Comments on: Of dodos and dildos

By: Cocky Kurwenal

Cocky Kurwenal — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:17:16 +0000

Yes, I’m familiar with and have copies of both.

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:32:02 +0000

Sounds exactly like a bent YouTube poster, possibly a Corelli-wannabe.

By: Quanto Painy Fakor

Quanto Painy Fakor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:27:50 +0000

Still wondering about these so-called INEDIT youtoubes:

By: Grimgerde2

Grimgerde2 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:19:22 +0000

Er, and he certainly has done that. Both as a baritone and a tenor…

By: Often admonished

Often admonished — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:45:41 +0000

“Alan Oke can actually sing.”

Sure? He was a respectable if anonymous baritone for some while. Emerging from this chrysalis as an “interesting” tenor was an attempt to become employable. Other baritones do this by removing their shirts.

By: keine gute naechte

keine gute naechte — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:53:56 +0000

On the other hand, Brit Diana Montague sang a spectacular Marcellina with the Cleveland Orchestra in March. She was given the aria and did great things with it, even though the terrible Sven-Eric Bechthoff production did everything it could to detract from her performance.

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:45:41 +0000

(now it makes sense that word was French. I looked at the poster’s page for a linguistic clue – they’re in the USA and their English suggested nothing otherwise.)

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:35:46 +0000

Well the rest of the information refers to same recording mentioned above, which is well in circulation -
Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire, Nicola Rescigno, §1964* INEDIT

By: MontyNostry

MontyNostry — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:21:09 +0000

Certainement, rapt.

By: Baritenor

Baritenor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:18:53 +0000

Alan Oke can actually sing. I see nothing wrong with his casting. Ann Murray I’ll give you.

By: rapt

rapt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:52:32 +0000

Isn’t “unpublished” one of the meanings of “inedit” (sorry I don’t know how to type the accent over the e)?

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:00:13 +0000

Just to note – there are two recordings of Callas’ Liebestod in circulation, the above one and a later one from an Athens concert with Votto.
Antonino Votto, Athens Festival Orchestra, 1957.

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:55:20 +0000

The poster isn’t claiming this was unpublished – they just have “INEDIT”, in capital letters, whatever that’s supposed to mean…

By: Krunoslav

Krunoslav — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:15:03 +0000

Hijacking the thread from the vocal grave is Our Own (albeit Irish-born) Ann Murray, the shrill shreds of whose once-quite decent voice spoiled several ensembles last night as a Met Marcellina that happened ONLY because of the kind of sentimental UK-crony casting many on this site claim does not exist. I guess it gives her something to do while hubby is guying the dramatic soprano role of the Hexe (to tolerable effect, though a dramatic mezzo would be preferable).

But la Murray in this parlous estate has no legitimate claim on Met’s audiences’ indulgence, and more than do Plowright as Gertrud and Oke as the HOFFMANN servants, soon at an opera house near many of us.

When will Mr. Gelb stop deferring to Fiend and Billingsgate in such matters? I guess we’re to count ourselves lucky to have Peter Mattei rather than Phillip Joll or Jonathan Summerssinging Shishkov.

By: Quanto Painy Fakor

Quanto Painy Fakor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:59:04 +0000

Hijacking this site from beyond the grave is something Renaay will never do!

By: Cocky Kurwenal

Cocky Kurwenal — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:59:59 +0000

I don’t think this is new. It has the same surprisingly four square treatment of the recit as the widely available version, with the same touches on the chest voice etc. It seems perfectly reasonable that there may be other takes from studio sessions around, but I don’t think this is one of them.

By: Cocky Kurwenal

Cocky Kurwenal — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:47:42 +0000

I’m not sure that Liebestod posted by QPF is the one we are all familiar with. The sound doesn’t seem right to me for a 1947 radio broadcast, yet the performance seems different to me from the widely available one. I should stress that I have not compared them directly – I’m just musing over my breakfast here – but the one posted here on this thread claiming to be from 1947 seems more involved and involving than the later one which I have always found tepid and unappealing. They could, of course, be one and the same, which just goes to show that one can feel very differently about the same thing when encountered at a different time.

