dernier cri
“Natalie Dessay … in a fuchsia dress and lace-up high boots, flaming red hair piled high on her head …. swung her arms above her head, stretched, and then literally screamed out what sounded like wild joy and barely bridled lust.” [Santa Fe New Mexican]
“Dessay” and “sexy” in the same sentence? Puh-lease. Her husband with a pillowcase conveniently slipped over his head might cater for some more refined tastes, but Natalie? Are we losing our grip on reality here?
Roberta Peters did sing Violetta in Philadelphia (her first), in Florida and Utah. She never sang the role at the Met.
When I first heard that Nat was doing this role, I thought it was stunt casting. You can’t deny it gets butts in the seats. My contact at Santa Fe told me things that agree with the comments above–inaudible in places, weak in the soaring lines. On a different note I have to say I’m intrigued by the description of the production, though.
#14…………..”guppy pretending to be a whale” and #15………”Leonie Rysanek you’re not” pretty much sums up what this fraud is all about……..And, overacting never compensates for anything!!!! Compensation doesn’t really exist anyway, does it? Please spare NY the “patchwork” Traviata!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I want to know is, how does she say “E tardi?”
Florezrocks
“Her role in Hamlet next season is relatively small….”
Opelia is a small role relative to Violetta – howso? The London performance is preserved on Unnatural Acts of Opera for a comparison. It is Keeleyside and Dessay, as the Met performances will be.
mrmyster
“Galli-Curci”
A large chunk of her Act II, the scena and duet with Germont Pere is available, with Guiseppe DeLuca. It is beautiful singing, and a very fine example of vocal acting by voices of discreet size. And Bidu Sayao was apparently an effective small voiced Violetta.
Krunoslav
“not the least of which was hiring her Baron Douphol- worthy husband to sing Germont.”
May she use her clout at the Met to have her husband in the Hamlet; otherwise we may have Robert Lloyd and his skeins of wool as the London performance does.
Please, please, a wee bit of compassion. The woman has had, what?, two surgeries on her vocal cords and she works very hard learning her roles. She has done many very fine things. Let’s tone down the attacks and be a bit kinder.
When Mlle. Nat told an interviewer she “prefers to sing Violetta in French,” there was your clue. But, all hands tell me she pus on a good show and one gets his “money’s worth.” Probably true, but not an evening for the Muzio, Steber, Ponselle crowd.
I have not head the Galli-Curci recording referred to above in #26, but assume it is pre-electric and one can tell very little from such. Even Gilda was too heavy for GC, though she sang it a lot, and she would go flat constantly under pressure. She was quite noted for her out-of-tune singing, and even recordings. It was all blamed on her goiter surgery in the early 1920s after which her voice was reportedly never the same. But, then, Sayao would sing Violetta quite often and her voice was as light as all those mentioned above, and as one critic pointed out, she always sang Act II flat as it was too heavy and she had to push. It was obvious that Miss Nat as Violetta is a stunt — the question is how well she could pull it off, and locals I trust say she giv es a good show, on the whole. So. Poof….what does it matter? It’s only opera.
Dear #27, If the woman has had two major surgeries on her vocal cords it may well have something to do with the savage misuse she makes of them. Maybe she should have some compassion on us. I have rarely heard something more hors style than her Lucia in Paris. It was embarrassingly vulgar and cheap, but she was elated and convinced she had done bel canto proud. Not one humble enough to understand what it takes, à la Devia.
This opera is so over-performed! Don’t get me wrong, I like “Traviata”, but it seems like everyone is singing it this summer. After Netrebko and Fleming, Dessay is the last soprano I would want to hear because she just doesn’t have the voice to sing the last 2/3 of the opera.
I think Dessay looks good as a redhead and I’m sure that she sings the first 1/3 of the opera (the belcanto section) the best.
It would be a shame if she retires soon, but I can’t say that I would miss her because I lost a lot of interest in her after her MET “fille du regiment” and “Sonnambula” because I don’t like the way she sacrificed the music for gags.