Reminder: Oughty but nice
La Cieca reminds the cher public: you still have one week to come up with a top ten list about the decade from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009, with the winner taking home a $100 Amazon gift card
Clever contributor Devon Estes (not pictured) has suggested to La Cieca what may well turn out to be the bestest discussion idea in many a moon. With the turn of the decade approaching and the end of the Oughts near at hand, what better way to mark the passing of the first decade of a new millennium than by making lists?
Your task, cher public: create one or several top ten lists of the best or worst in opera from January 1, 2000 until (extrapolating) December 31, 2009. These lists can be of singers, productions, events, recordings — whatever you think can best and most entertainingly be condensed into a list of the magical 10.
As with any of these open-ended comment fests, La Cieca thinks the best contributions are those that include nice, vivid details. She is not averse to the use of YouTube clips or external links to help illustrate the points you are trying to make.
La Cieca will keep this discussion thread open through the end of 2009, and as soon as she recovers from the double-whammy New Year’s Eve of the Met’s new Carmen production and the traditional Countess De Lave “wee juggie,” (also not picture) La Cieca will award that gift that goes with everything, a $100 Amazon gift card
And discuss, please! Discuss!
OK, here are the news items that we are working on for Lindoro’s 10 Operatic events in 10 years
1. Villazon enters and exists (and enters and exists and enters and exits) and enters again the world of opera. We are still waiting to see if this one sticks…
2. The Met replaces its Zefirelli Tosca with another traditional production. Some people bitch because it is too traditional, some people bitch because it was not traditional enough, some bitch because it is not by Zefirelli. The Met has to come to grips with the fact that the unifying theme of the new Tosca is the fact that people went out of their way looking for reasons to hate it; as opposed to love it. (how sad)
3. Peter Gelb takes over the Met. Some people bitch because he is not traditional enough, some because he is too safe and some because he is not Volpe; once again proving that not everyone will love you for your pretty face. His marketing strategies prove that he is a genius and he changes the face of entertainment for years to come. His ability to recognize talent (outside a set of double D’s) is still under scrutiny.
4. For the first time in nearly a century, an opera house actually leads the way in the entertainment business. Yes, I am talking about the Met in HD. At first people said it was a loosing proposition, now it is seen as the first of its kind and performers everywhere in the world from the Jonas brothers to Celine Dion are elbowing their way to cash in with their own Live in HD transmissions. Rummors of a 3 Tenors in HD sweep the world, but no confirmation as of yet…
5. We get a 3rd British invasion. The invasion starts in the late 90′s when the Commonwealth sends artists like Sarah Brightman & Charlotte Church. It reaches critical mass with artists like Paul Potts, Susan Boyle, and Katherine Jenkins. The imitators are not far behind and we get Bocelli, Josh Groban, Il Divo, Opera Babes, Amici and the rest. The effect is swift, half the world is giddy and the other half believes that it is not true what they say about the education system in the USA being the worst in the world.
6. After a year of fierce battle, Blue Ray wins the format war. This means that opera nuts the world over can let a sigh of relief as they trash their DVD’s and start over their collections with the new format, just like collectors from generations past did when the 78, the 10 inch, the LP, the 8 track and the cassette died a brutal death at the hands of newer technologies.
7. iPods and the iTunes store signal the beginning of the end for the CD. With the introduction and worldwide acceptance of the iPod, digital music is seen as a force to be reckon with and sales of traditional CDs plummet. This causes panic in the upper circles of opera connoisseurs because, in their words, the new generation will not know where to go to find their music.
8. The economic environment of the new Millennium propels the death of opera houses in places as varied as Baltimore, San Diego and NYC. Others are sent to intensive care and others are just relieved Mortimer never came to NYC, the health of the company be dammed.
9. Maria Callas’ widows all over the globe celebrate the 30th anniversary of her death. Worldwide sales of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Cymbalta skyrocket as Sopranos all over turn to medication to deal with the fact that they still have to hear that bitch’s name as a reason why they will never measure up.
