festive future
La Cieca hears that Angela Meade, triumphant in this summer’s Semiramide at Caramoor, has been invited back there in 2010 for her first Norma. Other future dates include Les Vêpres siciliennes in Vienna and a return engagement at the Met in Ernani. On the bill at Caramoor for 2011: that grandest of all grand operas, Guilliame Tell.
Update: Caramoor maestro Will “The Trill” Crutchfield just chimed in:
Semiramide was only a first hint of what this gal can do. Everybody should come next year and hold me accountable if I’m wrong. She hasn’t yet tapped her full capacities, but she will.
#40 – Absolutely agree with you. At the risk of getting pilloried on this website I adore the Brits. Judging from the majority of comments here, most don’t like them. Fine. It’s just a matter of preference for sound.
I grew up as an occasional listener of the war-horse Italian operas and enjoyed it but would never have become an opera fan if I hadn’t ventured into the Met, heard a German opera and a particular British tenor. That sparked something in me where the Corellis and Tebaldis and Sutherlands didn’t. It also led me to discover that opera is a far more varied art form than I thought. That’s how I try to bring others into it; to sample a variety of repertory and see which appeals to you.
I am not sold on Gutierrez as a lyric soprano, the middle and bottom or her voice are so far very not remarkable and she has undertaken few if any soubrette type roles.
There is a difference between soubrette roles and engenue roles. Despina is a subrette role, Adina is not, Zerlina could be either, Bondchen is a subrette role, Adalgisa, Manon and Sophie are engenue roles. I am not saying that Eglise sings all of them, but we do need to make a difference. A lyric soprano could take on engenue roles for several reasons: age and register are probably 2 of the most common. I said that right now, because of her age and the facility she has on top, Eglise is taking on engenue roles and as the voice matures she will move away from those roles and land squarely as a lyric.
Now, a lot of these engenue roles are also classified as coloratura roles. This should hardly matter mostly because coloraturas tend to keep the engenue v oice, if not the appearance for a long time.
One more thing that can stand repeating. These singers are fresh out of college and are still working details out on their techniques. While their voices might have a quality here and there that seems unfinished or inadequate, I’m sure it will not be for long. I find Eglise t0 have a rich middle and my perception is that she will work out the bottom and end a wonderful lyric.
That said, if she has a long career she could land in some lyric roles but I don’t see any Butterfly’s in near future unless they are Toti dal Monte style!
First of all 7-10 years is a lifetime in the life of a singer and a technique. A singer might not be ready to sing roles that might be perfect in 10 years.
Second, Toti dal Monte’s Butterfly is superb in almost every aspect. We would be lucky to have more Butterflies in her mold and less Madama Brunhildes. I have said it before and will continue saying it. While we all clamor for a Nilsson voice in the role, the performers that we go back over and over are the ones in the dal Monte mold: de los Angeles, Scotto, Hayashi, Soviero (to a certain extend) etc.
Re: Guillaume Tell in the San Francisco production: I saw it the year it was new and thought it a gorgeous but affordable spectacle, one that used enormous projections of Alpscapes by Caspar David Friedrich as backgrounds to very good scenic effect, with excellent costumes.
The SFO’s then lighting director told me it had been offered to the MET which rejected the idea of doing it out of hand–no discussion, just a flat out no. At that time the MET could have cast it with no problems (SFO did a pretty good job itself), but the east coast lost a great chance to experience this opera that is superb dramatically and musically.
I don’t believe that Sutherland ever sang Adina (or Adima)at the Met. Did she ever sing the role anywhere other than the recording studio?
Ponselle sang Norma after ten seasons at the Met. Sutherland first sang the role in 1964 and then put it in the back burner until 1970. It’s a role to try only after you’ve earned your stripes.
Yes, I know all about Callas. But she was a very unique animal. And with a very short career.
I agree there is a difference between soubrette and ingenue roles and I also think that either, or “lyric coloratura” roles are healthy and logical choices for young sopranos anywhere on the lyric spectrum, depending on their particular vocal and histrionic abilities.
On the other hand there are lyric sopranos who start out from the beginning with the middle voice as their calling card, rather than something they grow into as much as an lc. Those sopranos usually have more natural color in their middle voice than the ones who ‘grow into” it.
I also fully agree that she is a work in progress and certainly will continue to grow and improve.
I do get concerned though in her recent work, particularly what I have heard of her Traviatas, that she already seems to be coloring the middle a little intentionally and already sounding a little oddly mature or seeming to work at it, without the characteristic ease and gleam that her upper register has. That is where they get into trouble – trying to ‘make the middle’ even just a little leads to that problem and to my ears she is starting to do it already.
I notice this tendency frankly from a lot of AVA graduates and I wonder if it is something that the singers pick up while there, or if the AVA powers that be just like that quality and so push the singers who have it.
I admire and recognize the artistic validity, but do not personally like Toti dal Monte’s Butterfly or others of that ilk. I don’t want a dramatic soprano in it either but I prefer a full lyric or a lyric spinto in the role. Here again just a matter of taste.
Totally off-thread, but I didn’t know that Vera Galupe-Borszkh once sang on Belgian TV with Rene Kollo …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2lyICGpc8&feature=related
Whoever said that Angela Meade was similar to Ruth Ann Swenson I agree with that in spades.
32 CK – I think you are being incredibly naive about obesity not holding back a singer and that the minority does not care about this issue. The majority of the audience (not opera queens, the total audience) wants conventionally attractive performers, which does not include obese artists. Obese artists will never know the number of times they were taken out of consideration for a role by administrators.
