parterre box

328 comments

• poisonivy says:

  I think the following phrases can be tossed around to feign sophistication and knowledge:
  1.”As a singer myself …” Where do you sing? The shower? The local community church?
  2. “Atrocious French diction.” Somehow, “atrocious Russian” doesn’t seem as popular …
  3. “Lacks musicianship.” Unless one is prepared to back this one up with knowledge of the score, it’s usually just said to sound more snobby.
  4. “She might be good but she pales compared to …” (an unknown singer)
  5. “I will reserve judgment until I have heard the performance but I am sure …” In other words, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
  6. “Decline of standards.” If you heard Rosa Ponselle’s Leonora you might be onto something but all too often this is followed by “When I heard Hildegard Behrens (shriek her way through) Brunnhilde …”

  Sorry, starting 2010 in a bitchy mood I guess.

  on January 1, 2010 at 10:52 PM
  • marshiemarkII says:

    Yep poisonivy (perfect name) very bitchy indeeed, especially No 6 when refering to one of the mos gorgeous-voiced Brunnhildes of history, but that’s what makes this site so treasurable.

    on January 1, 2010 at 11:52 PM
    • poisonivy says:

      Well I could replace it with another sacred cow around here and the point would be the same. Like “When I heard Gwyneth Jones (shriek her way) through Brunnhilde …” Better?

      on January 2, 2010 at 12:39 AM
      • marshiemarkII says:

        Be careful now poisonivy, or you might run afoul of our gracious doyenne and *I* would not want to do that.

        Tell you what, why don’t we rid No6 of glorious Brunny, and to buttress even better your brilliant point No 4, how about changing the line to “When I heard Danica Mastilovic (shriek and WOBBLE her way) through Elektra….” Better? then we kill two birds with one stone. Otherwise your list is fabulous!

        on January 2, 2010 at 12:49 AM
      • Doberdawg says:

        “poisonivy” is a very appropriate name! Dame Gwyneth did not shriek her way through anything, she had a huge voice that could cut through or soar over an orchestra at full throttle. Pick another soprano to slam, please!

        on January 2, 2010 at 6:03 AM
      • marshiemarkII says:

        doberdawg, be nice to poisonivy, she is very reasonable and open to suggestions , besides, her point No 4 is so perfect, don’t you remember all those tiresome lists of divas who are “so much better” than the ones we know and love? don’t you remember Curtis-Verna, Kniplova, Kuchta, Brooks, Ross, and all those others whom no one can come near in terms of greatness, trouble is you had to go to Iowa City Opera or Brindisi Teatro Communale to hear them?. Please don’t get me wrong, I totally support your pasionate defense of your diva, as I do with mine, and some recent posts of yours have turned me into a HUGE admirer of yours! We need to hear more from you!

        on January 2, 2010 at 2:02 PM
  • mrsjohnclaggart says:

    A pup below disputes that Gwynnie screamed — what a laugh. But chewing the animal waste of the Marschbeast will melt any brains someone started with, save in the case of ‘the dawg’, it had snot for brains to start.

    The bullying hysteria of these twain leaves one laughing. Dawg managed the dumbest and most philistine post I’ve seen here — about ‘waltzes’ — managing to display a simultaneous lack of reading comprehension, stunning musical ignorance (of course from licking marschcreature’s stale micturation) and a pointless viciousness.

    How did Gwinnie devolve into a scientific demonstration of wielding the shreds and shards of a great instrument, save by SCREAMING, incessantly and unnecessarily over relatively a short time (what sounded wonderful in 1964 had become shrieks, sobs, squeals of badly tuned despair in less than ten years). Just try her attempt to launch the trio in the C. Klieber Rosenkav video, or her horrendous Oktavian for Bernstein or her astoundingly ghastly Salome for Herr Doktor Bohm. The last two are RECORDINGS where either retakes (Bernstein), or alternative takes from rehearsals and sessions after the fact (Bohm) not to mention electronic manipulation were possible.

    However compared to dawg’s master, the worshipper of the Burntendz nonentity, Gwinnie had the soul, purpose and intelligence of an artist. Unlike Helltoregard, she could actually pull it together for a longer or shorter run and sometimes for only one performance (as ONE thrilling Met Elektra out of 4, ONE or perhaps TWO thrilling Fidelos out of 8, a shockingly good complete Ring in 93, so stunning after the constant screaming, belching, expressionismus, hyperventilation, quasi-Tibettan tuning of Helltoregard Burntensz).

    I don’t think Poison Ivy needs the condescension of a grotesque corpse fucker or his dirty ass licking ‘dawg’ to arrive at sensible assertions.

    on January 2, 2010 at 3:56 PM
    • mrsjohnclaggart says:

      test

      on January 2, 2010 at 5:43 PM
• poisonivy says:

  “Then we have the Flower song, which most tenors just screw up royally.”

