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“I can tell you honestly, I’m not that passionate anymore about singing and all this stuff, you know?” [New York Observer]
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“culminating in Massenet’s 0, which she will bring to Covent Garden in June and July”
The little-known operatic adaptation of “Histoire d’O”? Could be a big hit for her.
Pelleas: You beat me to it!
I love the Opera “O”! It is one of my favorite Massenet operas. Along with “Her” and “Diade” of course. Or is that along with “Man” and “N”. I can never remember… I also love that aria from “Saph”
O!
Wow, Nebs in: L’HIstoire d”O” would be incredible.
Brings new meaning to “Obéissons quand leur voix appelle”…
She always sounds like she has something in her mouth as it is.
“There is a lot, lot of singers,” she said, “who don’t have anything else but the theater. I have to say, I used to be like that. I was really—the theater was everything for me—the theater, partying, because I didn’t have anything else, you know? You come back home and there is nobody. It’s fine when you’re young, but when you’re a little bit older, you want something else.”
An alternate translation from the Russian:
“The things you drop on your way up the ladder, so you can move faster. You forget you’ll need them again when you go back to being a woman….Sooner or later we’ve all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we’ve had or wanted… and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turns around in bed – and there he is.”
i wish i was anna n’s baby!
I’m sure it’s hardly a popular opinion in the world of fandom, but honestly? Singers who have nothing going on in their lives but singing are usually not very interesting performers.
Convincing acting needs life experience to draw from. Without that, any attempts at characterization are distressingly flat.
Oh?
What of Callas? And though she wasn’t an opera singer, Ella Fitzgerald supposedly had rather pedestrian tastes and ways.
This is a comforting notion — you know, balance and all that. It’d be nice (maybe) if it were the case. But I really don’t think it’s borne out very well in the real world. Maybe I don’t equate ‘convincing acting’ with ‘great art.’ Sometimes. But art is artificial, in a good way.
Many artists are uncanny: it’s hard to pin down (or analyze) what makes their work so compelling. But as is the case with many areas of expert performance, drive, determination, and focus are far better predictors of achievement than anything else.
LPR
Callas had a LOT going on in her personal life.
Ella Fitzgerald worked in a bordello (in a non-sexual capacity), was homeless for a brief period, married two, possibly three times, including to a man extremely younger than herself.
I’m not sure either of these ladies are a good illustration of the point you are trying to make.
I didn’t say that they had to have GOOD things going on in their life, merely that they had outside interests and experiences besides just, you know, singing.
Callas had NO personal life. She married old fart Meneghini, a man she was never in love with, for security only. She then fell in love with another old fart, but a billionaire this time. Zeffirelli was correct when he said that had Callas fallen in love with a young stud and lived an exciting LIFE she would’ve never become Maria Callas.
Great art comes from repression, not expansion. You don’t need a full, exciting, complete life to become a great artist, you need a great brain combined with a great soul.
I agree with you, Rudiger. I put this easy bromide of homely “balance” in the same category as yesterday’s legislation of a “thick skin.” If art were produceable by such pat recipes, Betty Crocker would have a mix for it.
I’m not talking about balance. I’m talking about having a fucking personality and desires and interests — things that make you an INTERESTING human being!
Art is about communication, and how can you communicate if you have nothing to say?
And I’m not yelling at you, fwiw. It’s just that while yes, great performance is an elusive thing at times, there’s also things that MUST be there for it to happen.
I was replying to Rudiger, not to you, A.S. If you will note, your post and mine are marked at exactly the same minute.
On the other hand, now that you bring it up, I’m afraid you’re setting up a straw man that no one in the world would embrace. Who has argued for uninteresting artists?
Who has argued for uninteresting artists?
Jonathan Friend?
To argue for certain artists that you and I deem uninteresting is of course not the same as arguing in general for uninteresting artists.
But I admire La Cieca for not letting the distinction, which our Doyenne knows at least as well as I do, get in the way of a mot that is pretty bon.
