parterre box

69 comments

• Brooklynpunk says:

  Bur why , o why , hasn’t Benini learned how to conduct this piece, after all his attempts, this season?

  on April 22, 2009 at 8:51 PM
• pavel says:

  I certainly like him. It’s so nice to listen to a tenor who’s not straining and lunging at high notes.

  on April 22, 2009 at 8:53 PM
• Zinka the Kunc says:

  Yes…Calleja is superb…..I am upset I was on the way to the opera..but the traffic was stopped because some man fell off the Queensboro Bridge…some nerve..he must have hated opera.(I am sorry..i just was the victim of a tragic circumstance)…So sorry this happened….but at least I have Sirius..he is so wonderful..ch

  on April 22, 2009 at 8:54 PM
• Brooklynpunk says:

  Calleja sounds good in this…but everyone else seems way off/flat/slow/un-involved, to the max…..

  on April 22, 2009 at 9:06 PM
• Hans Lick says:

  Frizzo was conducting the night I was there. My review (which can be found at http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/04/rigoletto_at_th.php); I thought he did a fab job. In fact Frontali wasn’t bad and everyone else was excellent – though Damrau hasn’t got a trill and both she and Calleja dropped their optional top notes and, in her case, the long dying fades.

  I hadn’t heard Calleja before and was very pleased. He certainly beats the pants off Villazon, Filianoti, Alagna, Berti, Alvarez, Giordani, Giordano, Pittas and, in Verdi, Florez. (Not the Vargas of ten years back, however, methinks.) That Polish kid? Have to hear more of him to compare.

  Today I heard Lucic singing Eri tu, and this confirms my belief that he’s the best Verdi baritone around. VERY SAD I didn’t hear HIS Rigoletto.

  on April 22, 2009 at 9:20 PM
• Barbara says:

  My taste does not run to this style of tenor sound.

  on April 22, 2009 at 9:20 PM
• Rinaldo says:

  I saw Calleja in this role in DC a year ago (opposite just-as-good Lyubov Petrova) and yes, this is the real thing. Thorough schooling in the old-school virtues like cultivation of pliancy over a full dynamic span throughout the range. No pushing to sound bigger (which, in a nice moral victory, allows the voice to sound full and buoyant). I wish we had several dozen like him.

  But (despite being a perfectly good-looking man and an involved stage figure) he’s not the buff stud beloved of the PR machines, so he’s unlikely to become a big popular star figure. He should, though.

  on April 22, 2009 at 9:44 PM
• operadent says:

  So far, his changes of dynamics and coloration have been wonderful. We should clone him. Let’s get rid of this conductor.

  on April 22, 2009 at 9:59 PM
• pavel says:

  The first half did sound a little flat and uninspired. This act seems to have picked up a bit more sparkle. It may be the cocktail I’m drinking…

  on April 22, 2009 at 10:02 PM
• messa di voce says:

  Is my ear off or is Cabell singing a constant quarter- tone above pitch?

  on April 22, 2009 at 10:13 PM