  What the hell does this mean? I suppose such different tenors as Enrico Caruso, Georges Thill, Nicolai Lauri-Volpi, Richard Tauber, Nicolai Gedda, Franco Corelli, Placido Domingo, Roberto Alagna, and Jonas Kaufmann, all of whom recorded and sang beautiful versions of this aria, “royally screwed up”?

  on January 1, 2010 at 11:08 PM
  • mrmyster says:

    Charles Kullman sang an excellent Flower Song at the Met half
    a century ago; thirty years ago Richard Tucker was supreme
    in the aria, and a decade ago Vinson Cole sang a ravishing
    Flower Song for Seattle Opera…including a dimuendo on the
    B-flat that melted the audience. There are many many tenors
    who show well in the Air of the Flower because, dare I say it,
    the song is just not that hard if you are a pro opera tenor.
    Alagna will sing it much better in later performances; don’t
    forget he was still a bit infirm opening night – and sounded it.

    on January 2, 2010 at 1:27 AM
    • Baritenor says:

      dare I say it, the song is just not that hard if you are a pro opera tenor.

      Allow me and every one of my tenor friends to stare at you incredulously, shake our heads slowly, and walk away. It’s really difficult. Not punishingly difficult, not insanely difficult, but it ain’t no walk in the park.

      on January 2, 2010 at 2:40 AM
      • Baritenor says:

        whoops. Issues with html tags. lemmie try that again:

        dare I say it, the song is just not that hard if you are a pro opera tenor.

        Allow me and every one of my tenor friends to stare at you incredulously, shake our heads slowly, and walk away. It’s really difficult. Not punishingly difficult, not insanely difficult, but it ain’t no walk in the park.

        on January 2, 2010 at 2:40 AM
      • Baritenor says:

        nope. Never mind.

        on January 2, 2010 at 2:41 AM
  • Lindoro Almaviva says:

    Sweetheart, that is a short list though. You just took the creme de la creme and expect us to believe that every tenor sings it like that? have you taken a listent what is available on youtube?

    on January 2, 2010 at 1:28 AM
    • mrmyster says:

      Well, Mr. Baritenor, your comment is noted.
      You know there is an old studio saying: If you think it’s difficult, then it will be. I once complimented Dawn Upshaw on her “Depuis le jour,” which I heard her sing in studio when she was about 24 or so; “oh yes,” she said, “that was before I learned from my teacher how difficult the aria is!” Point made?

      on January 2, 2010 at 12:27 PM
      • Sanford says:

        I’d also like to say that difficulty in any given piece can be for a variety of reasons. “As a singer myself”, I find Valentine’s aria more difficult in the lower key than the higher key because of where my passagio lies. I love Domingo singing it (but then I love Domingo singing just about anything), but I also love:
        

        And especially, who reduces me to tears:
        

        on January 2, 2010 at 4:00 PM
• Constantine A. Papas says:

  46.2,

  I don’t know what my comments have to do with Netrebko. You can bash her to your heart’s desire and I’m not her apoligist. On the other hand, a new deluxe copy of her Salzburg La Traviata is listed on amazon.com for over $1000 and 2 used ones for over $900; and I don’t know why. As for Siepi, you’re right, but I meant the opera he was in and not the character. I know Faust is a tenor, and Gedda was in the production I saw Siepi’s Mephisto; and Tucci was Marguerite. Those were the days of opera you see every other generation.

  on January 1, 2010 at 11:10 PM
  • marshiemarkII says:

    Well estimable Dr Papas, don’t know why you should be so quick to surrender your right to defend your gorgeous-voiced Netrebko, to someone who just used Sills, yes no kidding Sills!, as an example of “competence in any language”, Sills! whose Italian and French are enough to be called crimes against humanity, and even whose Brooklynese-accented English could not be fit for anything except a truck-drivers rest stop. But oh!, I forgot, she was also an “artist” to put to shame crude boors such as Franco Corelli!!!!!!

    on January 2, 2010 at 12:02 AM
    • The Vicar of John Wakefield says:

      The Sills woman may not have had as fine a voice as Jennifer Eddy or Marilyn Hill Smith ( she came a cropper at the Garden) but Italian critics in OPERA went out of their way to praise her Italian in Milan and Venice performances.

      on January 2, 2010 at 1:24 PM
      • Baritenor says:

        ….did he just say something positive about an American artist? Am I hallucinating?

        on January 3, 2010 at 5:13 PM
• Sanford says:

  But let me tell you, there is some gorgeous singing in the set, and some unusual rep. Massenet’s Ariane? It’s there. Adelina Patti, Nellie Melba, but also some less well know singers.

  on January 1, 2010 at 11:24 PM
• poisonivy says:

  Here’s a good old vintage Carmen video:

  
  

  on January 1, 2010 at 11:55 PM
  • Regina delle fate says:

