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?
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!
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.
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.