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Stupid ass quiz. What a waste of time.
And where was George Steele through all of this?
The presto round question about the different types of -cides was interesting, but they rushed through it. I didn’t understand what category they were allowing L’Amore dei tre re. Father-in-law killing daughter-in-law was not the category offered. And for killing a wife, why didn’t someone shout “Otello!”? And Thomas’ Hamlet surely was a good answer for some of them. What’s interesting is that, for once, La Gioconda was not the all-purpose answer for a difficult question. Gioconda has a suicide and a contralto-cide, but that’s it.
Yes, Virginia (La Cieca), there’s Santa Clause (there’s Lucia in Netrebko)!
I just came back from HD Lucia. It was a phenomenal performance – thanks to Armiliato- and everything came together. Netrebko may not be a coloratura but she sings and acts Lucia.
Closeups of her face and mouth showed no strain. Her top was secure and her legato was breathtaking. Beczala was the man of the day, and with Kwiecien’s and Abdrazakov’s flawless singing, this Met HD telecast was on of the best.
Lately, everybody’s putting down everybody: the Met, singers, etc. Guys, things don’t look that bad. Watching this Met production and everything that goes behind the scene, many ouside of the US will admire the Met as an Opera House of Might, second to none.
Just got back from the showing of Lucia. Went to a theater in North East Indianapolis.
The show: I like Mary Zimmerman’s production. Saw it at the Met last year with Massis and loved the production. I would do without the assisted suicide, but the whole ghosts idea I like a lot. The sets a beautiful and there lies my first problem with the moviecast: We didn’t get to see enough of the set. Too many close ups, too many weird camera angles and not enough of the surroundings to let us in the drama.
Dessay looked uncomfortable. Could it be that not being a native speaker she was not entirely comfortable with conducting interviews in English and was not entirely at ease with the use of a teleprompter? I found it distracting seeing her eyes wander from the camera and her face buried in the cue cards. It also bothered me that everything was so scripted for her. She didn’t look natural. Come on, if there is someone who can talk about Lucia and that production should be her. Yet, she looked tied up to a script that did not let her personality shine. I have met her and can attest that what we saw in the screen was not what I experienced. She could have used a longer rehearsal period for this assignment.
Piotr Beczala was in my opinion the best option the met had in the tenor department. He is definitely an improvement over Villazon, Fillanotti and Giordani (who was horrible the day I saw him and even worse in the Manon Lescaut. How does he still get all the attention is a mystery to me) He looked relaxed and sounded (and acted) quite well. Overall I would say it was a good performance. Of all the principals I thought he was the best.
Ildar Abdrazakov was also quite good, if not imposing. I have a feeling he is more on the baritone side of a bass-baritone. His Raimondo was rather bland in the acting department and probably too low at this point in the vocal department. I thought in he did quite well in the company he had.
Mariusz Kwiecien does have an imposing stage presence and acts well. As a singer I was less impressed. At this point he is too preoccupied with making a big sound and it shows. I fear that he is not cultivating a good vocal production and will see himself in some trouble in the near future. I had a feelig that I was seeing an artist burning the candle on both ends. It was exiting for sure, but for how long?
This leads me to Anna Netrebko. As I was telling a friend before the performance, she had a decent Act 2. Act 1 had its moments and Act 3 was a near train wreck. It has been well established that she is not a bel canto soprano. So we got a bel canto opera sung by a non-specialist: No trills, smugged coloratura, poor attention to the style (appogiaturas anyone?), wrong notes, need I continue? This was an actor’s Lucia. I will giver her this, the woman acted well and was believable, but we were not watching a play and this was her Achilles tendon.
If this makes me a hater, well so be it; but when I go to see a bel canto opera it would be nice to have it acted and SUNG properly. In every generation there have been many sopranos who have been able to do both and do it well, Anna Netrebko is NOT one of them. For an artist of Anna Netrebko’s fame and supposed “caliber” we only got 1 out of 2. Those who are OK with that, congrats, you got what you deserved. I am not OK with that and I will say it, even on the face of being accused of being a hater. Fire away, it does not change the fact that in a scale from 1-10 Anna Netrebko barely reached a 5 today.
In summary, today we got a Lucia without a Lucia.
I missed the entire things, the broadcast and the HD, I went shopping and Tom Ford’s latest perfume ($425 per bottle) intrigued me – but I had no cash! so there, La Cieca, is this performance now on youtube?
