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well as most of us know, or the ones who have scores at least, the high notes are not written by Donizetti. Most but not all Lucias have sung them to some extent. Lucias who great upper extensions like Callas or Sutherland have sung the high notes and others like the ones mentioned above haven’t. So she could get away with singing the Lucia with the acuti and few would notice the lack of trill or the smudged coloratura. She isn’t Damrau who comes from the high coloratura and who can easily popp out a high E flat effortless. Even Dessay today has to strain and put effort into those e flats and then they are more or less screams. Massis has them as well but the voice is not very large and I know how much the Met audiences like their large voices. Nothing wrong with a good b flat ending a duet and preferable to a flat high note anyday.
there are tons of lucias who screamed at this point even before dessay… to say this BELONGS to sombeody just to insult another singer is nonsense.
Meanwhile, Voight and Forbis are sounding fine to me in T&I from Chicago, streaming live on WFMT.
They sound fierce to me on FMT, but that could be the miking. More as matters progress.
What is really strange is the lack of ensemble between Trebs and the flautist. Could it have been that the lovely Anna did not want to make time for a special cadenza rehearsal?
Did the Russian divette not want to deal with the glass harmonica in the cadenza?
What was that shiek in the bridge section before Spargi? Something inflicted / suggested by the director.
Close, but no cigar!
I own 30 Lucia recordings and I never heard that silly scream, who are you fooling? That’s Dessay’s brilliant “contribution” to bel canto and hers only.
Yes Donizetti didn’t write Ds or Es but if they’re cut, the score must be sung in its original key. Trebs can’t do that either. Andrea Rost did it at the MET in 1999 and Caballé recorded it with Carreras.
The whole score is always transposed down so the final high notes can be added, a practice that started even before Melba’s time. Lily Pons sang it in the original key AND added Es and Fs to the finales.
gee whiz, fellows! It’s not just that Netrebko missed her e-flats, she just does not have them. In the Mad Scene both were literal screams — not balanced tones on the breath, flat yes, but also ugly — not musical sounds. The rest of her voice sounded good! She was clearly unnerved by the first bad Eb, and her singing thereafter suffered, then the denoument came and, alas, she held it too long. Transpose, sing as written, or don’t sing the role – those are her options as I see it.
Pretty clear to me Lucia is not a role for A. N. Damrau, with coaching, could sing rings around anyone else just now. And she has the amplitude of tone, as does Netrebka — up to a point.
Sounds like she swallowed some of Schrott’s tainted jizz before singing this aria!
Netrebko made it to the second high Eb, but soon aftter, slowly flatted down to a Db. It seems to me that when she felt her voice start to give, she would have stopped. But NOOOOO, “let’s just see if I can fix it.” So we get the Poulenc edition of Lucia: ending on a sustained flatted 7th.
She was NEver a bel canto singer. The Norina was heinous and Puritani was a pudding.
Our friend’s review is out on the NYT’s website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/arts/music/28luci.html
This is my favourite line:
“At one point he (Villazon) turned an aborted high note into a dramatic coup.” Really!?