The rest is silence
On Monday, a A solo recital by Cheryl Studer sold so few tickets that the organizers of the event didn’t even bother to show up at the venue on the night of the performance. [Tagesspiegel]
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That’sad. Studer is the Anti-Fleming.
What does this mean?
well, what’s happening with susan neves? she’s singing the overseer in elektra at the met???? i mean, how does one go from prima donna to comprimario roles? was serving woman #5 already taken??????
This article was originally published in July…
This is what happens when one gets one’s scoops from Opera-L and can’t really read German, I suppose….
(Erschienen im gedruckten Tagesspiegel vom 22.07.2009)
Marco Schmid always has some useful info on Opera-L…depending on your definition of useful that is.
I’m surprised he hasn’t been fishing for news of his other favorite Annette Dasch’s debut as the Countess at the Met. For someone whose European buzz is considerable, her New York debut seems to have passed without anyone noticing.
Anyone actually hear her?
Dasch is one of the most overrated singers today in my opinion. I have heard her twice. The first time as Pamina which was nothing special at all. But her Donna Anna in Salzburg two summers ago was ghastly. She cannot sing coloratura and the top is shreiked and off pitch. The timbre isn’t really anything special either. She is fine for a b house. What European buzz are you talking about? BTW does anyone know why she cancelled her Desdemona’s last month in Dallas? I have given her two chances in two different roles and it would take a lot to get me to hear her in something again.
Thanks, the correction is noted.
Dasch just got a very nice notice out of Steve Smith in the Times for her debut Countess in Figaro.
I was a bit shocked by that too. She is still getting good reviews in Europe in major roles. She can probably give both Bullock and Voigt a run for their soprano money.
Wow, that Studer article is depressing. It says that she had vocal cord problems in the mid-90s. I hadn’t heard that. My impression was that she just sort of lost it, but that is not on any reliable authority. If I remember rightly, one leading soprano did however mention that Studer was “away with the fairies”.
Maybe she was referring to the opera that Studer performed that was called “The Fairies”?
If she did perform Die Feen, I guess that would have been early in her career …
There is a fine recording of Die Feen with Anderson and Studer in small roles. The lead is Linda Esther Gray.
I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Neves rarely, if ever, sang principal roles at the Met. She was singing the Overseer in Elektra even in the early 90s – Jones/Voigt/Rysanek production. I agree, though, that Neves has been underused.
Abigaille in Nabucco is a major role and she got a broadcast in which she sang–really sang–the entire role quite impressively.
So far, Susan Neves roles at the Net are:
Elektra: Overseer
Walkure: Helmwige
Rosenkavalier: Marianne
Gotterdammerung: Third Norn
Nabucco: Abigaille
The lastest performance listed for her at the met is April 23, 2004. No mention of it being her farewell or anything else coming up with her. Does anyone have any idea?
She has been singing in Europe with some success and there has been some telecasts with her that I have seen and while not overwhelming, they are not embarrassments either. I think her problem is that her high register is not truly connected with the rest of the voice. Anything above an A sounds unsupported and lacking body.
Rumor has it she had the same surgery Voigt had an the same result.
Just Saturday I listened to Neves’ Abigaille on Sirius and thought it was wondrous–she really SANG the role, the most bel canto-ish Abigaille I ever heard. Yet, she still had the power for the character’s furious moments. I would love to hear her again in a major role.
It is sad. For all that it became fashionable in some quarters to pile on Studer (and a rabid internet troll-devotee made it tempting to do so), this was a voice and an artist of real quality.
Things didn’t always work out well for her (and she had a hand in the vocal problems, but I dare say we all have our own pet theories about that). I myself eagerly went to a Philadelphia Lucia, pretty early on, that turned out to be one of my more distressing opera-house experiences.
But one need only hear the Kaiserin, the Chysothemis, the Eva, and I’m sure several more achievements in the German middleweight vein (I haven’t caught up with all the videos) to hear that when she was good, she was really good, and had a most unusual combination of qualities. Whatever has happened since, she deserved better than a minuscule turnout with absent promoters.