I am really baffled. Why is she saying that Maria Stuarda is too late for her? I would say that among the three roles, Stuarda is the one that fits better her voice. I’d really love to hear her Stuarda (Bolena, I am not so sure, but am more than willing to suspend judgment and give her a chance)
One can only wonder how she intends to manage the trills in the last scene? As has been stated many times on this site, the woman simply doesn’t have the technique to sing bel canto roles. For her to even mention Roberto Devereux is a travesty.
I thought the exact same thing when I read that she thinks Bolena is a good fit: can’t wait to hear [the ascending trills in] ‘Coppia iniqua’….
I understand why she says no to Stuarda. I would say that one has a bit more coloratura than Bolena and I think of Bolena as more lyric. For me, I think Anna will be ideal as Bolena. She will be very convincing in the role. I don’t see her as a stuarda even though I am a huge fan of her work.
Maybe she’s wary of Stuarda after her coloratura skills were knocked in Lucia.
I always was taught and believed that the greatest artists and true high priestesses of the theater sacrificed their personal lives to bring great art on to the stage. (Callas being the most significant role model). But to quote Babs, ” you can’t bring an audience home with you..”
I’m seeing a similarity here between singing/acting and fiction writing. Many writers draw on their personal adventures, even going out to have wild adventures to inform their writing. Others are so sensitive that they can pick up the world’s possibilities from the shelter of their friends or their small, turret room (Proust and Dickenson come to my mind).
Callas did live an outsized life, didn’t she?
Mild-mannered though I am, this discussion touches my hottest button, so to speak. What successful art requires is a) access to one’s emotions and b) the ego/determination that can drive one to develop the needed expressive technique. Callas, whose life was about as narrow as they come–supposedly, her main entertainment in later years was watching cartoons–seems to me a great example of that. I don’t mean to disagree with the suggestion that some writers (and maybe singers?–though I hadn’t hard of that theory before) may seek out wild adventures (presumably following the conventional definition of what constitutes wildness), but only to say that no adventure will make an interesting person or interesting artist out of a boring one (which I’d define as one who doesn’t have that emotional access)–and no interesting person will make an interesting artist without that fanatic dedication to developing technique. Am I allowed to add imho after these dicta?
HEARD of that theory–my emotion got the best of my typing….
only to say that no adventure will make an interesting person or interesting artist out of a boring one (which I’d define as one who doesn’t have that emotional access)
I agree with you here and don’t think that contradicts what I wrote.
About no interesting person will make an interesting artist without that fanatic dedication to developing technique: I hesitate to agree completely because 1. “interesting” artist doesn’t mean “talented” artist — I think someone can be interesting but bad or inappropriate to the role, and 2. I suspect that a commenter here will soon name an interesting artist who led a completely boring life.
Though my comment was sparked by yours, CruzSF, I didn’t mean it as disagreement. I do think, though, that boring person and boring life aren’t the same–adventurers can be terrible bores, while the settled, the single-focused, and/or the hermit can be interesting people and, if they work at it, interesting artists. Callas’s life, from what I’ve read, does sound boring; and I don’t know that de los Angeles (during her greatest period), Scotto, Kraus had particularly unusual personal experiences (though, to tell the truth, I don’t really know that they didn’t, either). There–I’ve fulfilled your prediction!
I must admit to being intrigued by the idea that Callas spent an afternoon watching cartoons before going on stage.
Having rubbed shoulders with many opera audiences in my time, I’m pleased to hear that!
Only shoulders? Maybe you have a book in you that’s dying to come out!
Yes, only shoulders! I was going to pre-empt comments of that kind, but I thought I’d give the Parterriens the benefit of the doubt. Always a mistake.
Ooops. I meant to rub your shoulders, not trample them.
“Callas did live an outsized life, didn’t she?”
It has been argued, however, that the aspects of her life that were most obviously glamorous and gossip-grabbing did not coincide with her supremely great years on the stage.
OK. I have gotten to my Callas bio yet. I’m still reading Eileen Farrell!
Oops. I meant I HAVEN’T gotten to the Callas bio yet.
Two great artists. But Farrell could be seen as the anti-Callas.
Alto isn’t kidding….Farrell could actually sing.
*duck and cover*