leather queen.
Re #74 . . . “Is there any other . . .” Yes, I think one could safely say politics.
T1, THANK YOU for catching my mistake. Robert Dean Smith was the Florestan in the Seville 07 Fidelio. He was very impressive!