Infectious diseuse
La Cieca hears that Olga Borodina still has whatever it was she had on Wednesday, and so will have to cancel tonight’s Met performance of Carmen as well.
While we wait for Mme. Borodina’ recovery, let’s enjoy Madeline Kahn in an obscure Cole Porter ditty.
Miss Olga regrets she’s unable to sing today, madam.
will olga go on tonight, i wonder?????????
Ha, I love the headline. My mum used to do a little cabaret singing as a student. When my parents got engaged, dad was greeted by one of his friends with the words ‘Ah, Don, I hear you’ve contracted an incurable diseuse’
Shame the wonderful Ms Kahn blots her copybook when she shifts into French at the end of that song with her “Trouve-moi une (sic) homme primitif”
Is At Long Last Love as bad as its reputation?
No, but it’s still pretty dreadful. Kahn and Eileen Brennen do what they can, but much of the picture is just dull as hell.
Alas, yes. And I went to it eagerly in its first release, being a fan of Kahn, Brennan, Cole Porter, and the work up to that point of Bogdanovich. Seeing it cured me of all that (OK, I still like Porter, but it made me realize that he wrote a lot of songs that work just a handful of niches [list, torch, etc.], and if you’re raiding his work for a whole score, you have to be careful not to choose too many of the same type — as these folks didn’t.)
Actually, Kahn is pretty bad, after being a satiric delight in her previous movie roles; she plays it straight and dull here. They made a big PR deal of having the stars sing “live on set” for that extra spontaneity, which always means they couldn’t be trusted to sip-sync (watch John Hillerman jump beats all over the place). Actually, despite Burt Reynolds supposedly being legendarily awful in this, he acquits himself better than some of his costars. But we’re talking very fine distinctions.
One marginally interesting thing about it is that there are (or used to be) 2 or 3 different cuts in circulation — the one that showed up on cable and the one that sometimes played on commercial stations were had different songs and scenes from each other and from the theater version. In case you want additional bad renditions of Cole Porter songs.
Equally bad is De-Lovely with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd. Horrible, unperiod performances of some of the best songs ever written. Who thought Sheryl Crow singing Begin The Beguine (the best Astaire dance number on film, with Eleanor Powell, from Broadway Melody of 1940. Great movie. George Murphy… but I digress) was a good idea?
Absolutely. I foolishly went hoping it would right the wrongs of the Cole Porter biopic with Cary Grant… and it was WORSE. The producers saying “Oh but we didn’t intend to be historically accurate” is no excuse. Bad biography, bad sexual politics, bad writing, bad concept, mostly bad acting (partial exemption for the doing-what-he-could Kline and the brief onstage bits by John Barrowman and Caroline O’Connor). Of the “special guest moaners” only Natalie Cole escaped with some honor.
Jeepers you mention Eleanor Powell!!! Having started my interest in music as a kid with muicals before coming to Opera, I was alarmed as the years went on of fucked up film productions of musicals. I can even say I saw the last Ginger and Fred musical……….on it first theatre release in 1949! .I even have a collection score somewhere, of all the ‘Unpublished Songs of Cole Porter’. Here I have to disagree completely.
De-Lovely is not like being foreign additions to dedicated scores like ‘Stinkara’s effect’ in Can -Can Then too many so called ‘musicals’ around the 60’s had perhps just a show’s title song and ‘thematic music’ drawn from the stage show. Examples: Irma La Douce…Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum…Fanny….the list is too numerous. What travesties, they all turned out to be ans sent film musicals into the dark ages for another decade or two, than what may have transpired, otherwise.
The Begin The Beguine sequence is the best thing in De-Lovely which was by the very nature of its creation ‘a film score not from a bastardised cut and dicing of an original Broadway score’ – but collecting together a celebration of Porter Songs. I was shocked that a ‘pop’ singer like this Sheryl Crow could wipe any prior prejudice I had (and I did -a heck of a lot!) completely away. In its minor key setting, I will say it is staggeringly the best performance I have seen or heard of it …anywhere.
And anyway ‘what so un-period’ about the Kiss Me Kate sequences. Those younger singers are incredibly better than those of the original film with Howard Keel (bawling away not knowing how to lift his voice) and
Kathryn Grayson (turning sour at every given opportunity).
Orlando Furioso ” Bad biography, bad sexual politics, bad writing, bad concept, mostly bad acting….” (in regard to the film De-Lovely).
If you have hung around Show Business (yes, even Opera will do!) even to this very day…..
what ‘bad sexual politics’ …is the film portraying? Perhaps a Gay Lib spiel, instead??!!! De-Lovely does in fact show nasty aspects of what happens ‘when people try to cover their real identity tracks’ for a public image ‘with too much to lose’ in their own eyes. The sleazy compromises /the manipulations /the deals/ or the self advantageous treachery is still operating in the Arts…. The casting couch is not only alive and well but booming (without its previous moral restrictions). Ambition can make them ’stalking blow-flies’ at the best of times! Performing artists are just getting more refined and have changed focus a little from the past. Where HAVE you been, not to notice ?
