http://www.travel-dubai.de/vip.html

In the Rosenkavalier she was very much helped by the excellent Amsterdam Concertgebouw accoustics, and by the great Edo de Waart.

Hawlata was the Ochs.

I’m in danger of wearing out the Pieczonka/ Kirschlager/ Persson/ Hawlata Rosenkav DVD (aka ‘spell THESE, sucker’) mainly because Persson’s Sophie is so wonderful. She produces the single most beautiful note I have ever heard on ‘Ist wie ein gruss von HIMMel’

No, wait, why WOULD anyone here know that?

This thread reached a grand zenith around #66, IMHO.

Why was he allocated Verdi for RCA, though? He’s not too good in the 1971 Leontyne ‘Aida’, which is also let down by being recorded through a fug (and, it has to be said) by some of Leontyne’s latter-period mannerisms, though much of her singing is still glorious.

James Jorden is a genius.

She is incredibly sensitive with the press, and that is what I meant when I said curt and icy – she reacts rather badly if she doesn’t like the line of questioning. A close friend of mine interviewed her in connection with the launch of her Foundation, and apparently Kiri was extremely unpleasant. However, another friend of mine studies singing with her, and says she has never been anything but completely lovely during their lessons.

I have an almost total devotion to and adoration of Dame Kiri. I’m applying to take part in the Solti Bel Canto Accademia at which she teaches, so perhaps I’ll get to study with her for a few classes too if I get through.

I did like the 1994 Thielemann Arabella a lot – my only time at the Met. She made Arabella sympathetic – no small feat. Dagmar Schellenberger could do that too, but all the other Arabella’s I like a lot still leave me a little bit cold in the end.

JJ on KTK, 1997/98:

http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9702B&L=OPERA-L&P=R10929

http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9807C&L=OPERA-L&P=R12048

And @63, thank you. Perhaps I was over-invested in this thread (maybe I even projected a little), but part of me is still the little girl who heard her “Dove Sono” coming out of the radio and was transfixed. I had never heard singing like it.

One of my most disappointing evenings ever at the Met She had zero chemistry with Weikl, with Battle ( who made her cry in rehearsal) and with Leinsdorf. Battle was good on her own isolated terms; otherwise the evening belonged to Dunn, Gramm and Gwendolyn Bradley.

I think she can be extremely sensitive and defensive depending on who she’s talking to.. in an interview on a sirius intermission last season with the non threatening M. Juntwait she was relaxed and warm and even opened up a bit about her divorce, without being asked (perhaps that was the key).

ION the riffs on her name are symptomatic of the various ethnic/national slurs that crop up from time to time. You should be ashamed, but I guess the fact that you’re not is kind of the whole point

As for dear self sacrificing St.Kiri, making those preposterous statements ‘that she wasn’t helped along in her career’(by many important musical figures)……. she shows even greater convenient memory loss than I assumed, together with her notorious ‘slow ability to learn’. The woman is certainly not what one would call ‘even ever so slightly intellectual’ as an opera performer; though extra pretty maybe, once upon her time.

Oh Kiri – Queen of the Knickers: there is no need to snicker at some possible bright propositions during your extending period of ‘towards retirement’.
A talent agency might come along and ask
“Do you want to appear in those (true!) current undies ads that recently ran on TV?”
Following on with:
“All you will be asked to do, is sing out the by line, that was used in the first set of ads that were ran. You can learn that, now surely?”

The by-line was: Look I am wearing ‘No Knickers’ (a brand!).

I think it’s easy to forget sometimes on boards like this that it is very hard to be a singer and that anyone who is very gifted (what would you call that voice if not a gift?)–must struggle. If KTK’s in a bad place or was then she has my sympathy.

Got to admit, the ’69 Elena as her “debut” (evidently a Web-propagated factoid) sounded more than a little dubious. But meanwhile, for whatever it’s worth, Met Opera Encyclopedia gives Carmen (Northern Opera, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1967) as her “professional debut.”

And in the 40 years since that Donna del Lago she has never (to the best of my knowledge) sung any other bel canto opera on stage.

Granted, and apparently it seems even longer to her — from her Opera on Lovers of some years ago (can’t find publication date in book): “I have an antipathy to the tragic bel canto operas of Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti, although while a student, I did Donizetti’s Anna Bolena … This silently suffering character never inspired me. But I enjoyed doing Rossini’s La Donna del Lago, though admittedly it feels like a century since I sang it.”