Now it is my turn to chat
Could there be any more “parterre” a way to spend a Saturday afternoon than listening to a broadcast from half a century ago of what must surely rank among the queerest operas ever written? Don’t bother to answer that, it’s a rhetorical question, and while we’re on the subject, you do not know how to read! You have never known what love is!
Oh, pardon me, cher public, but you know how La Cieca gets. Anyway, let’s meet to discuss the Met broadcast of Vanessa, starting at 1:00 this afternoon.
The usual suspects no doubt will tend to gather at La Casa della Cieca.
Steber loved to sing!
Listen to her Carnegie Hall recital re-released on CD.
Her voice beyond her prime on the VANESSA broadcast is still greater than many generic voices in their prime today. The Victor recording is somewhat better sung and a more restrained performance.
Just go to You Tube and you will find the most amazing examples of her singing. The earliest are selections from a series originally called WORLD’S GREATEST OPERAS where young singers from the MET sang highlights to operas. (The singers were not identified.) Steber sand Violetta to Warren’s Germont years before they would sing these roles at the MET.
Many of her Firestone videos are remarkable. Everyting from LUCIA, ERNANI, FLEDERMAUS and more.
There is also a very late Mozart’s Alleluja in which she still out sings many of the younger sopranos.
Last but not least, I was invited by a friend to attend a Christmas Party at Steber’s apartment in the Ansonia. This was many, many years past the original date of the VANESSA broadcast) She sat down at the piano and sang O HOLLY NIGHT ending with a glorious high B flat. She then said that it was too low. She proceeded to sing it again raising up to a stupendous high B. Not to be outdone. she than sang it a third time ending with a fabulous brilliant high C.
She was quite a lady and one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century.
Thank you Pesco. I am thinking of saying goodbye here. I find the system of finding comments confusing and too many good comments (not only mine of course) get lost.
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There is this thing in life: luck. Some really bad people have it — Behrens for example. Some people don’t. Steber always had tough competition in the eyes of management and though she had a great voice and was a spectacular musician, finally the stars didn’t turn in her direction …
Under even slightly different circumstances Steber would have found a rewarding berth into the early 70′s. She had to struggle instead for what she got.
That does not change her greatness. It is very well documented over a long period. And for sheer amazing brilliance those Firestone videos (including the one where she ends with one of the most spectacular displays of abandon in singing — the Neapolitan Street Song from Naughty Marietta with TWO count ‘em two stunning high C’s the first pulled right out of the air) have almost no rivals.
And what an idiot that fool is about Vanessa. No one has ever claimed it was a great opera but when people ooze over Andrea Chenier and Adrianna and La gioconda and Faust and Tosca and Turandot and Thais and someone will ride to the defense of Korngold and D’Albert — give me a break!
As to its not becoming a repertory staple as some fool reports above to justify its weaknesses — what does that prove? The operas of Henze and Tippett are also hard to encounter and have proved elusive both on record and in performance but at least some are wonderful — I nominate Die Bassariden and The Young Lord by the first, and The Midsummer Marriage and The Knot Garden by the second. I’d rather encounter them and Vanessa and yes a well cast original version Anthony and Cleopatra than Simon Boccanegra performed by a low tenor trying to become a zarzuela baritone, a spent wobbly bass bass and a conductor more notable for his jewfro than his grasp of the style (and cheered the echo.
Please don’t leave again, Mrs. JC. We need your wonderful, information-filled posts. Maybe our doyenne will find a way to revise the website so one can search by the names of posters so we’ll be sure not to miss you and other favorites. Perhaps something like the ability to sort by names on Opera-L within a particular week of posts.
Though I don’t always agree with you, Mrs.JC (as if I always agreed with anyone here!), I do agree about the limits of the new system. For that system to work best, one would need either to be a more faithful reader than I am (and therefore always aware of every new sub-thread, and so aware of where to go to check out new additions) or a more patient one (willing to read through all entries of a thread to locate entries as yet unread). Under the old system, a dropper-in like me could quickly scroll down to the as-yet-unread entries. My $.02.
Good Missus Claggart!
If you go away I shall have a final coughing fit and meet an early demise! Don’t You DARE!!!
With all the carping about Steber above I would like to say she beats the panties off almost everyone of our latter day etoiles. Her recording of excerpts from Die Frau ohne Schatten (with Bohm) is to die for. I’m sorry all she is remembered for is the Continental Baths stunt as she was ONE FABULOUS SOPRANO.
Perhaps, CIECACARA, you could take the excellent suggestion and implement a system like the Opera-L’s??? I do think that enough persons have expressed their displeasure that some solution to this problem should be found — perhaps Mr. JJ could help out?
“A zarzuela baritone” is what Sr. Domingo Senior actually was, ‘fore losing his voice. That type of high-lying baritone is typical of that genre and nationality. Sr. Domingo, Jr seems to have taken the tenor challenge and in large part, succeeded.
Much as I have esteemed and loved him in past years, I wish he would find somehow the courage to stop singing and run his opera companies and learn to conduct more effectively. Are these not worthy and time-consuming enough activities for a man his age, whatever it truly may be? A picture of him, posted in a San Francisco paper last week, costumed as Cyrano and captioned “eagerly anticipated” just was funny and triste at the same time.
With all the wealth of audio archives from old MET broadcasts, why do they insist on watering those things down and making statements like ‘when Milton Cross hosted the broadcast he reported that there was not a seat to be had in the house’ – If you’re playing a tribute to a composer through an historical broadcast then do it with all the trimmings. As nice as Mary Jo Heath’s feature was with artists from the MET premiere of Vanessa – LET *THEM* TALK, FOR HEAVEN”S SAKE. “This is Mary Jo Heath with another MET Moment…” who gives a damn about hearing Mary Jo Heath – play the unedited material and take pride in having produced it for new generations of listeners.