A tip, be aware of a situation: then if you already know the antics and moves of the players on any such human set- up chess board scenario … watch them play their ’set-to-gain’ moves. It is perversely more interesting at times to watch and note the results : than their perfomances on any stage. Knowing all the ins’ & outs’ how they arrived up there for the performances. What’s the ‘bad politics’ about it? They will play the indentical games over and over again, according to their personal make-up and vanities.
Well, it looks like I won’t be rushing to get in under my skin …
Oh dear. La Borodina is going to have to keep this cold going all the way to Feb 9th.
Olga should stay away from Brandon until her diseuse is cured. Maybe we’ll hear Vizen (is that her name?) Monday. And then, on Feb.9, Olga, Brandon and Teddy!!!
She sure is having a long period! One of those heavy flow months.
just wondering, does anyone know who the cover for gheorghiu’s future carmens is? i keep hearing gossip that she’ll never show up for them. maybe they can get someone of, let’s say, waltraud meier’s caliber?
what kind of a name is salemkour, does anyone know? we know altinoglu must be a turkish name.
I think Salemkour is Egyptian and Altinoglu Armenian.
Salemkour is an Algerian name.
“just wondering, does anyone know who the cover for gheorghiu’s future carmens is?”
It’s a question of color and tessitura…
oooh… racist!
poor Olga, at 47 she is still beautiful
Does anyone really think that Gheourghiou has learned Carmen for just a couple of performances at the Met?
http://www.amazon.com/Bizet-Gheorghiu-Capitole-Toulouse-Plasson/dp/B000083GOD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1264954633&sr=8-1
I know she recorded the opera and even got good reviews, but making a recording is not the same as singing the whole thing within three hours at the Met.
is there any news on the Attila front?
Yes, good question! This Attila is the best kept secret since the Manhattan Project. Curious minds want to know!
does anyone know who the tenor is here?
Sounds like the EMI studio recording, which would make it Nicola Monti.
If you watch clear to the end, it says who it is in the credits rather clearly… Nicola Monti, Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala, Antonino Votti, 1957.
thanks, when i listen to youtube, i usually don’t watch the video. grazie.
i see the met is bringing back rodelinda. what do you people think the chances are that they’ll do it with podles instead of a CT???? i think that’d been fantastic. oh well… one can dream, can’t one?
As one of Madame Podles’ most devoted fans, I think I can say that her best days in florid music are pretty well past. I don’t know Rodelinda at all (is it the source of “con rauco marmorio”? I would give my left something to hear Podles sing that) but I assume it has plenty of noodling around. Podles can still do it but it can be effortful at times.
Bertarido will almost certainly, as you suggest, be sung by a countertenor. But there’s no reason why Podles shouldn’t sing Eduige (prediction: it’ll be Stephanie Blythe).
I hope you guys get a chance to see and hear Antonacci as Rodelinda- she’s electric in it.
armer, i saw it before with fleming, blythe, daniels and van rensburg. how i wish it was podles as the hero. i can’t stand CTs. sorry… that’s just my opinion. no mezzo/contralto looks convincingly like a warrior hero on stage but at least they sound good/healthy.
Andreas Scholl is singing it, if I’m not mistaken.
Scholl was very very good in this role the last time around. . .
SOPORIFIC, concerning used discs. Write shnurdley.emma.email.com
Sorry, should be gmail not email
Bejun Mehta was amazing in Tamerlano. I wish he would sing the title role instead of Scholl. Mehta had a small role (I forget the character’s name) in the premiere season of Rodelinda. He was excellent then but I think he really further developed since then.
the night i saw it, mehta was ill and they had a mezzo (hanslowe) instead.
and btw, why does the met think only fleming in the whole world is capable of singing armida? they are going to do it again in a few years with her and her only. i hope she cancels one or two perf. this spring so her cover can go on (meade?).
I would love to hear Joyce DiDonato give Armida a shot, based on the excerpts on her newest CD. Some transposition might be necessary, but who cares, it happened in the 19th century all the time (you could call it a newly-discovered Malibran version).
Agreed!I think Joyce Didonato would be fabulous in Armida and I was hoping that she would be listed for it on “Met futures”
I suppose she has her hands full with “La donna del Lago” which sadly doesn’t seem to be on the agenda for any US opera houses next year (with her).
The “donna del lago” Joyce is doing in Paris and elsewhere was initially a co-production with the Met, Scala, etc., but they decided to go with Maria Stuarda instead for her at the Met.
