White women can’t jump
Says a spectator at last night’s Tosca: [The final leap] “did seem poorly timed– Mattila ran to the top in slow motion, switch to stunt double appeared obvious. No boos followed– unenthusiastic applause instead. Neither Scarpia took any bow.”
As for the interminable second intermission, a Met insider tells La Cieca, “They’ve been rehearsing the leap before act 3 before every performance to make sure the lighting is timed correctly, but that wasn’t the cause for the delay. I think it had more to do with the conductor [Joseph Colaneri] taking his sweet time.
Clita, I’ve seen a couple of video clips where Tebaldi also did not jump. I suspect she started jumping after losing weight around 1961 and got more involved dramatically.
This all reminds me of the utterly apocryphal story that no one seems to be able to resist repeating endlessly (but you should TRY), about the performance of Tosca where the soprano not merely bounced, but came up again three times, yodeled her last line each time (ever closer to pitch), and then missed the trampoline on the last bounce, hit the stage, broke a stagehand’s leg, went right through the floor … and mercifully fell into the rehearsal room where they were doing the finale of Flying Dutchman, so no one noticed anything out of the way.
I made part of that one up myself. If only I could remember which part.
Hans: By omitting the name of the soprano in question, you miss the point of the story entirely.
It was Leonie Rysanek, of course.
Oh, Hans, I make up my parts myself all the time. Now, if only I could someone else to make up my parts…
Is anyone else hear listening to the LOC opening night “Tosca”? I must say I’m finding it very instructive. All the comments here about other singers covered vowels, unfocused singing, and lack of Italianate color are illustrated very well in this performance. Voigt’s “Vissi d’arte” was unfortunate. She sounded tired, slipped in and out of her speaking accent, and she seemed struggle to reach the end. She was much better in Act I. Mattila comes off much better in comparison.
Actually, all of the Met’s leads come off better in comparison. Chicago’s Scarpia doesn’t sound very threatening and he and the Cavaradossi seem to be competing for most pronounced vibrato.
65:
YES,,with few..(VERY FEW) isolated moment..the LOC evening was pretty dreadful -sounding..on the ‘puter, at least..I can only hope it sounded better in the House..
BUT..yhe WFMT intermission features are light-years better,then those of the MET’s..lol!!!
CruzSF
I just got home in time to hear the last act of LOC Tosca.
(Secret Beyond the Door with Joan Bennett was fabulous!).
Voigt, I am sorry to say, sounded like an old lady–the voice had no real quality, kinda whitish and unfocused. The her last note was sharp— not to mention her one-dimensional interpretation.
The tenor was leathery and a bit wobbly, but not horrible.
Thank God I missed the Scarpia.
Of course, Mattila was better!
brooklynpunk: I agree about the WFMT features, even if some of them are recycled from the LOC podcasts to which I already listen.
Clita: no doubt that you had the more entertaining evening with Joan B.
CruzSF:
I also get the LOC podcasts, via iTunes..
BUT..The Eleanor Steber tribute was of a kind I wish we heard more of, on the MET brodcasts.
The tenor (if that’s what he’s calling himself…) tonight..was probably the worst trainwreck I have heard , in some time.
Debbie had her moments..but blew the end of “Vissi”..big -time
Morris was generally.ok.
Sir Andrew should be shot, on the roof of Castel S. Angelo….
I listened to most of the LOC Tosca also.
I have to admit I’ve never been a Voigt fan, the only thing I ever heard her in that connected with me was Ariadne.
But she did have an impressive, if inexpressive voice, very solid with an easy top. HAD is the operative word. The middle is now curdled and unsteady. The higher edges are very squally and the top is tight and shrill. Now I do feel that many sopranos in less than great shape can make an effect in Tosca where as I’d through tomatoes at them in Manon Lescaut or Butterfly. But Voigt is just so unimaginative and inexpressive. She enunciates the text carefully, rolling all the “r” like no Italian ever would.
She just seems to me to bring nothing special to the role. Something like Steber, who I did not think had a success with the role but less
polished.
She made a worse mess of the end of Vissi D’arte than Mattila did and ran out of breath to boot. She did seem short of breath through much of the evening.
Morris picked his way through the part , approximating much of the pitch, much of it is just too high for him. There were a number of times when he went hoarse or broke off.
Galouzine has a very dark voice, very baritonal. He was the only one of the three that interested me, at least he sang a lot of the music as written with out fudging it.
A lot but not all. His top, always throaty , is not very constricted. He just touched most of the top notes. He sounded something like Ramon Vinay to me, a very dark, baritonal sound with a lot of color in the lower and middle voice but a top that is pretty iffy.
While Levine’s conducting on Monday night was stodgy and sluggish, Davis’ was very fussy and exaggerated.
The radio commentators made a lot of comment about this being a Zeffirelli production. Huh?
Ok, the sets and (some of) the costumes were from the ROH production that Zeff staged for Callas and Gobbi in 1964. But what is left of Zeffirelli’s staging? did the director watch the Callas/Gobbi film of Act 2 to see how Zeff
staged it?
The whole idea seems like a stretch to me. It reminds me of a class 3 relic from the Catholic Church. (Something that came in contact with something else that at one time touched an actual relic) ” I swear…this piece of paper rubbed up against the glass that Mother Teresa was laid out under”
But those that really like traditional staging may like it. Just a guess, it may have been more smoothly executed than the
Bondy production which sounded like it needed some more thought and some more rehearsal.