10. A new crop of younger, thinner singers emerge. The backlash is swift and brutal. Charges of singing the wrong rep, or too early or too heavy are thrown like popcorn at a bad movie premiere. La Cieca tries to bring some sense into the discussion but she is quickly shoved against a wall (against her will) by some opera nut. Expert sociologists are called and they discover that the fans are always 20-30 years too late to see the singers of the golden age. Counter experts say that it doesn’t matter now that Callas is dead and that the level of teaching and taste is worse than they have ever seen; proving that either a group of people have found the fountain of youth or that audiences will never change and in 10 years we will be having the same old fights.
OK, I broke the ice. I know how people hate to be the first in these competitions…
An addendum for consideration: All the fuss over who gets Bayreuth! The battle between Wagners for control was wild and shaped the future of the festival.
bravo
Heavens, this is brilliant! Thanks!!
The top 10 great singers who left us in the last 10 years. (I will preface this by saying there are far too many more great singers that we have lost, but these all have made contributions other than just a wonderful body of work).
1) Luciano Pavarotti – Not only one of the greatest and most famous singers of the last 40 years, but ever.
2) Beverly Sills – Not only a great singer, but her championship of NYCO kept the ‘second house’ at the forefront of great opera in New York.
3) Franco Corelli – The golden voiced tenor and worldwide idol. One of the great interpreters of music.
4) Giuseppe di Stefano – He gave his all for his all too short time on the stage. We all should consider ourselves lucky that his great years were also the great age of recording in opera.
5) Anna Moffo – One of the pioneers of broadcast opera. Without her, we might not have the MetHD program.
6) Birgit Nilsson – One of the great singing actresses in the German rep. Few have, or will ever match her talent.
7) Jerry Hadley – One of the great Mozart tenors who left us too early, he was also a great interpreter and champion of contemporary works.
9) Renata Tebaldi – Callas’ ‘rival’, and (depending on who you ask), the greatest Italian soprano ever.
10) Robert Merrill – Not only one of the best baritones in history, but his love for his city and his art brought millions to the opera house.
I must say, many of the great mezzos are still alive. Maybe lower voices live longer?
Also, I’m working on another list that isn’t such a downer. I just found it striking how many great singers of the Golden Age passed in the last 10 years.
what about crespin and schwarzkopf?
de Los Angeles?
I feel like I should add the other contenders that were left out.
Victoria de Los Angeles
Fedora Barbieri
Regine Crespin
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
I must say, had Hadley not been such a force for new opera, which I personally love and feel is vital to the continuance of the art, and had Moffo not made her debut on TV rather than in the opera house, just maybe setting today’s broadcast frenzy in motion, I would have included Crespin for being one of the great Sopranos to sing French repertory and Barbieri as the only mezzo on the list.
I hope that we keep Simionato, Bumbry, Horne, Cossotto, and the likes of them for another 10 years so we don’t have them on next decade’s list.
Pardon the omission, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson should maybe be included in place of Jerry Hadley. A wonderful artist in both lieder and contemporary opera.
And Varnay?
6) Birgit Nilsson…..”singing actress” ?
Hmmm, incontestably a great voice and powerful performer, but, for me I hasten to add, not a great actress.
Would you not grant that a great singing actress is a very different thing from a great actress?
yes I would, Alto. Though it has often been said of singing actresses(or actors) that they could have had a career on the legitimate stage. I believe Franz Mazura actually played King Lear in Germany after he stopped singing. I would include Soderstrom and Borkh, who I believe either acted or had designs to do so before their singing careers. To haul out Mordden categories again, and God knows there are all kinds of degrees of connection as well as separation between them, I think that most would agree that “singing actresses” are generally ‘kunst’ divas, who make up for what they may lack in voice with their artistry. I don’t mean to look down on Nilsson by saying that, to me, she doesn’t belong in that category.Deified kunst diva, Martha Modl shared some roles with Nilsson, but they couldn’t be more different. To me Nilsson is ‘stimme’ diva in excelsis. Does that mean that I don’t think she sang the words and told the story through the music with expression…of course not. But to me the voice was the message, not any deep or individual insights in interpreting different characters through the music.