Do not count Joyce out for “Armida.” Nothing is set in stone for that revival…
I think I heard that Houston is now co-producing La donna del Lago with the Opéra, La Scala and Covent Garden, and I’m pretty sure it’s for La DiDone
( I hope I inserted this in the right place)
Thanks, Cassandra for the info on the “Donna del Lago” production Joyce is doing ( with Florez, I think?) Sorry the Met decided to drop it, but can’t have everything.
speaking of which, what’s happening to van rensburg? i thought he was quite good in rodelinda (not to mention good looking) but i don’t think he’s been back to the met since.
Van Rensburg is one of the six tenors in Armida.
van Rensburg shared the “Idomeneo” performances with Heppner a couple of years ago.
Mehta does have a rather “rounder” CT sound. I saw both Daniels and Scholl in the run the last time around. I am a huge Daniels fan, but the night I saw him perform it sounded like his body mike had fallen off. It was the only performance that I have ever seen him in that I didn’t like. Ahhh…the dream of Podles singing…well we can dream. Word on the street is that she is TRES difficult and was literally beating time for Leon Botstein a couple of seasons back. Any truth to the rumor? Difficult or not – the Met needs to give her something more substantial than Cieca. No offense to our hostess. Any word as to whether or not she will grace us with her Erda in the new Ring cycle?
Hey look, somebody’s got to beat time for Leon Botstein…
Why should Mr. Friend hire this Slav, whom nothing in the Met’s repertory suits, when he could bring the superb Hillary Summers or Catherine Wyn-Rogers to the Met as Erda?
i have met podles twice after performances. she’s reserved, cold and retiring, to the point i’d say she’s almost phobic of strangers, it seems. i still love her performances, but she’s not the super friendly type (to fans).
Do remember that she is an Eastern European woman of an age to have been bv brought up wary of strangers; and is also in some enduring pain after her car accident in Arizona a few years ago.
Don’t expect all singers to be bubbly fanzine types.
P. S. I have met her several times and she has always been very gracious. Perhaps such stories sometime say more about the manners of the person approaching than the person approached?
oh i totally see that. i don’t expect everybody to be a bubbly american cheerleader type (larmore was more like that). as i said, i still adore her singing, but i have seen her basically flee people that were simply asking her for an autograph. since she is an international diva that travels extensively, one would expect a less phobic reaction, a bit more graciousness. the first time i met her, she was reserved but kind enough to chat and sign autographs. the 2nd time, the first fan in line was an old lady, who grabbed her and wouldn’t let go or stop talking. after that, podles just wanted to get the hell out of there, so the rest of us coming after this old lady, were all left hanging.
and perhaps she just like crusty grumpy old men like yourself, kruno?
With all respect, Krunoslav, brought up wary of stranger? In Poland? Are you kidding? She may well be a reserved person, but it doesn’t have anything to do with being brought up in communist Poland; it’s simply her character.
The auto accident was in New Mexico, on her way from Santa Fe
to the airport in Albuquerque. All others in her car were uninjured;
they were wearing seatbelts. Ewa was not wearing hers, despite
advice to do so. Her fracture was serious, and after a few days
in hospital at Abq. she returned to Poland for treatment. In her
Santa Fe recital she showed her usual stentorian contralto
sound, her by-the-tricks coloratura (same school as Bartoli -
clickety-clickety), and a very short top. She was stolid in her
platform appearance, and unfashionable. The voice is a Force
of Nature, the rest of it is as Kruno says, provincial Eastern
Europen out of the Cold War era. I am, however, glad to have
heard her in person, tho’ I don’t need any more.
I have to object again, I’m afraid. People were not brought up wary of strangers in Poland during Cold War; of authorities (of any kind), yes, and this attitude is still very strong here – a general distrust towards any form of government. Podles is simply not the “bubbly fanzine type”, because not every performer is, irrespective of their origin. She behaves exactly the same in Poland, and even during the interviews she doesn’t seem to be happy to answer questions. She appears to be a person enjoying singing, but not the whole bussiness of being a famous singer. So please, give up the stereotype of some “Eastern European out of Cold War character”; there is no such thing, exactly as there is no “Western European out of Cold War” character.
Jadwiga Rappé is the same age as Podles, and she was very different on stage: slightly mournful, and very romantic. I have a hunch she was not exactly a party animal either. Lovely singer, though.
That is a good question. Who’s the understudy for Fleming’s Armida? BTW, I saw part of the sets they were making for Armida and they were all kinds of brightly colored birds on there. It looked like Disney on steroids.
Angela Meade, if I am not wrong. And I do ardently, fervently hope she gets to sing at least one performance.
