the nominating committee will come to order
As if we ever “came to order” around here! But anyway, La Cieca is throwing the floor open for a Listening and Viewing Orgy next weekend, when the MetPlayer will offer a three-day free preview. MetPlayer offers streaming of over 200 Met broadcasts and telecasts from 1937 to the present, including 20 in HD. The free preview will begin at 5:00 pm EST on Friday, May 1.
So what La Cieca has in mind is to select via popular vote somewhere between three and five of the MetPlayer selections, then schedule times for everyone to tune in together to each of the chosen operas. Those who gather can chat about the performances and whatever else here at parterre.com.
So, in the comments section below, nominate your favorite performances from the MetPlayer catalog, along with a sentence or two explaining why this performance would make for an interesting group experience. We’ll vote on the nominees later this week.
UPDATE: Here are complete instructions on how to log in to MetPlayer for this weekend-long free preview.
Armer Jaquino
I think Shuard shared some Verdi roles with Sutherland in their early careers- Amelia in Ballo for one.
I heard her as Kundry, Brunnhilde, Elektra and Turandot in the 60s. She was eclipsed then by Nilsson, but would have awider international career these days. She had an impressively large and secure dramatic soprano, but which became hard edged and unyielding. There was nothing characterless in her live performances.
She was noted for taking surreptious swigs of Guiness from a convenient horn held by a chorister in the 2nd Act of Gotterdammerung to lubricate the throat for that cursing business.
She did sing at the Colon in BA, Vienna and Bayreuth , though that was probably too late in her career.
Fortunately there are now some extant live recordings on Opera Depot and the Royal Opera Heritage label.
I would dealy like to track down one of her as Elektra.
Thank you, Sir Morosus. It’s an easy enough mistake to have made, as we are both devilishly handsome young British gentlemen (*ahem*), but it was actually Cocky Kurwenal who was talking about Shuard.
Harry, you have neither made your case for Grayson as a mezzo, nor named a singer who was denied a career by coming up against Sutherland. And although I happen to like Kathryn Grayson in Showboat and Kiss Me Kate, I never claimed she was a great opera singer, I merely compared her voice to Ms Bronhill. So I’d still like to know who you think lost out because of Sutherland.
Armer/Cocky
Apologies to both you handsome devils. Somehow I just imagined the pseudonyms reflected the true characters of the bloggers (as mine does, of course) and I saw in the mind’s eye you as an ineffectual young man and a bearded bluff old bloke respectively…….