I saw Studer a number of times during her short peak years (late 80s/early 90s) and I always found her impressive, even though I didn’t find the basic colour of her voice that special; on CD it could sometimes sound rather flat (both literally and figuratively) around the middle. The roles were Elsa, Elettra, Kaiserin, Chrysothemis, Daphne and Elena, and there was also a concert at Covent Garden with Domingo, where she was fine in the Otello duet and the Rosalinde’s Czardas. Though not a great actress, she had a lot of presence and sincerity on stage, and she chewed the scenery well in Idomeneo. A good singer to have around, though the attendant hysteria of the A&R chiefs of EMI and DG (the real divas, perhaps) was exaggerated.
I’m curious when you’ve ever witnessed “hysteria of A&R chiefs”? They are usually back in some office or conference room or lunch table in an expensive restaurant. Do you mean the marketing people?
At the height of Studer’s fame those A&R chiefs were definitely die sternflammenden Koeniginnen of their respective companies. The marketing bosses were very low-key by comparison. The hysteria might not have been visible to the public or the press, but I can assure you it was going on.
I wasn’t speaking from the point of view of “the public or the press” but as a former executive in one of those companies. And you still give no examples of the phenomenon you cite. But you “can assure” me?
alto you are incredibly tedious. some people besides you are knowledgeable enough to be entitled to an opinion without suffering your cranky condescension.
So being there and happening to know the truth doesn’t count as much as random fantasizing? That’s what you call “tedious”?
Geez, I was at the Lucia in Philly, too. No, it wasn’t very good. A part of the problem was that she did the traditional interpolations and the Leibling
cadenza, which were her weakest points. If she had substituted a different cadenza and didn’t try for unreliable acuti, it might have worked.
But a Donna Anna and Micaela I saw at the Met was much better. More suitable all around. And I would have loved to have heard her as the Kaiserin in the late 80s or early 90s.
It’s funny hows threads here can intertwine. I looked at Studer’s website. It showed mostly master classes
and an appearance at a gala in Prague in November.
Yes, the “Perfect Day” gala with Flemingova. I wonder if Studer actually appeared at that after all.
Richard, I agree. One operamaniac friend complained that “she didn’t do all the acuti,” and I wanted to respond “Yeah, and she shouldn’t have tried for the ones she did.”
It kind of went with her notion (yes, here’s my theory) that she had to “remake” her voice for Italian repertory, and (at least for her) that was a very bad idea. She tried for a different tonal focus that wasn’t right for her, and an ethereal pianissimo beyond what her technique allowed her. If she had been content to sing consistently with the full-bodied “jugendlisch-dramatisch” setup that served her so well in Strauss and lighter Wagner, she might indeed have managed a wider repertoire — but in a “German” way. Rethberg seemingly did her Aidas that way, and she was hugely popular in the role.
But it’s easy to have an opinion when you’re not the one putting yourself out there. And I may not even be right about it.
The funny part is that she always said that she trained as a Lyric coloratura. She tells the story of how she went on a Germany audition tour with Michaela, Gilda and roles like that and nobody would hire her. Then she started singing The Wagner roles and there was not enough space in her calendar.
After she was famous enough and she could sing whatever she wanted, she went back to what she thought was the rep she shoul’ve sung all along…
So true… Never saw her live but still remember a veteran coach at SFO raving about her debut as Micaela, rightly describing it as a true lyric soprano voice that happened to be huge. I’d have killed to see her Kaiserin. On CD, her Salome is fantastic – probably as true to Strauss’ dream voice as can be realized.
Question: Didn’t Studer record the Strauss
Salome in French, using the Wilde text?
Anyone know?
Don’t think so. The Sinopoli recording is in German
The French Salome went to Karen Huffstodt.
Is it just me or are we playing ‘Six Degrees of Lohengrin” here, recently. Studer is foremost in my memory as Elsa, and it’s been on here Lohengrin ever since that wonderful Jonas Kaufmann video.
Not that I’m complaining, or anything.
WHAT wonderful Jonas Kaufmann video? have I missed something?
pls let me know where I can find it…
I know a movie exhibitor who shows the Met bdcasts and he got an email this morning saying NOT to publish the cast they had given out. not apropos of this post but I wonder if anyone has heard anything…
Meant to say for “Hoffman”.
They all sound fine to me….
Netrebko was great at the Tucker gala too….her voice seems to have returned to normal after those awful lucias. Her passagework was very clean and her voice extremely well controlled. None of that unsteadiness on sustained notes that used to afflict her.
