Furia orrenda!
For no particular reason, La Cieca has been thinking of the duet “E un anatema” from La Gioconda, and for a very particular reason, she’s been thinking of Aprile Millo. Anyway, to get the discussion started for the weekend, cher public, how’d you like to share your favorite performances of this duet, YouTube style, down in the comments?
In the mid-fifties there was a juke box (I think in the 42nd street subway station or some sort of arcade near the station) that played opera selections. A bunch of us young queens would go there and listen to the Gioconda duet with Callas/Barbieri. We couldn’t believe our ears! We thought it was beyond camp!
“You always hurt the one you love?”
Heard that sung somewhere. Martha Raye?
ClitaMae: Well, somehow you have hit on the perfect venue!
Callas/Barbieri and a mix of subway train sounds in the close
background (sometimes drowning out the sopranos?), sounds
to me ideal. I must put it in a movie sometime!
I remember circa 1996 or so seeing a dismal concert performance of “La Gioconda” with piano in a high school auditorium in NYC. I don’t think it was a real opera company just a lot of wannabees and has-beens throwing up a show to strut their stuff. The Gioconda was a former mezzo (good) called Carol Kirkpatrick who converted to soprano (problematic) calling herself Karol Kazarian. The tenor was an older gentleman called Salvatore Motisi who sounded like if he had had better luck or teaching twenty or thirty years before might have given Domingo, Pavarotti et al. some competition. I think he is the husband of dramatic soprano Pamela Kucenic. ILa Selva had another good Italian tenor who should have had a career – Antonio Carangelo) The mezzo had the worst voice I have ever heard on a woman – one Judith Fredricks. She sounded like Daffy Duck on steroids. Scary. Her “E un anatema” with Karol Kazarian was a camp fest to end all camp fests. Olive Middleton and Florence Foster Jenkins were blessing them from heaven. Even scarier is that now the same Judith Fredricks seems to be a respected voice teacher and opera coach!
Myster Dear,
Great idea! LOLOL
But, I don’t think the trains would drown out those chest tones!
The Mills Brothers
The problem for me with Horne is that I don’t want to be that aware of someone’s technique all the time.
Thanks Grimgerde2! Shame Traubel doesn’t sing the Liebestod also.
IN BOCCA AL LUPO!!
I wish. Miss Millo a great, big knock-out success.
No matter what her merits or demerits may be, she seems to sincerely and deeply love opera and the art of singing.
Her style has gone out of style (the grand manner), and therein lies her crime.
These days no one wants to believe in heart.
She attempts, in her own way, to communicate ‘dal cor al cor’.
IN BOCCA AL LUPO, Egregia Signora Millo!!
I’d like to put in a word for Arangi-Lombardi and Stignani. They both leave everyone else in the cast of this recording in the dust — and the duet is really something.
I’d also like to put in a word of another sort for the Gioconda of the “divine” Olive Middleton. I saw a complete performance of it in the early 60’s at La Puma Opera at the Palm Gardens. What a company, what a performance…and Olive was, of course, divine.
Family Circle, to just listen.
There are score desk seats (available through the auspices of the Met Opera Guild), for a mere pittance.
If you are in luck, you may snag a seat in the Family Box seats adjacent.
Orchestra– to snag a seat. — that’s the only reason to stand there as the sound is not so good, nor the sightline, naturally.
These days, with the Varis rush tickets on Mondays thru Thursdays, if you can STAND to stand online for a couple hours, at least you will have the recompense of viewing opera seated. Many times, helas, the seats are near or just under the overhang.
So sorry to all the tebaldiani and callasiani…Mrs. Fricka Wotan hath invoked the name of The Divine Olive.
Our quest has ended
Well if the Gioconda piece is a vocal cat-fight…..what do you expect? Bel canto tones? Haven’t you heard cats in the back lane at night, fighting over a male they wish to mate with?
As for Tebaldi, fu#k a flat tone here and there….she was dramatically effective. Who has ever projected the dishing out of the final card in the card game of Act 2 of Golden Girl of the West with such punch? It irks me those fans that want to be ‘maestro singing teachers’, every time they hear an operatic sound. I thought listening and enjoying was the ‘action’ not proclaiming to the World they are walking Beckmessers’.
Ah! no one has mentioned the contributions of theCerquetti, Caballe or the Marton complete versions yet? Where are you all if you are supposedly a La Giaconda ‘lover’ and collector?
The Cerquetti version is heavily cut and rushed along to boot. Marton has her moments (she was better live from the MET), but in the duet that concerns us, she is paired with the hooty Budai, and they have a near crash at the end of the piece. I have never heard the Caballé version.
Were you not at Holland Park?
Thank you very much, indeed, for having posted this, complete with the information at the end which included the date (1994), which would have been my question to pose.
Poor Deborah! It was nothing at all like that last autumn.
I feel now as if I’ve had some of the money thrown away on that Gioconda returned to me in this video.
Very funny, but CAN THAT PUMPKIN SING!
Someone I know that worked with her described her as “un po matta”. I don’t know what that was all about, but it is certainly an accomplished piece of singing in which she shows herself not skirting those high parts of the singing as is usually performed.
Still vote for Callas ‘52 Cetra, though.
I recall having read something, somewhere, wish I knew,in which Callas stated that of the work she recorded, Gioconda, particularly in the 4th Act, was representative of what she was all about and what she was trying to effect from the music. I found that interesting as she was so much a belcantista, I would have thought she’d have indicated something in that repertory instead. Also love her Kundry, which proves it can be sung in a musical fashion, and not just caterwauled.
Yes, Callas used that line several times, referring specifically to side 6 (remember LPs?) of her second Gioconda recording.
I’m very afraid, Mr. Mrmyster, that you make a very astute point regarding Tebaldi.
My listening to her began in the mid-sixties, when the bloom was long off the rose. I just could not understand why so many nice people got so worked up about her. I hardly had access to her work of the late 40’s or early 50’s, so I did not know that other voce d’angelo, then.
Still, there was always something beautiful about her personality and bella figura, that probably helped her to get away with the shouted out high notes.
We can only be grateful, in the end, for the beauty she did create in the very beginning. The La Wally of the early 50’s (with Scotto’s debut as Walther) has the most beautiful account of ‘Ebben ne andro lontano’, by anyone, ever. Replete with splendid high B’s and hysterical scaligera ovation.
Would someone please post it, if available?