It’s Angela Meade from what I’ve read. I saw her on ‘The Audition’ and I like her alot. An interesting piece of trivia is that Renee was cast as Armida on short notice, and rushed with Pesaro Italy with newborn baby in hand when Anna Caterina Antonacci canceled. It was her first real international success. Armida is not a high role so Renee should still be able to sing it really well if she paces herself.
look, few singers these days can match the tonal beauty of renee’s voice. if she behaves, i think she can be a great armida. but i just can’t stand the mannerisms, all that cooing and scooping, all that pretty pretty (sarc.) singing. too saccharine, and i’m diabetic.
i’m not marshie, but i think maybe studer couldda sung armida in the past, too bad she never did. does brewer have the agility for rossini? i mean, she sings donna anna, doesn’t she?
Better Disney on steriods than set in some undefined fascist country between wars ( WWI and WWII, that is) Maybe Home Depot ran out of bricks?
btw, years ago, someone named brenda harris was singing armida and norma. whatever happened to her? does anyone know whom i’m talking about ?
She and Louis Otey did the Lord and Lady of Scotland, broadcast from Utah Opera last October. As I recall, not half bad, and preferable to other higher profile performances.
Brenda Harris is singing the title role in Roberto Devereux at this moment at Minnesota Opera. She garnered excellent reviews for her portrayal.
thanks, but i’m sure you don’t mean the title role…
there are some clips of her on youtube doing deverreux, tosca, lady…
You’re right…NOT the title role..but the role of Elisabeth.
Brenda Harris took over for Hasmik Papian at the last moment a couple years ago singing Norma in Portland OR… I had gone clear out there just to hear Hasmik and was most annoyed that I wouldn’t get to… but I could not have possibly been more satisfied with her replacement. Brenda was excellent, very impressive, and should certainly be better known.
Plus, need we be reminded, Renée Fleming is not just one of opera’s most celebrated sopranos, but perhaps its most convincing actress.
I hate it when I can’t tell if someone is being sarcastic or serious.
Me too!
I hope we get Malibran’s ( Rossini’s) Armida, whoever sings it
I think Rolex meant this laugh line seriously!
Ah, it’s a Rolex line! That makes sense. I have to say, even when I’m happy with Fleming’s singing, I usually can’t stand to watch her — too phony. The only exeption for me so far is her acting in the final scene of Onegin which was wonderful. I wish she could be like that in everything she did.
On one of the sites that I frequent, it is required that sarcastic remarks be printed in purple….my favorite color.
Honey, that wasn’t ACTING in Onegin. That’s what happens when Dima pushes himself up against you and begs for it.
Good point. LOL
But seriously, Fleming displayed a poise and good judgement in that scene that I have not seen in any other acting I’ve seen her do.
OLGA’S BACK and sounding great tonight, Feb. 1st — whatever bug she had is gone — She just finished the Card song and when she sings “La Mort” it ought to scare the bejabbers outta Jose — she has a wonderful sound. Hope she continues this way as I do love her singing.
Camille, I agree that Olga sounds good! Jennifer Black also sounds good here as Micaela.
May I put in a note of praise for Brandon Jovanovich? At least from what I could hear on Sirius, he was going for, and sometimes achieving, effects other tenors can only dream about. For once, the “Parle-moi de ma mere” sounded like two young people in a conversation. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Act One, as character and drama, was about as good as I’ve ever heard.
His Don José was exceptional at Glyndebourne, as was his Prince in Rusalka there. Either next year or the year after he’s doing his first Stolzing in Die Meistersinger von Lewes, East Sussex.
Yes..I was in the house and I agree. It’s only in the final two acts that Jovanovich can’t pull up the power to compete with Borodina. His voice won’t allow that kind of thrust to make his Jose truly frightening.
Two considerations color my comment: 1) i’m judging strictly by what I hear on Sirius, and 2) I very much want to have Jovanovich succeed — “Montana boy, y’know.” Yes, he was underpowered in Acts 3 and 4 – McCracken he ain’t, thank God – but even Borodina seemed to sense at “Tu ne m’aimex donc plus” that an underpowered tenor with a knife still ain’t nobody to fuck with.
And won’t Dancin’ Danielle be fabulous as she Funky Chickens her way through “O Sachs, mein Freund” and tosses batons during the Quintet?
I thought Borodina and Black were excellent. On the radio, I preferred Borodina’s Carmen to Garanca’s—btw, tomorrow I will see the “encore” HD of Carmen. Black sounds more like a Micaela than her mother, Frittoli!
Jovanovich was very good–not the most beautiful voice, but he sang very well.
so? Borodina or Garanca? Alagna or Jovanovich? Black or Frittoli? ALtinoglu or Nezet Seguin? Which one did you prefer?
Not since…
Carmen………………Brenda Lewis
Don Jose…………….Giulio Gari
Micaela……………..Laura Castellano
Escamillo……………Frank Guarrera
Conductor……………Kurt Adler