I like Valmont’s list.
But I hasten to point out that not only will the decade not end on 12/31/09 (it ends on 12/31/10), the Millennium didn’t end on 12/31/2000 (12/31/2001). All decades start with year 01 and end in year 00, as there was no year ’00 in the First Millennium AD. Otherwise, one decade/century/millennium would be a year short.
My list (by no means comprehensive, since most of my operatic listening has been on disk, rather than live). These are in no particular order.
1. The near (and still possible) demise of the New York City Opera. Which brings me to…
2. Gerard Mortier in New York.
3. Amato Opera closes. It was a little company in a tiny theater. But it was a New York fixture for decades. And they offered me a contract to sing (which I blew off for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was immense stage fright).
4. The triumph of the PR machine. Hype has been around as long as theater has existed… even prior to Year 0 AD (uh, Year 1). Which brings me to…
5. Opera cast first for looks and second for talent. Moffo was gorgeous, sure, as were Eleanor Steber, Roberta Peters, and Callas. Franco Corelli was, too. But what talent! But would Pavarotti have been given a fair chance had he been starting out today?
6. The world wide takeover of opera by Regiedirektors. I’m sure it existed back in the 70s, but when I was in college as a voice major at Chicago Musical College, we certainly never heard of it. But I just read the new Opera Now, and when productions are traditional (and successful), there’s almost a sense of amazement that audiences still want them.
7. The Internet. Not only did the internet lead to the downfall of the CD through filesharing and mp3 sales, it lead to instantaneous reviews, blogs, websites, etc, allowing for more democratic commentary on all of the arts, including opera. Thanks to devoted bloggers, such as our own La Cieca, we all get to be Tony Thomassini (strapping, dusky-voiced, and verbose).
8. The rise of Youtube and podcasting. I have heard some of the most wonderful, and horrible, singing on Youtube. And not just obscure singers in their living rooms, but old video and audio from generations past. And through Unnatural Acts of Opera (and aren’t we waaaaaay overdue for a podcast?) and Opera Depot, I can hear complete live recordings from all over the world and from decades past.
9. The rise of cancellations. While I know that cancellations happen and people really get sick or hurt themselves, it seems to be at epidemic levels.
10. Personally, I have to say the most important thing to happen in opera during the past decade, was my rediscovery of my voice. I owe it to Parterre Box. Not only because I relish these discussions, but because through one particularly vile discussion which, if I remember correctly , took place in a live chat during Ernani, A Met soprano took an interest in me. I sang for her, and then sang my first audition since 1997, for Opera Manhattan. If they hire me, it will be my first performances since 1987. But more importantly after all this time was that I showed up and didn’t chicken out, and I sang really well for the audition and call back.
As for productions…
1. Tales of Hoffmann from Bilbau with Aquiles Machado and Maria Bayo. I saw this in HD back when the Voom Network still existed on Cablevision. Gorgeous regie theater production, and stunning performance from Mr. Machado.
2. Barber of Seville at the Met. Bartlett Sher, JDD, and JDF all at the top of their game, not to mention Peter Mattei. Lovely joyous production.
3. Romeo et Juliette at the Met. Not for the singing so much, but oh, how magical the production is (at least for me).
4. The Julie Taymor Magic Flute. A great opera, sung well, that I couldn’t bare to look at. It’s as if every idea that Taymor ever conceived of exploded out of her brain and landed on stage.
Item 5 makes my head explode just a teeny, tiny bit. It feeds into this idea that seems to be fairly prevalent, that there are a ton of Plain Janes who sing a bitchin’ Desdemona who are sitting on skid row with a tin cup because Gelb decided to go with the looker instead. It just is not such a binary thing, nor is it new. (Pretty people get undue attention in life and work? Stop the presses!)