You suggest that if Voigt had stayed heavy, she might be glorious today. What about Eaglen? She didn’t attempt to change her weight, and look at what happened to her career. Don’t tell me that carrying all that weight around didn’t affect the quality of her singing.
Also, I don’t understand Ms. Meade’s hurry to present her thoughts on Norma to the public. At this stage of her career, what will she have to say artistically about the role? How about getting more performances of Anna Bolena under her belt instead, refining her interpretation before she sings the role at the Met? She will be able to give the audience a much stronger Norma if she gains more experience in bel canto before attempting this role. Does she really think she is more gifted than Sutherland, Caballe, Scotto, Verrett, Miricioiu, etc. who all chose to wait until they were well-experienced artists before attempting this role in public? Will Crutchfield should know better than encouraging such premature exposure that will do her no favors in the long run.
The idea that audiences vehemently reject non-rail thin performers gets promoted by those who represent , or due to their prejudices– often I find, hatred of their former selves– care only, for the new Barbie Doll style opera singers: the Leah Partridges of the world. The tiresome comments on obese singers being “unpresentable” reflect an older brand of waspish queenery ( the alternative term is ’slender’) which will die out soon, though not soon enough. However hatred of fat or larger people remains endemic in the gay community and in the media culture at large. Non stick-figure artists who actually have something to say,however, like Blythe, Griffey, Arwady, Brewer, Goerke and Heppner, to stick just with North Americans, have managed to succeed both artistically and with the public.
BTW Eglise Gutierrez has sung Zerlina and Liu.
And try telling Ms. Scotto that her Cio-Cio-San is in the traditions of Toti’s – take a look at her book for an encounter between them on this subject. Nor did Soviero’s interpretation have anything remotely to do with Toti’s.
Hear hear, Krunoslav. Audiences appeared to embrace the likes of Pavarotti, Jessye Norman and Caballe on a massive scale that went way beyond the limits of the opera house, not to mention all those you mention who are enjoying a great relationship with audiences, apparently unimpeded by their sizes. Blythe, for instance, has always had just about the warmest, most enthusiastic ovation from the audience where ever I have seen her, including alongside La Voce in the recent Rusalka.
Arianna – I don’t know why Eaglen’s career has faltered, possibly something to do with a lack of a solid basic technique perhaps, or because she sounded like a train whistle, but that is speculation. I’ll venture though that your weight-related theory is also speculation, and one example isn’t a particularly strong argument against mine, given all the evidence to the contrary. I note you don’t even contradict my words about Voigt.
I think when people talk about singers whose weight has hindered his/her career, they are thinking of sharon sweet, alessandra marc, christine brewer (well, at last officially), etc. NOT that singers were necessarily unpresentable b/c of their weight.
scifisci — but you are right! They ARE unpresentable because
of their weight, and also because their excessive weight is
health-threatening and sooner or later the ravages of calories
take their toll on heart, lungs, blood chem. etc. It’s a sad thing.
50 Krunoslav – I have taken straight friends to the opera, and they have commented negatively about obese singers they see in the midst of a more ‘average’ sized cast. I’ve also often overheard such comments from audience members around me during intermissions (presumably of all orientations), so let’s not hang this on the self-hating gay community. I’ve heard it too much from the audience itself to blame administrators for creating a myth.
Yes, you mention several fine artists who are heavy and having successful careers, but how many of them (Heppner aside) have thriving careers in Europe? Why is, for example, Blythe singing regularly in places like Pittsburgh and Arizona rather than London, Paris, Vienna, and Barcelona when she is not at the Met? The singers you list are on par artistically with the (slimmer) Joyce DiDonato, Sondra Radvanovksy, Joseph Kaiser, Kyle Ketelsen, etc. yet it’s the latter who work consistently (not intermittently) at the top European houses as well as top American houses.
51 CK I was responding to your implication that weight loss results in vocal decline. True, the reason for Eaglen’s decline is speculation on my part, but do you really think weight had no role, both vocally and dramatically? Would you prefer an example of a singer who lost weight and sings well? I give you Renee Fleming, who was much larger in the early 90s. One can dislike her interpretations, but one can’t deny that her Marietta’s Lied at the Met shows that the voice and technique remain the same as before her weight loss.
Arianna @54 – At no stage did I wish to imply that weight loss leads to vocal decline. I was speaking very specifically about Voigt, who as we all know did not loose weight gradually, but very rapidly and with invasive abdominal surgery. In Voigt’s case, I would say that weight loss has quite clearly led to vocal decline, but only because of the manner in which she lost it, not because she lost it per se.
Regarding Eaglen, I have no idea if weight was connected to her vocal decline, and I don’t really see why we should assume it was. Purely vocally, why do you suppose it did contribute, when so many other singers manage to be large for their whole careers without it having any negative impact? And dramatically, whilst her size would obviously have limited her, voices in her fach are so rare that they get cast regardless.
I also seriously doubt whether Blythe’s career is focussed on the USA for any reason other than that this is how she prefers things. She’s appeared at the Royal Opera in Semele and Ballo at least, and surely she wasn’t the only option for either role – if the powers that be at the ROH didn’t want her because of her size, they wouldn’t have hired her.
I don’t see what Fleming has to do with this – she’s lost a few dress sizes thanks to the Atkins diet, but she was never anything approaching the size of these other singers we are discussing.