parterre box

56 comments

• Ian says:

  @wotan

  I think the problem with Operalia is not so much the quality of the winners but that it has become a bit of a singer-factory for DC and LA and the results have been very uneven as singers are doing roles they’re not ready for. However this is hardly unique.
  Domingo as a singer is brilliant but Domingo has a conductor or ‘administrator’- not so hot.

  And I second the total confusion felt by the earlier comment on the brainfuck that is the realisation he was associated with that abortion ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’.

  on March 15, 2009 at 4:43 PM
• alexythymia says:

  Olivier did a lot of bad movies too … Idk. I admire Domingo’s work ethic. Could part of his problem as an administrator be that he assumes this for others, or doesn’t get others?? He comes across to me, again despite being ebullient, as an introvert: where introvert means deriving one’s primary mode of functioning from oneself, not from others.

  I am not necessarily defending him by saying this. Not all of us are in a position to judge PD’s efforts as a conductor and administrator firsthand, although I’ve never regretted any conducting of his I’ve shelled out for.

  Nuance by nuance, I cannot think of many comparable or greater recorded interpreters of Don Carlo, Otello, Radames, Riccardo, so on. I will accept that “crossover” recordings can be a “gateway drug” for opera, but it was these interpretations in particular–with their liveliness, their sincerity of musicianship, and their modernity–that truly won me to Italian opera. Through him and other singers of that generation–but through him in particular–I was able to get in to earlier artists and in to other styles. I think that that says a lot. Branagh has done things like this for Shakespeare, why not Domingo for Verdi? Something like the Unknown Puccini is as much a reconstructive effort as many recordings of Lieder, and while I’m not in love with his reworkings of the tango, he did bring me to Gardel and co. Surely these are noble efforts? I think that there is a lot of craft involved with a Domingo that we do not see because we take the basic fact of this genre, with all its subtleties, for granted.

  (Incidentally, my view is all coming from someone who is completely turned off by the whole opera star as media star, even as it does get results for him. Anyways–gtg deal with this abysmal gala coverage on real player …)

  on March 15, 2009 at 6:07 PM
• What a Guy says:

  Domingo is a wonderful man. So giving, so kind. I great humanitarian. A dedicated, faithful husband and father. He is always willing to help young American singers get ahead. He is without equal in the history of opera and has never felt the need to have afairs outside of his marriage. There will never be another like him. We should all kiss the ground he walks on and kiss the hem of his garment.
  He did his best to save Opera Pacifica and Baltimore Opers as well. Alas, they were too far gone.Who better to sing the the poetry of John Paul II.

  on March 15, 2009 at 8:32 PM
• ariel says:

  For artistic” integrity” always remember the three tenors
  The runner up ,the buffon with the tablecloth and what’s
  his name .
  There are such things as opera house and cat house and for the life of me I can’t remember which has more integrity in
  performance . Does the madame of a cat house ever give
  speeches about indisposed house stars. Just curious.

  on March 15, 2009 at 9:05 PM
• alexythymia says:

  h**p://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvBHhOo2ELQ

  There’s a sweet comment by PD’s at about 2:39. I find it credible, somehow.

  on March 17, 2009 at 3:34 PM
• alexythymia says:

  *comment by P.D., junior, I should have said.

  on March 17, 2009 at 3:34 PM