photo fop
A layout (in the very nearly literal sense of the term) of “seven international opera stars who are putting to rest the ‘fat lady sings’ cliché” graces the current issue of Vanity Fair. Since nobody actually reads this magazine, La Cieca will link to the photo of the The Low BMI Septet.
Now, it’s one thing that Anna Netrebko is Photoshopped in from a different day, a different location and what may well be a different universe from our own, and don’t ask La Cieca why Mariusz Kwiecien is simultaneously checking his fly and treading on the train of Maija Kovalevska‘s gown. (No wonder she look so pissed!)
But just when you think it’s not humanly possible for Nathan Gunn to take a gayer photograph, the barihunk confounds us yet once more, with a pose that falls on the butch scale somewhere between Madame Recamier and April Stevens.
Or maybe Mr. Gunn can just throw in the towel and start programming “Teach Me Tiger” as an encore at his recitals.
Hagen: Gelb didn’t give Swenson cancer. He didn’t even mention the cancer. All we know is that he did not offer yet another contract to a singer who had been at the Met for 20 years and who was neither singing well nor selling tickets — this after a decade during which she was given the opportunity to sing a veritable galaxy of star roles at the Met.
Swenson is the one who blabbed to the press about her health issues and how she was being discriminated against for being fat and old and sick. Essentially she lied when she implied that she was never returning to the Met, because she must have known that there are dozens of singers (many of them more important in the annals of opera than she) who were away from the Met for a year or more, only to return and resume triumphant careers. (Mirella Freni was gone for more than a decade before her return in the early 1980s, and Gheorghiu and Alagna returned only a couple of seasons after their very ugly public firing by Joe Volpe.)
I might also point out that you have now changed your position from “RAS was a valuable and vital artist who was fired because she was fat” to “RAS was a pitiful sick woman whose dying wish was to sing one more time at the Met.” You can’t have it both ways (though Ms. Swenson has certainly tried to play both those cards in her desperation.)
@147, that would be too hilarious, considering in his earlier post he also smacked down one of his leading men.
This conversation is brilliant. I’m going to throw a match on it and say that Gelb is also not only fatophobic and homophobic, and I heard he was going to franchise the Met merchandise to Disney. Also, Pepsi are going to be a major sponsor and as part of their deal every production of Traviata will have the Brindisi aria sung whilst swinging Pepsi around (ditto the various ‘champagne’ arias). Miley Cyrus is slated to do her first ‘Lulu’ in 2011, with Zac Efron doing Alwa. They’re young and pretty, so obviously Gelb is all over them.
And how thrilled I was to see the Commonwealth Mafia rear its head again! For god’s sake, the Good Ship Billinghurst has been resident in the US since the early 70s, so any lingering commonwealthaphilia is tenuous at best.
Obviously ‘brindisi’ is not an aria. My excitement bubbleth over at the future Dora The Explorer At The Met (“Grimes está en su ejercicio!”).
I agree, those cleopatra’s were pretty solid. Though the violetta’s were pretty awful.
As for this:
“Of the rest of the Russian invasion only Hvorostovsky was really a grade A singer which is why he’s still in demand everywhere and the rest of them are … I don’t know where they are.”
I would say diadkova is a grade A singer. Quite a thrilling voice. Same with galouzine, and gorchakova.
Will you be as obnoxious if Trebs, God forbid, is stricken with some awful disease?
Well, let’s see. When Netrebko was sick with a bad cold and conflicted whether she should risk a bad performance on a live telecast versus canceling and leaving the Met in a very big lurch, which one of us called that “drama queen” behavior? I think it’s pretty obvious who’s the obnoxious one around here.
@133 to be fair to Eaglen, who I heard once only (Chicago, Siegfried, maybe 2003? She was loud and wholly uninspiring) opera listeners really were excited about her. There was buzz. I recall this, and I don’t think it was just connections that got her where she briefly was. Otherwise wouldn’t we still be hearing her?
Regarding Stottler, by the way, I heard her shriek her way through Turandot, sadly, and assume her absence is a function of basic unsuitability to the rep she was singing. She got to the phrase “quel grido” which is where you can tell how the rest of the evening is going to go, wiped out hard on whatever that note is, fled it, and limped through the rest of the evening in fear of the highish through high notes that constitute the majority of the role.
Swenson announced indisposition during that run of Violettas and it was January or February, so she might have been sick. Still everyone was excited to hear Renee return to the part, whereas Ruth Ann was zzzz… Ruth Ann btw got the best reviews in the cast for her Baltimore Adalgisas and also got raves as Ginevra in an all-star “Ariodante” in San Francisco recently. She has also been praised for the title role in “Rodelinda”. However, Swenson was to add the role of Rosalinda in “Die Fledermaus” in New Jersey and canceled. I keep wondering if her bill of health is really all that clean.
PoisonIvy: c’mon now. I think you’re being a touch unfair to the Kirov legacy at the Met. Gorchakova had a steep decline but for a moment was worth watching: big, bright voice, good dramatic instincts. And Diadkova? Forgettable? I’d call her anything but. Herodias wasn’t her thing, but she was an enthralling Azucena and though people hated the production, she was demented in Mazeppa. All of these were solidly sung. Plus, as you mention, Hvorostovsky and Borodina. I’d add the underused Galuzin, and someone named Netrebko who you may call many things, but you won’t get far with “forgettable.” Sure, Mescheriakova was not one for the ages but I can’t see how yo’re characterizing the whole Kirov-Met relationship as detrimental to the Met overall…
“Gelb privately really harrassed Swenson into giving up all of the Cleopatras”
Gualtier (and I appreciate your posts):
Was this really a series of one-on-one confrontations between Peter and Ruth? I would think this would be handled by Gelb’s myrmidons and Swenson’s agent. The image you create is Gelb rushing into the ICU pushing her oncologist (our beloved Turandot) out of the way and thrusting a contract in her face.
“I would say diadkova is a grade A singer. Quite a thrilling voice. Same with galouzine, and gorchakova”
Yes, I agree. And Leiferkus really is a great artist and singer – bit ONLY in Russian rep, in which as I recall the Met offered him only one role: Rangoni. Fiend was too hung up on Dwaynebo to offer Leiferkus Onegin, and then Leiferkus fought with Gergiev and so we had the B/B- Putilin, who also stank things up as Iago and Amonasro. Let’s not forget the staggering awful Italian roles of Vladimir Bogachev.
Mishura was indeed not a Kirov artist and she always sang well even when in somewhat too heavy a part. She still sings beautifully and would certainly still be a better Met Maddalena than Viktoria Vizin, a Gelb cover babe type mediocrity who is doing it now.
Olga Savova is another GOOD Kirov artist whom one hopes will return.