    Who is the lady? Is it Risë Stevens?

    on January 3, 2010 at 5:49 AM
    • Krunoslav says:

      That is Rosalind Elias.

      on January 3, 2010 at 8:08 AM
      • marshiemarkII says:

        Oh but you forgot to add, ‘also an “artist” ‘, one of the great Carmens of history, to trump great glamorous contemporary Carmens like Elena Obraztsova, you know, one of those “artists” that only the Met could offer to unsuspecting audiences in the 1970s. Elias was one of the foulest singers the Met had the audacity to hoist upon people at the time, and she was in EVERYTHING, one viler than the next performance. There is lots of recorded evidence of her “contributions to greatness” from this great “artist”!

        on January 3, 2010 at 12:22 PM
      • armerjacquino says:

        I adore Rosalind Elias. Don’t quite know what the poster below is on about.

        on January 3, 2010 at 5:27 PM
      • armerjacquino says:

        Or, you know, above. Still slightly confused by the new posting order *blush*

        on January 3, 2010 at 5:29 PM
• jatm2063 says:

  Maruisz’s hotness (vocally and otherwise) has receded about as fast as his hairline has. It doesn’t turn me on one bit these days. For what he is paid he should be able to afford some very well done hair transplants. I can’t recall who, but it was a regular commmenter (not myself) sometime back who called him a “flamey bitch”, and when taken to task for that remark said, “…he is a flamey bitch, and I would say that to his face.” I wish I could remember who that was……

  So, those of you who where there (our doyenne included), does his flamey bitchness show on stage?

  on January 2, 2010 at 12:03 AM
  • Cassandra says:

    It was me, but I think it’s funny. It’s how he is in life. He butches it up hardcore for interviews, on the stage and the like, but in the real world, gurl is on fire. Everything you see publicly is an act. I like the guy though. He’s a good musician, a potentially excellent singer in the right repertoire, and an okay colleague when he’s not feeling like he needs to assert his dominance. I don’t find him hot on stage, he mostly just amuses me. His personality is pretty by the numbers for a lyric baritone in the industry, and he doesn’t hold much mystery. I think his Escamillo is hilarious, not threatening or sexy. He does find that in other roles that are more suitable when the occasion calls for it.

    on January 3, 2010 at 2:16 AM
• mrmyster says:

  I wish I knew what “flamey bitch” meant! Maybe that’s what
  Ian Bostridge was at the underwear counter in the Madison
  Avenue Barney’s a few years ago; they are still talking about
  that along the Avenue Poor Ian, anything for attention. You
  would hardly think underwear would be an issue with him.
  The Met should have had Monsieur Laurent Naouri sing
  Escamillo — he is older than M. K., tall and very manly, and
  has a low baritone well suited to the task; I hardly need add
  that the Paris native has stage perfect French diction. Oh,
  and he fills out that quite fabulous Madrid-made Toreador
  costume admirably. Glyndebourne originally had the costume
  made for their Carmen (the one with von Otter), and Naouri
  did later perfs., liked the bull ring costume so much he had
  one made for himself; it travels well. Gorgeous red and gold.
  I like his work; he’s a better artist, it seems to me, than his
  European reputation would suggest. He is probably over-
  shadowed by his wife in the U.S. But that could change.

  on January 2, 2010 at 1:20 AM
  • Regina delle fate says:

    It’s always a pleasure to hear Naouri in French opera even if his voice is not an absolutely A-list instrument. He’s certainly more convincing – vocally – in the role than Messrs D’Arcangelo and Schrott. Mr Kwicien has yet to sing Huskymillo on our side of the pond. How was Eyre’s production by the way? Haven’t any of you seen it yet?

    on January 3, 2010 at 5:46 AM
• javier says:

  Someone mentioned Anna-Caterina Antonacci earlier…said she should have been cast to sing Carmen instead of Garanca. Ironically, she sang the Habanera today! and someone put it on youtube:

  I don’t think people on youtube like her because the rating is already at 3 stars.

  on January 2, 2010 at 2:09 AM
  • CruzSF says:

    javier, this was put up earlier at comment 38.2.2.1, followed by a discussion of Antonacci, if you’re interested …

    on January 2, 2010 at 2:12 AM
    • javier says:

      I probably would have picked up on that if I had even read half of what’s written here…but I always just skim. I should probably stop doing that so much.

      on January 2, 2010 at 11:36 AM
• rysanekfreak says:

  A station in New Jersey is offering us this opera this afternoon:

  Gioacomo Rossini: La Rondine (4 hrs.)

  Of course, I would rather hear Vivaldi’s Carmen.

  on January 2, 2010 at 9:19 AM
• androgenous says:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLFdkdHxgdU

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lX9GSlnt_w&feature=related

  His French is more like “Napolitano” but singing and Diminuendo both in live performances is pretty impressive.

  on January 2, 2010 at 12:16 PM