Calleja didn’t sing, but I’m guessing it was mostly to save his voice…Hoffmann is a huge risk for him, but he is managing quite well. Kim’s voice is just too small for the Met…another gelb “discovery”?
I heard Dasch’s debut on Monday night (she did sing on Monday unlike the Strudel). She is very pretty (resembles Scarlett Johannson a bit) and a very good spirited actress. The voice is an attractive but inflexible and technically limited healthy lyric soprano. Can’t really float a suspended piano and when she tried to sing forte the tone got hard and a bit flat. (This was exposed in “Dove Sono” in the repeat and allegro close) In the midrange dynamic level, the voice gets the job done in the lyric lines of Rosina. Okay trill and decent agility. Tone basically attractive when not stretched too far but not really totally distinctive. However, not a singer for the ages but an attractive singer who is just below the top level. Soile Isokoski and Harteros are actually much more impressive musically and technically in Mozart.
BTW: Marco Schmid has trashed Dasch on Opera-l – he was particularly critical of her Donna Anna at Salzburg (I think it was Salzburg but it was the one with Maltman as the Don, Schrott as Leporello and Roeschmann as Elvira). Some people have dismissed her as an overpromoted fraud, I wouldn’t go that far.
Was at the Dasch debut and she was nothing special…nor was Isabel Leonard (Cherubino) for that matter.
Richard: Studer’s Kaiserin is available on DVD (with Marton as the Faiberin). It’s very good!
She’s probably even better on the Sawallisch CD recording, which I don’t think is in the catalogue at the moment. Probably the best recording she ever made.
Yes, and everyone is good in it too. I think the contrast between Studer and Vinzing is more interesting that that between Behrens and Varady on the Solti set. And Hanna Schwarz leaves Runkel in the docks.
And Sawallisch can really handle that huge and difficult score. I love that set. It’s uncut.
Yes, I have the EMI recording and have (or had) a copy of the DVD from a few years later. I agree with MN, she’s better on the EMI set. The live performance is very good but she’s fresher sounding a few years earlier.
But what a mess her career turned into. And her Met career was wrecked by a dispute over repertory and performance dates.
Neves sang Abigaille 4 times at the Met, including a broadcast. I think that qualifies as a lead! Surely she is now covering Voigt or Bullock, no?
As for Dasch, I was there too. An attractive and lively actress but an unmemorable voice with some problems in agility and in sustaining high notes. Without those looks The House of Gelb wouldn’t have given her the time of day. She wasn’t terrible, but vocally she does not belong at the Met: maybe Gutrune in Bonn, or Busoni’s Dutchess of Parma in Cagliari.
In sum: the second coming of Leonore Kirschstein.
I frankly doubt the veracity of the Studer report. In an opera mad city like Berlin, I find it hard to believe that only 20 would attempt to go here a name, particularly one whose career had been ended with a scandal. There are far more than 20 bitchy opera queens in Berlin. There’s also no attempt at reporting, an attempt to find out what happened. Perhaps Studer cancelled and the presenter was an amateur who decided to run and hide rather than deal with it. Perhaps there was no publicity, etc, etc. I remember all too well a PR person sent to NYC in the 80s to publicize an upcoming tour of a large organization, and he apparently spent the entire trip drunk in a hotel. People fuck up, and you can’t always blame the artist.
Studer became unhirable after the lawsuit against Munich, the Intendants of these theaters meet regularly during the year and discuss trends, including artists, and there is absolutely an enemies list. She had to go to Wiesbaden to get work after Munich, although even at her worst she was far better than your average house singer. She was at the end of her ability to sing at an international level (and she had been there, although I was never a fan, I find some of here more disliked recordings, such as Traviata are actually quite competent), and an attempt to revive her career at this point is ill-advised. I’d heard she’d picked up a small wanna-be American agent who was promising the world, and God knows that singer’s egos are easily seduced.
I hope this becomes the end of the discussion, so we move on to Nadja Michael and the upcoming crisis that is her future calendar……
I have never been terribly impressed by the reporting in German newspapers, though I am not a regular reader. There’s a tendency to swallow stories whole, I have found.
“swallow stories whole…” what does it mean?
Not very investigative in their approach. Interviews with stars, for instance, often read like press releases!