Wenarto I assume it won’t be up until -at least- the encore showing is over…copyright violation, n’est-ce pas? Maybe after the 2nd showing no one will care anymore..but then there’s the DVD coming out.
And you could always wait til PBS airs it.
Wenatro, Lucia will be rebroadcast (streamed) as early as 4 p.m. EST tomorrow on a radio station in Fairbanks. Check operacast.com for more details. I feel asleep and missed all of it. The first two acts of last night’s Adriana stream was about all I could take for this 24-hour period. Tonight Das Lied von der Erde with Jonas Kaufmann and Christopher Maltman is being streamed on WLCV. Studly Mahler!
Readers interested in knowing more about Maestro Marco Armiliato might enjoy reading my profile of him in the February Opera News.
Constantine A. Papas : Good point !! I’m reading all the conversation and I’m like : what the heck happening here ! Come on ! Its not that bad !
Well, Mr. Lindoro Smarty Pants (No. 5 above): Middle America got what it came for this afternoon. Our auditorium was nearly full. The live theatre applause was plentious. On the way out, a young middle American unsophisticate told his mother, “She was better than the lady with the chin that you played for me last night.” I suspect that bel canto meant nothing to that chap, but by golly, he and the rest of us nabobs loved it.
Well, good for you GiacoPucci, I prefer to choose my own divas rather than being told who am I supposed to worship. I tend to be independent like that.
Just because a million people applaud a piece of bird shit plastered on the wall it does not, all of a sudden turn it into art.
Scott, I read it and I loved it. I worked with Maestro Armiliate and his personality came through in your piece. Thanks.
the conducting was just awful.
In the -cide quiz, I was surprised nobody mentioned LIZZIE BORDEN.
Scott Rose, is Marco Armiliato not the cutest conductor ever?! I enjoyed your article and the maestro’s enthusiasm very much.
cute yes, insight into lucia, no. and with THREE operas on the schedule right now, he’s overstretched and just getting the job done, no more.
that said, and no she wasn’t perfect, but at its most literal, netrebko is giving you bel canto. i mean, my god, several hours of stunning sounds. no, it doesn’t add up to a complete technical arsenal, but line after line was gorgeous, and she’s got phenomenal breath control. plus, what some people considering “walking through the role” or “not caring” in the mad scene i considered letting the music, text, and staging do the trick. i found that WAY MORE MOVING than dessay (who i love) indicating insanity for twenty minutes. also, her reactions and rapport with beczala and kwiecen were so perfect. what a lovely afternoon of eastern european singers in the bel canto repertoire!
Ok, so I’m setting myself up for some serious flaming here, but I just had a look on youtube for the mad scene and saw Dessay’s 2007 met performance for the first time. How can people not be blown away by that? What a piece of singing acting. Yes, people have been more vocally perfect in that part, but it’s in her voice, there’s a big, strong, if slightly wiry Eb, and it’s theatrically stunning. I know people get annoyed about Dessay giving interviews about how she’s going to retire and be an actor, but let’s face up to it- girl can ACT.
And- at the risk of being mr late night YouTube- while we’re at it, and on the subject of Netrebko and Villazon, anyone who can deny that this is vocally and dramatically wonderful must have some kind of axe to grind. It’s electric.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fumXaNlU8co&NR=1
Thanks, armerjacquino, for that clip. I have that Traviata on my Netflix (video rental) queue, and I’m looking forward to watching it.
armerjaquino, thanks! I’ll deny nothing that you’ve said. Netrebko’s basically lyric instrument is far better suited to Violetta than Lucia. Villazon was in his element. Sadly, this justly renowned production helped launch them both into the stratosphere. Since then, neither has taken much time to come back to earth and keep their technique grounded. So, so sad…
How things change! Many on this blog crucified the “Eurotrash” Traviata and Netrebko singing. Slowily, it’s becoming- and it is- a masterpice!
I do not see how Violetta dying on top of a giant clock is a masterpiece.
All this fantastic discussion has had been searching through my downloads to sample the Lucias of Dessay, Damrau and Massis. It’s obvious that for all three of them the almost impossible music of Lucia comes much easier to them, and yes Dessay even sounds like she is mad – whichever opera she is in! But last night’s Lucia moved me to tears, whether because it was such a personal triumph for Netrebko or whether because it actually dripped with humanity only time will tell. But – as with her London Traviata from last year – every note, every syllable for me dripped with the sort of pathos and intensity which is why opera is such a passion for me and many other people.
God, she sang all the time as if she had something in her mouth, beautiful but muffled sound, no expression, and words as if she didn΄t know what she was saying.
