The Spanish Panic
The votes are in, and the cher public have chosen wisely, La Cieca thinks. Our listening/chatting experience at 1:00 this afternoon will be Verdi’s Don Carlos (or, as it should be called in this context, Don Carlo) in a performance recorded earlier this year at Covent Garden.
To hear the performance, tune in online to Polskie Radio about 1:00 pm EST; according to Operacast the performance proper will begin at 1:05.
Don Carlos: Jonas Kaufmann; Elisabeth de Valois: Marina Poplovskaya; Rodrigo: Simon Keenlyside; Philip II: Ferruccio Furlanetto; Princess Eboli: Marianne Cornetti; Grand Inquisitor: John Tomlinson; Tebaldo: Pumeza Matshikiza; Carlos V: Robert Lloyd; Count of Lerma: Robert Anthony Gardiner; Voice from Heaven: Eri Nakamura. Conductor: Semyon Bychkov
- The vocal score
- The libretto: Italian; English.
It strikes me that even singing in Italian, Kaufmann and Keenlyside are performing this score with a French approach, lean-voiced, text-based. So I still don’t get why it’s in Italian.
Cieca, given how goof Kauffman’s French is I have to agree with you. I am not sure about the rest, but i do hope we get a French Don Carlos with him either on DVD or CD soon.
I’m not a fan of kauffman, but he sounded magnificent in this duet. WOW!
OK, I don’t understand a fucking word. Excepr for Don carlos, Rodrigo, Infanta…
LOL.
Is it just the Polish broadcast, or was there an interval at this point in the Covent Garden production?
Greetings, chère doyenne, you’ve managed to make me cave because… I just love this opera too much to withhold information.
There were two intervals in the London production, one after
Furlanetto petting Keenlyside on the headAct 2, the second right after the autodafé/act 3 – so if you’ve had one at this point, it was the broadcast’s fault.Patted him on the head after “Ti guarda dal Grande Inquisitor?” Talk about your mixed signals.
Yep. After the Inquisitor line (and seemingly losing his superiority body-language-wise), he imperiously gestured to Keenlyside to kneel, then reached out. But to be fair, he withdrew his hand a millisecond before it actually touched.
Well, are we listening live or to a rebroadcast?
Cornetti, not good baby. Those ornamenti sound sloppy as all hell. Not hopeful about the rest.
And I was right. Since when it is OK for dramatic mezzos to be so sloppy when doing this aria. Obrazova was a lot more accurate, even if she was not considered a refined singer.
I guess we cannot compare Cornetti with Obraztsova. Somehow, Ebolis lost their agility along the way.
I saw this production in London two months ago and I squirmed in my seat all through that Saracen song. She just failed to maneuver her voice through it. If I recall correctly, I think she may have improved a little with “O don fatale.” Can’t say I remember all THAT well as I was still basking in the my Wagner-induced euphoria at having heard Nina Stemme as Isolde two days before.
The run finished on October 1st, so it’s one of many rebroadcasts we’ve got here. Still happy to have caught it, though.
I’ve created a chat room! For all interested in the instant version, hopefully La Cieca will approve. No refreshing, more instantaneous references.
http://chat.parachat.com/chat/login.html?room=Parterre_Box_-_Don_Carlo_chat&width=740&height=500&lang=en
Hope it works….
I’m getting a page that says i need to enter a username.
just make up a name or type CruzSF
Thanks, La C.
I really don’t understand all the good press Cornetti has received (not specifically for these performances though). I think the voice is rough, ugly, rather generic and vibrato-ridden. Heard her as Ortrud and Azucena, and was underwhelmed both times.
This is what passes for a great dramatic (Verdi) mezzo these days?
K. sings in a “closed” German way but it is very poetic withal. German audiences I am sure would swoon over how much Schiller he brings to the character!
Oh, well, I actually swoon more about how much sheer beauty, both musical and physical. The weird way he sings some of his “e”s is the only thing I can think of to criticise.
Since I’ve heard this one,
(the female voices being the weaker link
in the soirée) I tuned in on France Musique
to hear the intense Chiara Taigi as Medea!
I can see what it is that Poplovskaya is doing, or rather what she thinks she is doing, and it’s admirable to want this very narrow thread of sound for the climax of the “Non pianger.” And yet she is already getting herself in trouble by trying to squeeze the sound too much, and I don’t think she’s even 30 years old yet… Now, whether she can actually sing in a more open way I don’t know, but it seems like she should at least try to find her natural voice somewhere in there.
Her pianissimi are really hit or miss. I’ve heard her do some gorgeous ones, while others do not seem to be well-supported and it sounds like she may crack at any point during them. To her credit she avoids the crack, usually…
Take it from one who has had to put up with her Covent Garden residency ever since she was a young artist in whom they trusted way too much – it doesn’t get any better. I don’t think La Cieca’s assessment of admirable intentions is quite right, I think La Cieca had it right simply where she said the girl has yet to find her natural voice. And of course, she never will, because she gets by in this fashion and is now probably booked solid and won’t have the time or inclination to go back to first principles and allow her instrument to blossom as it should.