She’s no longer a gypsy, part deux
Angela Gheorghiu will not sing Carmen at the Met this season. Says the diva:
“To make so important a debut as Carmen, I want to be as prepared dramatically as I am musically. Therefore, I will postpone my role debut until a later date when I can work intensely with the Richard Eyre production.”
Kate Aldrich will sing the performances on April 28 and May 1. More big news after the jump!
UPDATE: Gheorghiu family news always seems to travel in pairs, doesn’t it? Well, here’s the other shoe dropping: La Cieca hears that Roberto Alagna will sing next season’s Met production of Don Carlo, replacing the previously cast Massimo Giordano.
Fuck her. This is the second time I have bought tickets to hear her and the second time she was withdrawn.
Only the second? Count yourself lucky. I’m already up to five or six.
Harold, tut! such language! BUT count yourself very
lucky. Aldrich will be good and has a real mezzo voice
suited to Carmen — also she’s younger and sexier than
Madame Gheorghiu. At this stage in her career, A. G.
has to chose very carefully, and she is wise to step out
of this Carmen. In fact, I wonder if she can still sing
Traviata, Act I?
Right on!
Is anyone really surprised?? She better be careful, though, I’m sure Gelb is getting a bit fed up with her act.
I think Kate Aldrich will be great. She’s wonderful…
Kate Aldrich sang a wonderful Adalgisa and stole the show from Daniela Dessi’s not-quite-lived-in role debut of Norma. DVD can be found here.
i’m so glad she cancelled. i want to go just to see jonas, but i don’t know this aldrich chick. is she another of the brits whose praises the vicar will be singing?????
on another topic, did anyone go to the gluck armide perf. this week in NY? i wish someone had reminded me of that, i totally forgot about it.
did anyone go to the di giacomo last night?
Kate Aldrich is a ravishing American mezzo – she was to have opened the La Scala season with Carmen but was replaced by the novice mezzo whose name I shall not attempt.
Oh all right – Anita Rachvelishvili.
Aldrich also sang at Pesaro last summer ( Zelmira) clips on Youtube suggest she was first rate.
Remind us: why was Aldrich replaced in La Scala’s Carmen? I don’t remember seeing the news or explanation.
Probably because Rachvelishvili totally looks the part, while Kate might have needed a wig. Or because she gave Barenboim a hard-on.
I really don’t know what happened at La Scala – well who the hell knows what goes on at La Scala – I seem to remember that Kate Aldrich’s name was mentioned because she had a great success replacing Domashenko somewhere, and then Barenboim decided to give Anita Rach3 the part. Mere conjecture on my part, really.
Ha! As I posted a while back, anyone with a vaguely English-sounding name who isn’t a superstar in the US is assumed to be “another of the brits whose praises the vicar will be singing”. On which note, how did Sarah Connolly do in Ariadne? Not as good as Mentzer, or Judith Forst – a Canadian I know – who sang it a long time ago at ENO, no doubt.
your majesty, i’m sorry i have offended your brit sensibilities. as you can tell, pierre is a french name. that should explain it all.
kate aldrick sounds marvelous here in these duets with alagna. i wonder if her voice is big enough for the met. i’m somewhat surprised at her having sung amneris at age 23. i like her a lot and she looks stunning too.
regarding alagna, is it me or his tone drags a bit? and it’s a bit acidic sometimes, no? i haven’t seen him live yet so these are my observations from recordings.
Thank you, Pierre. How nice! Keep in mind this was six years ago,
and weren’t we all better then!!??”" Well, you know what I mean, but
I think Kate and Roberto sound just fine. He has a quite ‘forward’ placement, certainly the voice is in the mask and his tone can now
and then turn a tad peaky-sharp. He to this day often sings sharp,
and I wish he would think more about what he is doing while
singing, because this need not be. He’s clearly not pushing the voice
here — so it’s just his ear and a bit of inattention (I suspect) that
peaks him up; he did lead Kate astray in that regard once or twice,
though she was very solid. She seems a full lyric mezzo and should
be able to sing Carmen in any house — through quality of tone she’ll be heard. NYC is lucky to get her Carmen rather than Mme Angela, methinks.
DUH! So what else is new?
so what was the reason Aldrich got pulled from that La Scala Carmen? Did she drop out herself? Was she maybe pregnant?
surprise, surprise!
Kate Aldrich is a beautiful artist and indeed ravishing as well. Problem is that for Carmen, the MET is simply too large for her best qualities to project to the max.
But no-one in the auditorium would have been able to hear Gheoghiu at all anywhere in the lower part of the voice.
…which just might be a problem in Carmen.
I am shocked, I tell you, SHOCKED!
It must not affect her very much financially to cancel. She won’t sing at the Met at all this season because she keeps quitting. She must not care. Just don’t ask her back again.
She’s that fatal combination, greedy and lazy – she DOESN’T care. Don’t you hear that in her singing?
Has Gheorghiu cancelled her Met Traviatas too?