#25 things like expression and “knowing what she is saying” is totally subjective of course. I bet there are 100 of people who think quite the contrary
I switched on Radio 3 last night and was very unimpressed with the soprano singing I heard. Imagine my surprise to find I was listening to was the inspiration for this hotbed of controversy!
I have tickets to see Netrebko in I Montecchi e I Capuleti at Covent Garden next month and frankly, I can’t wait. It’s going to be fascinating to see how my altered expectations compare with seeing her live for the first time. I shall be approaching it with an open mind!
Michael:
Words? Was she singing words? Are you sure?
Attila,
it’s a shame that her Covent Garden Traviata with Kaufmann isn’t going to see the daylight. Fortunately I have a recording of the BBC radio broadcast. It is just wonderful.
amerjaquino — there’s no doub that dessay has a theatrical flair, but acting is different than histrionics. in her lucia, dessay uses intention like a paintbrush — on this line, i’ll show you this color, on that line, i’ll portray this feeling. i am SO AWARE of choices and technique when i watch her onstage. it’s VERY self-conscious (la cieca made a similar point above vis-a-vis gheorghiu and the awareness that you are a watching a prima donna rather than a real person). dessay can also be very selfish onstage — one of the reasons i loved her manon so much in chicago was that kaufman got her to relate and react to him, so there was a true scene going on, rather than preplanned emoting. i still do love dessay no matter how often she overdoes it (she is still a zerbinetta and morgana for the ages and i’m very glad i experienced her manon), but she does tend to hit us over the head with the acting. the irony is, i actually adore her voice, even in bel canto. i love all things french, so the particularities of her timbre are not problems to me.
Doug, I disagree – my reaction to Dessay’s mad scene when I saw Lucia at the Met last March was much the same as ArmerJ’s above. There is nothing wrong with planning what one will do when – I’d just call that professionalism. To me, it looked like Dessay was being utterly spontaneous, and it was one of, if not the most, exciting operatic performances I have ever seen, and I must say, I think Dessay has a nasty raddled screechy voice that has always had underlying technical issues, so I was certainly not predisposed to like it. Unlike in straight theatre, an opera singer can only be spontaneous with timing to a very limited extent, because they are bound by the bar line, the conductor’s beat, and the need to be in time with the other artists on stage. The trick is coming up with something that will work and looks natural within the fairly constrained time allowed, and I think she absolutely succeeded in doing so. I don’t see what you’d call that, if not acting. I found her heart breaking.
that’s why i love this art form! i appreciate what dessay was doing, but i saw every choice. for me, i saw the planning and the thought, and that is theatrical death to me. i work in musical theatre, where we have many of the same constraints as you’ve perfectly described them, and i know exactly how difficult it is to create the illusion of the first time. in some ways it’s much harder in opera, and that’s why the payoff can be so much grander. i was just so struck yesterday by the power of netrebko underplaying the mad scene and just letting the text, music (we can argue how well she sang it, but the music served the storytelling in a beautiful way, rather than LOOK, THIS RUN SOUNDS LIKE I’M SCARED and LOOK, I WANT YOU TO KNOW I’M ANGSTY ON THIS TRILL), and staging do the heavy lifting.
if you watch callas (and god i wish there were more video), of course you know and can tell she has plans. but when she picks up that knife — it IS tosca, you are shocked, and she knows when to let puccini work for her, rather than glomming on lots of effects. AND god knows she started to leave out plenty of high notes in lucia as the years went by (to address those who still can’t let a non-pons/sills/sutherland lucia succeed).
THANK YOU, No. 19. And a possibly even more powerful exhibition of her dramatic genius is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxQeuDTixuw
So, leahzea of the cheap shot, just what was so awful about the conducting? I heard a lot of inspired playing.
Pavel #19
CUTE ! You think Marco Armiliato is CUTE ! ! ? ? You obviously never saw Thomas Schippers. now THAT was CUTE. Conductors these days don’t know how to cute. Smudged eyebrows, inadequate butts. Schippers really knew how to fill a pair of dress pants, and when he stepped on the podium, you knew you were seeing cute. Armiliato is trying to coast on the reputation of his brother who is REALLY cute, but Italians are just not trained in cute these days. They take a pretty good nose and think they can build a whole career out of it. It’s all PR and I think Peter Gelb is behind it because he wouldn’t know cute if it bit him in the heinie. He just knows what fills podiums and he grinds it up and spits it out. Look how he supports Jimmy Levine who struggles to find cute and just can’t make it. I just give up on the posters on this site who are willing to wwas ecstatic over a cheekbone that would barely make it if we really had any standards.