The Met doesn’t do too badly by some reasonably dumpy singers. (For reasons of trying not to be a dick, I will not name names.) Sometimes they make some bad decisions in the name of visual glamour–let’s just go with the example of I Puritani. Trebs sang it poorly according to lots of us, me staunchly included. She sang it very well according to large, vociferous audiences. Either way, what was the harm? The Met put on something that had been on the shelf for a while in a performance that even to a reasonable detractor, had some strengths.
There are probably people out there who could have sung a much better Elvira…one hears good things about Eglise Guitierrez. I’m listening to her right now on youtube and she seems terrific. Not incidentally, she’s also (in my admittedly homosexual estimation) really pretty. So that’s not the reason she isn’t singing at the Met. I think the reason she isn’t singing at the Met is that it’s a long, complicated, multi-variable, sometimes unfair, arduous process to become an opera star, and it doesn’t happen to everyone, and it doesn’t happen right away, and even if it does happen, you may not sing at the Met.
Sorry, this rant probably belongs in another thread, but this is where it happened.
I hadn’t happened across this thread before, so apologies for the very late response, but that is so spot-on it hurts.
While I note (and agree with) your point about when a century/ millennium begins and ends, Sanford, surely you will agree that 2000 did not belong in the ten-year period we call the Nineties? Thus 2010 will belongs to the teenies and not the oughties.
That said, December is a peak month for deaths and – may it please the gods to prove me wrong and Valmont correct – we may just be getting slightly ahead of ourselves with the roll call of Those We Have Loved.
“3) Franco Corelli –. One of the great interpreters of music.”
Yes, his sensitive rendering of “Ombra mai fu” is a model of Handelian grace.
“Jerry Hadley – One of the great Mozart tenors…”
Maybe if one ends this with “in City Opera’s history”. Sorry, Jerry was a great Pelleas, a great Tom Rakewell, but my idea of a great Mozart tenor extends to Wunderlich, Burrows, Simoneau
“9) Renata Tebaldi – (depending on who you ask), the greatest Italian soprano ever.”
Depending in WHOM you ask,Roberto Alagna might be called the greatest French tenor ever, too, Was Tebaldi greater than Pasta, Grisi, Patti and Muzio?
To Corelli, as I’m rather young I don’t have first hand memory as to when the Baroque renaissance that included accuracy to traditional practices started, but I believe that it was after Corelli’s recording. From the orchestra you can hear that Baroque accuracy was not the most important aspect of that recording. I hear his beautiful and heartfelt interpretation clearly, and I admire him for singing how he felt.
To Hadley, I feel that there are tenors who would kill to be in the same company as Wunderlich, Burrows, and Simoneau. One of the greats, not the best ever. Also, his work with contemporary opera really got him on the list. But I will offer this to show his Mozart prowess.
As to Tebaldi, that is your choice. I have always felt that when one gets to that level of singer, legendary, that it comes down to personal preference as to who you feel is the best.
I have to disagree with the assertion that Hadley was only a good Mozart singer while he was at NYCO. I am not a fan and partly it is because when I came to really listen to opera he was in the twilight of his career and the tone had become a little whinny and spread. But years latter I was able to come across the Giovanni from the met and that changed my mind. If this is not great Mozart singing, then what is?
Or sai and Dalla sua pace
Il mio tesoro (Is there a way to also embed tubechop vids?
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/39490
This is a test to see if the Il mio tesoro embeds. I have added the v…
httpv://www.tubechop.com/watch/39490
Du hast recht, Lindoro. I feel the same way. And, jumping to the other extreme from Mozart, I have heard Bill Bolcom, with tears in his eyes, speak of the joy of working on an opera with J.H.
My more upbeat list, the top 10 (not necessairily romantic) power couples of the last 10 years.
1. Peter Gelb and Anthony Minghella – It is so unfortunate that Minghella passed before this relationship could blossom, but there were great things in the works, and the Butterfly was the first time that people stepped back and realized that Peter Gelb knows what he’s doing.
2. Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon – For the Boheme DVD alone. They just can’t get enough of each other. Lets see if the next decade allows for both of them to come back together.
