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’???!