Cute? Crap, just crap.
Sorry about the typo — that should have been “wax ecstatic.” I just can’t proofread when I’m in a snit.
Of all the Met HD telecasts I’ve seen in the past three years (and I think I’ve only missed two of them), this Lucia ranks as one of my favorites. I’ve seen the following Lucias live, in no particular order: Sutherland (in her prime and later, too), Sills (in one of her earliest performances), Gail Robinson, Cheryl Studer, June Anderson, Catherine Malfitano, Laura Claycomb and probably one ot two more I can’t recall at the moment. My favorite recordings of Lucia are the commercial Callas sets, her Berlin and Met broadcasts, and – since it was my first Lucia recording – Sutherland’s first.
I have never been so moved by a live performance of Lucia as I was by yesterday’s telecast. No, Netrebko is not a perfect bel canto technician. She’s a lyric soprano with a truly beautiful voice, and her identification with the role convinced me completely. I was teary-eyed at the end of the second act, and practically weeping at the end of the Mad Scene. Only Callas ever made me care that much, and only in her Met broadcast and second commercial recording, oddly enough.
Beczala is a find – how lucky we are that he could step in and acquit himself so well. If he tired a tiny bit by the end, well, it’s not an easy role (and as far as I’m concerned they can start cutting the Wolf Crag’s scene again – let the tenor save his voice; dropping that scene would be no loss, musically.)
Kwiecien was wonderful and the bass (Mr. Boradina, but I can’t remember his name offhand) sang well. Even the Arturo was just dandy – that’s a bitch of an aria to pull off, but he did.
Armiliato, an engaging man, conducted splendidly.
All can say about Hostess Natalie is, I sure do miss Beverly Sills. I hope it’s Dessay’s last outing as host.
DanPatter,
For me, besides Salome, it was also one of the best HD performances. Netrebko is not a coloratura soprano per se, but she has enough coloratura genre to sing convicingly and outstandingly Violetta, Desdemona and Lucia. She even hit the optional E-flat this time. What amazed me was her flowing legato. Her high notes were effortless and secure. Close-up shots showed no strain or facial distortion, as if she were lip-syching! Sutherland’s facial grimaces and distortions- her mighty and unparalleled coloratura notwithstanding- were atrocious.
where to begin Su Nel Cubaya ciel.?
He is doing afriana in the same way.It has no bel canto gravitas. The cantilena is not bar to bar, it extends until the end of the entire phrase, sometimes clearly marked by donizetti and definitely by cilea, and perversely ignored, Yje cjoruses were too quick and we was constantly ahead of the singer which is death to any serious expression or artistic collaboration. He must want to get home. So go.
I have a right to call something awful, and I did. I felt it was like most conductors today and most singers I am afraid, just notes and not the right feel.
Are we clear?
oh by the way, it is the Met orchestra, they do play superbly.
Not my type but Armiliato is cute, Thomas Schippers is dead.
Dessay’s acting of Lucia belongs on the Cartoon Network. Netrebko gave us a real woman, she moved people around me to tears. Dessay’s shock & awe just grosses people out.
Well Lea Zia you most certainly do have the right to call something awful. But to declare it awful with absolutely no chapter and verse smacks of vain amateurism. To say the Met Orchestra plays superbly is redundant. And what the hell is Afriana? No you are hardly clear with your pseudo Czech “Yje cjoruses”. We are so grateful that you “define” a lack of gravitas as fast tempi. So according to you there are no conductors with the “right feel”. Have you heard Thieleman, Mackerras and Barenboim? Crawl back into the slime and get yourself a spellchecker and listen to any number of amazing conductors of the day. But spare us your glib amateur “insights”. This board has sophisticates far and above you. Best, SNC
Lindoro at #23 – just WHAT do you get?
Lindoro’s assessment #5 is absolutely correct about Netrebko. He is using his ears, it’s as simple as that. Btw, don’t let that poster stand as representative of all so-called Middle Americans with those comments, either, we are not all so easily satisfied. If the young fan of that post was indeed comparing Netrebko to Sutherland, then we are in big trouble down the road. I am a fan of Anna Netrebko, but I don’t feel I am obligated to defend and rationalize every choice she and her team make.
wotan_in_inman (#36) – I stand corrected. Enjoyed your analysis.