It’s always such an exciting thought though that her Isolde, Fedora and Elisabetta from Don Carlo may one day turn out to be available.

By: mox

mox — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:26:45 +0000

As MEDEA in Pasolini’s movie she was fantastic. As a singer she was the first product of a brilliant promotion at the right time, without any question very good but I have my doubts if she would be so successful, if her carriere started in the eighties.

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:44:07 +0000

Blame QPF.

By: javier

javier — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:26:48 +0000

Callas has hijacked this thread from beyond the grave.
Callas, Callas, Callas!

From the House of the Dead…leaves me speechless. I have nothing to say about it.

Maybe if there were some women in the opera I’d care about it.

By: mox

mox — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:16:08 +0000

It is funny to read about Callas under the headline OF DODOS AND DILDOS.

By: javier

javier — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:41:35 +0000

Have you not heard this before, QPF? I bought that recording a few months ago. It was on a set called “Maria Callas: 100 Best Classics”. It has 100 tracks of 100 of her “rare” studio recordings I guess. I didn’t find it remarkable at all.

By: Sanford

Sanford — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:55:23 +0000

I have to check the credits from the Arthaus documentary I reviewed. Having that may come in handy after all. It had some excerpts from things I’d never heard before.

By: richard

richard — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:08:45 +0000

Sanford, there’s no question that Callas sang
Isolde in Venice Dec ’47. The iffy part is that a recording or broadcast was made during that period. Callas’ first documented recording sessions weren’t until several years later, when
she recorded the Liebestod. and that recording condcuted by Arturo Basile sounds a bit like
the one under discussion here. that’s the part that that could be a hoax.

There is an almost absurd clamor for “new” Callas material. EMI has released all kinds of material that Callas wouldn’t pass during her lifetime and there are all kinds of rumors about certain performances existing in sound in someone’s private collection. And there are stories of videos too, although those would be much harder to fake than the audio only recordings .

By: Sanford

Sanford — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:34:37 +0000

The Tristan is not a hoax. She sang it on 12/30/47. Further down the thread, I posted the link to La Fenice’s archives that show the cast list.

By: richard

richard — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:55:12 +0000

Regarding the turandot “hoax”, I was never really convinced one way or another. The timings
were shown to be suspiciously similar to the EMI
complete recording but the sound is so gunked up
that I can’t tell myself.

Ardoin was quoted in the notes for the release on Eclipse EKK 44 which is dated 1994 so he must have been convinced it was legit.

But I recall reading some pretty strong arguments against it, including some citing of mistakes made by the Teatro Colon Orchestra in 1949 that match mistakes made by the Scala Orchestra in 1957 . I was pretty amazed at these “smoking gun” pieces of evidence but I’ve never been great at hearing tiny details in the orchestra on opera recordings even in good sound much less the murky sound of the Turandot “recording”

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:13:46 +0000

Also, I think her father had already shortened the family name, so I’m not sure she ever went by that long name, especially professionally.

By: rapt

rapt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:09:32 +0000

Re the possible live Turandot hoax, Ardoin in his 1991 edition of The Callas Legacy argues against the hoax theory. Did he later change his mind, or was there a later refutation? (I haven’t heard it, and therefore [or nevertheless?] have no opinion.)

By: richard

richard — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:26 +0000

But QPF, what’s credited in youtube is not necessarily factual.

There have been Callas hoax recordings, the most notorious being a recording of Act Two of Turandot from Buenos Aires which was pretty
convincingly shown to be a gunked up combination
of Callas’ EMI recording of Turandot with sections lifted from the Del Monaco Decca recording of turandot.

By: HoaxHound

HoaxHound — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:59:02 +0000

This is Basile from an old record.
http://www.lala.com/#search/Callas%20Torino%20Mild