When I haven’t sung my songs
“Renée herself seemed as if she’d rather be somewhere else. Kicking off with a fussy rendition of Tatiana’s long letter scene from Eugene Onegin, her voice only clicked into gear towards its end. (Wasn’t there any time to warm up?) At which point she took a twenty minute break while the orchestra slugged through their Tchaikovsky…. Then it was CD promotion time, with three brief arias by Leoncavallo and Giordano followed by Manon’s ‘Sola, perduta, abbandonata’ from Manon Lescaut. And that was it.”
Sister blog Intermezzo and her coterie of cheesed-off public bemoan the “scant” programming last night’s “concert” by The People’s Diva — though her “gorgeous and flattering biscuit satin gown… designed by regular concertgoer Vivienne Westwood” escapes unscathed.
Why import such a trashy ‘celebrity” from abroad when there are fine British sopranos like Lisa Milne and Gweneth-Ann Jefferswho would have filled the bill to a treat?
The Vivienne Westwood looks like a sheet that’s been wrapped and draped. Her hair doesn’t look like a stylist even glanced at it. Her expression is bored.
forget la scoopenda, i rather hear someone else for the letter song, but here is one edition worst than Renee’s
The Vicar is slipping. “Trashy” is itself a rather trashy word, something only those unfortunate Yanks would say. Surely “tatty” or “common” would meet the need more felicitously.
She performed with the RPO in Amsterdam as well last Saturday. It was kind of disappointing – she was inaudible in the letter scene (I’m sticking to a lack of at least ’sound checking’ in order to fit the hall’s acoustics), managed to perform the verismo arias well, gave us a very good ‘Babbino’ and that was it. Au contraire to London, apparently, the RPO did give us Dvorak’s New world Symphony after the interval. And Renée held a signing session afterwards, looking kind of happy.
I didn’t expect it, but she has some serious Dutch groupies – a bunch of people bailed on the second part of the concert and talked themselves into Renée’s dressing room.
So, it was fun and nice, but I still can’t get over the minimal amount of singing she did.
I always have regarded her as a B+ singer, no more. And the “la scoopenda” tag is priceless (may I use it freely?). But perhaps we should all ease up a bit on Renee. She is also one of God’s creatures and deserves a modicum of respect.
“satin gown… designed by regular concertgoer Vivienne Westwood” escapes unscathed.”
but the hair! what happened to the hair!?!
remember me, but oh, forget my hair!!
ellerveira says (7#): And the “la scoopenda” tag is priceless (may I use it freely?).
Well if that is the case, I am granted the right to use the term Ms J. Chunderland, every time anyone mentions that diction-less creature La Stupenda.
midispiacemolto Comment8#: “satin gown… designed by regular concertgoer Vivienne Westwood” escapes unscathed.”
Reminds me of a different funny situation: a ‘ couture designer’ from London’s Carnaby Street – flew in , for a vaunted high fashion show one night, Next morning she was ‘caught’ going through a run down cheap clearance end of line fabric material shop ‘looking for ideas’. Probably to buy at bottom price,take it back to London, run it up and charge some star a fortune for it.Ah! what price ‘fashion’???!
The program for the tour she’s doing in December with Moore looks more interesting and with the potential for encores she should have some very long evenings ahead. I’ve read the reviews of some people who attended who are fans of hers and they thought she was great…but they’re biased I guess. The lesson to take from this: don’t spend money to see someone you don’t like.
she may only be a b+ singer, sometimes less, but she has an a+ voice. hence her fame.
Agreed – the hair is terrible.
I’m listening to her Herodiade right now from 1995. It’s rather better than B+.
Renay may have an A+ voice, but it’s not one I am crazy about. I much prefer Netrebko’s voice as example of a beautiful one–not that I like much of her singing.
Cocky Kurwenal; That Sony/ CBS Massenet Heriodiade ‘live’ from San Francisco with Fleming , is sensational. The recording captures the fission of the various performers putting out ‘a even better calling card’ with each successive appearance in the opera. Such captured magic does not often happen on a recording. That performance does.
As a side note: Jesseye Norman, once when signing a record contract -it was announced a Heriodiade was planned as part of the contract’s future plans. Strangely it never happened.
Why we have not had studio recordings of all of Massenet’s works, puzzles me. In light of that, I can think of many flops from some other composers, that have been recorded.
What a nerve, turning up and giving us 25 minutes of verismo-shite and then sodding off before the audience knew what his them. I’ve just read this hilarious explanation for where she was during the first half on http://www.opera-britannia.com: “Presumably the über-diva was busy squeezing into her twin-tone coffee-coloured gown, or was flogging bottles of her fragrance La Voce outside the London Eye to bother overmuch with the small matter of actually singing.”
Harry, I thought that the Jessye Norman Herodiade was the EMI set ultimately went to Studer. And, IIRC, that there was an announcement that she was going to record Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Aida for Philips.