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.
Leiferkus’s company debut was as Onegin (granted, as a replacement for I believe Hampson) in 1992.
if anyone like me was just listening to Sirius where Ghiaurov was singing Boris. . . isn’t it strange that we lived through that Russian invasion of the 1990s without getting a great basso? it was Ramey and Morris who were singing Boris at the Met; I once heard Vladimir Vaneev who got subbed in, but it was not a landmark performance by any means. . . btw on Sirius Jenufa has just begun. . . Slovakia certainly gave its very best!
All I know is that heavy pressure was brought to bear on Swenson to relinquish her contract and when she refused, she was treated rudely. I don’t know if it was face to face or through her agent or in correspondence but she was badly stung. Hence her lashing back in the press.
We have been spending so much time discussing this photo that we completely missed the fact that one of the finest artists of the last century died this week. Jack Wrangler.
#146, Gualtier, yes — Joan Ingpen, thank you. Again you have described the situation exacly. I was age 19 when Bing took over the Met, in College in CT, so I went constantly (too much for the sake of my Dean’s approval), and heard everything thru much of the ’50s decade. We had it good good good; 1960s good as or better, then a growing slide starting in the 1970s, and it’s been generally downhill ever since. Is there a bottom?
Leadership really does help, doesn’t it?!! Like him or or not Bing knew opera and knew how to run the company. No one since has quite brought that combination of abilities. I wonder who will replace Levine (not that he runs anythng), and Gelb? It really is getting to be time, especially for better artistic leadership.
Irina Mishura, Larissa Diadkova
I have to disagree with these 2 names. The other ones were flashes in the pan and i thought they were completely forgeattable. Irina Mishura did a Bang of a Carmen in Cincinnati shortly before her met debut. Trust me, this woman was not something you could easily forget. I had her arms around me at the beginning of Act 2 and she WAS Carmen.
Diadkova was the saving grace on LOC’s Ballo in maschera several years ago. Schicoff was at this point variable to bad and Villaroel was overparted as Amelia. Had it not been for Diadkova and Maria Kanyova the night would have been an unmitigated disaster.
Mrmyster – you are correct about Bing. There were plenty of excellent performances in the 1950s and 1960s but we must remember that there was also a plethora of respectable Verdi singers and Wagner singers available and Bing was rather successful in roping them in for the most part. He did provide a number of mediocre singers as well, occasionally bringing in second rate Eastern Europeans (not from the USSR however as US visas were not readily available) who were available at ridiculously low fees. Some great singers for various reasons were not frequently to be heard at the Met in the 1950s if at all -Gobbi for example, di Stefano, Jurinac, Seefried, Simionato, Hotter, Frick, Fischer-Dieskau, Dermota, Gruemmer etc. Varnay left for a great while. Schwarzkopf was not engaged apparently for political reasons and Christoff could not get a visa in 1950 and with Siepi, London, Hines, Rossi-Lemeni around, probably Bing felt he did not need him thereafter. But there was a season or two when Callas, Tebaldi, Milanov and Stella were all on the roster. Most of the good Italian tenors were snapped up by Bing. European singers were expected to stay for a while and many did (though some rebelled when it came to going on the post season tours for which Bing generally tried to contract them.) But in his earliest years Bing could actually sign up some singers at the Vienna Festival (in May) or even the Salzburg Festival (July-August) and get them to come over for part of the ensuing season. When I was in high school I had a Friday night subscription (10 or so performances a season) and we did not even know which opera would be presented next until about two weeks before at best. In his earliest years there was a week or so of post season performances and Bing could make arrangements with singers and conductors in the course of that very season (which was November-early April) to appear again at the end of the season as the most popular works would have an added performance or two (or in the case of Fledermaus which was a smash hit – several more).
Still I imagine that some of the performances I saw with Delia Rigal, Herva Nelli, Kurt Baum and others would not elicit a great deal of enthusiasm these days.
I was thinking that even with the dearth of good Wagner singers around these days, Vienna, Budapest and most of the major German opera houses manage to put on Parsifal all at the same time during Easter week. Last Sunday I saw a spendid one in Budapest – all the singers except the Klingsor were top notch – and Vienna had a good cast also. A pity the Met no longer sees fit to present a few Parsifals at this time of the year with any regularity.
Bill and mr. myster, may i just say how extremely envious I am that you were able to see so many MET performances during the 50′s and 60′s. are there any among today’s crop who you think can compare to the titans of the past?
scifisci- I know the question wasn’t directed at me but there’s a relevant observation to be made here. I was listening to a podcast containing 12 Rosenkavalier trios the other day. Mainly live recordings, featuring the likes of Crespin, Janowitz, Schwarzkopf, Jurinac, Della Casa, Lehmann, Popp- a whole load of great, great singers. However, not only did the most recent version (from the met in 1997) deserve its place, it was arguably the pick of the bunch. Fleming, Graham and Bonney. People concentrate on Wagner, bel canto and the heavier Italian rep when bemoaning the current dearth of great voices, forgetting that some rep is being sung as well as ever it was.
@181- stand back, you just opened a huuuuuuuuuuuuge can of worms.