key mi frena in tal momento
For those who are interested, the following clip will help establish the tonality of Rolando Villazòn’s final aria last night.
(This clip was sent to La Cieca by a member of the cher public who prefers to remain anonymous. The clip is provided for discussion purposes only.)
What a bummer for you guys in NYC!
It’s a pity that Rolando’s voice still is in decline (started four years ago…).
It looks like Anna Netrebko has to get another manager, who knows better what to do with the voice (learning and daring to say “no” to Mr. Gelb).
Best whishes from overseas.
Well, other than 4 more Lucias in Vienna, Netrebko is spending the rest of the season singing far more congenial repertoire – Giulietta in London (still bel canto, but a bit more of a realistic prospect), Traviata (lets hope she doesn’t go for the e-flat!), Mimi and finally, thank God, Iolantha in Baden-Baden for which she is pretty much ideal. Lets hope Iolantha is well enough received to indicate to her management that THIS is what she should be using her talents for. I love the opera in any case and it would be great if it got a bit more of a foot hold in the repertoire, troublesome though its length is.
What do people think the chances are of either Netrebko being replaced as Anna Bolena, or an alternative opera being mounted as Netrebko’s season opener in 2011? They’ve probably made too much of a fuss about it already to substitute anything (or anyone) now, and it isn’t as wide of the mark for her as Lucia is, but I’d still prefer somebody with a more dramatic voice and a more precise approach for Anna Bolena.
“Ms. Netrebko was spellbinding. In the hushed pianissimo passage when the delusional young woman believes she and her beloved Edgardo are at last united, she created vocal magic, imbuing lines with spectral colorings that matched the eerie sounds of the glass harmonica, played by Cecilia Brauer. Her earthy, subdued expressivity had me thinking of Callas.”
How can this man not be ashamed to be a shameless apologist for Gelb’s stsr system and the record company darlings?
The LUCIA review is proof if ever such were needed that Tommasini is not fit to review operatic performances.
Previous Callas comparisons by him include Flanigan and Hunt Leiberson, plus there have n=been more, along with all those “cool Nordic sounds”.
A disgrace.
Something I mean quite serious:
Why is everybody bashing Netrebko left and right!? We all know she is no second Callas, we all know where she delivers her goods and where not. But at least she gives a little attention to opera. If there are about 100 people who get really interested in the art form we all love so much, isn’t that a good thing!?
I have two other suggestions for Lucia, one of which will most assuredly get me flamed, but I don’t care.
Erika Miklosa – she already looks a little crazed when she sings and she’d have no trouble with the coloratura.
Young Ok Shin – She’s sung Lucia at the Met already
Or…. how about transposing it into mezzo keys and letting Bartoli claim it’s the Maria Malibran version.
Sanford: YES!!! A Bartoli Marlibran Lucia is the real answer. Bravo!
For those of us who were there, the Times review really does suggest that the write is either deaf or bribed! Many have long felt that theTimes reviews are aimed at the masses who have NOT seen the performances, so they can write freely. And for the few who were there and know how false the Times reviews are? — “so WHAT”!!?
There’s a more accurate review in today’s The Washington Post by Ms. Midgette.
Was the glass harmonica used or not? I doesn’t sound like it on the sound clip. But the review above refers to it…
It was, in the mad scene, just not for the cadenza, which used the flute for some reason. You can just hear it in the background in ’spargi d’amaro pianto’ (sp?).
Yes, Midgette’s review is far more exacting and much more reflective of the audio clips I’ve heard on this site. Midgette has become a changed writer since leaving the NYT, which makes me wonder even more about the NYT and the editors. How much of non-specific, bland, let’s-not-criticise-anyone “criticism” is actually the result of what’s been taken out of the NYT’s reviews by the editors?? I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories but I’m starting to believe that this whole Gelb influence on the NYT theory may not be so far-fetched.
Okay, now I’ve listened to the clip.
No, the E-flats were not good, and she’d be wise to take them down. Also the shriek is ridiculous and NOT bel canto. But I don’t see why people are so fierce about this. It’s no sort of disgrace.
I recall my first Rigoletto (9/19/68, debut of Aragall and Judith Forst), when Peters ducked the high notes after Caro Nome and the quartet. I was very disappointed (I was a kid and I’d been listening to the first Sutherland recording), but I knew even then that they were not written by Verdi. And Peters just didn’t have them any more. Did she owe me a pie in the face? She did not. (She sang wonderful Adinas and Oscars that same season.) Ten years later, when I knew a bit more, I heard Ashley Putnam’s Ophelie at NYCO and was impressed that she omitted high notes she didn’t have. The result was a far finer performance. Netrebko should consider that, or simply transpose it down. (As Sutherland transposed the Queen of the Night, by the way, never having had a reliable F.)
Other than that, Netrebko sounds rather lovely here – I’d certainly rather hear her Donizetti than Dessay’s. But I’d rather hear Damrau’s Lucia than either of theirs (it was a very good one last fall the night the set broke and she had to improvise a new staging of the mad scene), and I’d rather hear Devia’s Donizetti than any other soprano now singing him (to my knowledge). Based on the Maria Stuarda last year, she has perfect command of the style, the technique and the POINT of the whole thing.
Has Radvanovsky ever sung Lucia? It’s higher than Lucrezia, and more exposed, but not by that much.
It is sung down a half step, which is the exact key that the following tenors always sing this piece in in live performances: Pavarotti, Domingo, Carreras, Bergonzi, Tucker, Peerce, Labo, Konya, and many more. The only tenors I recall singing this is the original key are/were: Gedda, Kraus, Giordani, and perhaps one or two more. It is virtually tradition to lower this 1/2 tone. It is NOT lowered a full tone as some were saying before the performance.
I further think it is a terrible thing to publish this on Youtube, for, IMHO, the sole reason of being vindictive to Villazon. I have published live performance recordings for more than 40 years, and would never publish a performance- not even a note- that showed any singer off badly. This was done with purpose and a nasty kind of glee, and it disgusts me completely.
#87 “deaf or bribed…” the writer in the Times. Well, in a way both, Mr Klingsor — and I commend your brief posting: it’s on the right track.
The Times is very beholden to the NY business establishment, for obvious reasons beginning with advertising, and the want to “sell” NY arts performances. It’s just about that simple. Tony T. hears what he wants to hear and writes pro-establishment reviews that always put a favorable twist on things. I have often written this here and I’ll say it again as regards Tommassini: He is whore to the New York arts business establishment.”
Shocking, but true — and in the end, very boring.
I love your postings Klingsor and Hans Lick. Keep ‘em coming.
OMG the Malibran Lucia version is cracking! Don’t get the Bartoli machinery started, dunce!
There is nothing quite like tearing down the idols we once build and worshiped.