3. Roberto Alagna and Angela Georgiou – It’s ended in a messy divorce, but they did SO many shows together with their ‘real life chemistry’.
4. Thomas Hampson and Renee Fleming – Two American media whores who now seem to MC more events than sing in them. It’s almost like they’re brother and sister in how they act. They have also collaborated on stage more times than I’d care to count.
5. Placido Domingo and Washington D.C. – America’s adoped Maestro, he has taken D.C. by storm, becoming the face of classical music in the political scene.
6. Ben Heppner and Jane Eaglen – Two Wagnarian giants (pun intended), they sing Tristan und Isolde together all too often.
7. Beth Clayton and Patricia Racette – One of the real life couples, Mezzo and Soprano together for some reason don’t get the kind of casting and crazy sexual undertones that people like Alagna and Georgiou get. Imagine putting them together in Carmen and watching Micaella and Carmen flirt on the side.
8. John Corigliano and Mark Adamo – Another real couple, two of the great living operatic composers and a huge force in New York.
9. Ricky Ian Gordon and Minnesota Opera – Only one opera from this collaboration has premiered (The Grapes of Wrath) but there are more being written with great promise. I look forward to this relationship blooming.
10. Anthony Tommassini and The Men of Opera – The only thing he writes about more than the now absent sound re-inforcement system at NYCO.
In what ways exactly do Fleming and Hampson qualify as “media whores”, but Mr. Domingo doesn’t?
I envy your really short memory.
And isn’t he usually paired with Susie G. at those events, rather than with La Voce?
He is, but he doesn’t perform with Susan as much, so I thought it was a better all around couple.
How many events does Placido MC? While he gets plenty of media coverage, I feel like he doesn’t seek out the spotlight as much as Hampson and Fleming. He is still in high demand after his time with the 3 tenors made him a household name.
Also, I did include him as ‘the face of classical music in the political scene’. He goes out and gets money for the arts, and he drives donors for WNO. I don’t think (I may be wrong) that he actively seeks coverage like Fleming or Hampson do.
Operatic offspring:
1. Elsa
2. Senta
3. Florestan
4. Tristan
5. Sage
6. Amelia
7. Deio Siou (“Broken Finger”)
8. Tosca
9. Canio
10.Norma
Top ten things I have not cracked someone over the head with (yet) for talking incessantly a row behind me. 1) Mother-of-pearl opera truncheon…
2) Levine’s leaden Wagner tempi…
good things at the Met in this decade
not a great decade for Verdi at the Met, but how about Dolora Zajick: still blazing as Eboli, Azucena, Amneris–
1) Levine as modernist: has anyone else made these works sound so beautiful? Moses und Aron, Lulu, and especially Wozzeck in September 2001, about two weeks after September 11. . .
2) the (almost) last of Domingo, what a great Wagnerian he remained in this decade: as Siegmund and Parsifal. . .
3) and speaking of Wagnerian farewells, James Morris as Wotan in three Ring cycles, ever older and wiser, even with waning vocal resources; and, in the same vein, great performances of Hans Sachs
4) Mattila, my diva of the decade: especially in Lohengrin and Fidelio, but also of course Salome and the Janacek heroines. . .
5) Janacek: great musical performances in this decade: Jenufa, Katya Kabanova, and (tonight, in fact) House of the Dead (I’ll be there, for the second time)
6) Juan-Diego Florez, fabulous in everything so far: Barber, Daughter of the Regiment, even in that stupid production of La Sonnambula
7) divas partnered by baritone: I think Netrebko has a gorgeous voice but her greatest night in my book was War in Peace opposite Hvorostovsky; and he was also Fleming’s best partner of the decade, gave her her greatest Met performance of the decade in Eugene Onegin; and he was pretty magnificent in his own right–
9) the chorus, just gets better and better: so many great evenings, but let’s mention War and Peace, Nabucco, and those knights of the Grail. . .
10) Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: how amazing was her one and only really starring performance on the stage of the Met as Didon? just a few years before her death, much too young, what a loss for all of us!
parpignol: Great list. You mention a lot of things that would be on my list. I completely agree about Mattila being the diva of the decade, starting with her Fidelio and stopping short of her Manon and Tosca. Zajick has been almost singlehandedly maintaining the integrity of the Met’s Verdi. And LHL’s Didon has be to be one of the great highlights of the last decade at the Met. I would add Heppner to the list. Despite his high-profile problems, his Enee and Tristan were peerless.
thanks Kashania: I thought about Heppner, but for me his real greatness came in the late 1990s, the previous decade, that first brilliant round of Lohengrins, Walters, and Tristans. . .
I see your point and agree. I just think that Heppner still accomplished things this past decade that were great, like the Enee and Tristan.
I like the list too, but some biggies maybe should be considered: The beginning of the Gelb era, and consequently the beginning of the MetHD program.
As far as Verdi at the Met, the Trovatore last year with Hvorostovsky, Radvanovsky, Zajick, and Alvarez was something to remember. Radvanovsky I feel belongs with Zajick in the great Verdi singers at the Met category.
I also mark the Minghella Butterfly at the Met as a major turning point.
Top Ten Worst Grammar/Spelling Errors
That Offend Miss Goody Goodgrammar
As She Reads Her Persnickety Way
Through Various Opera Blogs Each Day :
10. Spelling Radames as “Rhadames”
It happens more often than you might think.
9. Referring to that big opera house in Buenos Aires as The Colon.
Just too distasteful to contemplate.
8. People who think “whom” sounds much more formal when only “who” is correct, as in
“…A singer whom many people believe is a great Wagnerian.”
“Everyone in Peking is looking for the person whom they hope can supply the Unknown Prince’s name.”
7. “premier” versus “premiere”
The premier attended the opera’s premiere at the city’s premier opera venue.
6. Using “roll” for “role”
“Chenier is a roll that doesn’t suit him.” This suggests it’s about sex, not casting.
5. Spelling “cabaletta” as “cabbaletta” or “caballeta” or “cabaleta”
There is some kind of worldwide cabal that continues to chop cabalettas in half.
4. The old problem of “principle” and “principal”
Some people write that the principle roles were well-sung. “The principles were outstanding.”
What are principle roles? Fidelio, for sure. Good principles there. Posa seems to have
principles. Scarpia has no principles, right?
3. “Canon” becoming “cannon”
“Otello” is a towering masterpiece in the Verdi cannon. I love the Verdi cannon, but I don’t
want it pointed directly at me when I’m reading.
2. Spelling Voigt as Voight
It’s Voigt the operatic soprano and Voight the Midnight Cowboy. To confuse the two might lead to some unfortunate and indelicate encounters in the darkness of an opera house. Voigt in the auditorium; the young Voight in a men’s room stall.
(It used to be Cappuccilli’s name that was seldom spelled correctly.)
1. Why do people continue to write about an opera singer’s “vocal chords”?
We have extension cords, spinal cords, umbilical cords, and power cords for our laptops. We do not have vocal chords unless we are going for that Tibetan Throat Singer Effect, which, I swear, I heard Janis Joplin do live thrillingly in concert, but that is not the sort of example people want to read about on an opera blog. Believe me – we do not want to hear Villazon’s vocal chords when he goes for a high note.
Respect!
Thanks so much for giving me a good laugh. Much more fun than getting involved in a bunch of bitchy opera queens (or is that redundant?) discussing their idea of great singers.
I am older than dirt, saw Milanov many times, Corelli’s Met debut as well as Callas’, etc.etc.
Many others whom most of these readers never heard of, so my favorites are completely different.
I remember going to great Milanov or Tebaldi Performances and have some oldettes say “Oh but you should have heard Ponselle.” And so it goes.
Can we also add “Flemming”. Good Lord, that drives me crazy.
But *Flemming* is an actual spelling that exists for the name. If that’s the biggest problem driving you crazy, you’re a fortunate person.