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.
ivy – who ever knows what the “intention” of an opera management is?
Of course the “intention” was to sell tickets, but there are always so many
other agendas (music ‘politics’ – the worst!), I can’t keep count, and there
is no way to know which way the wind is blowing! From Edward Johnson’s
refusal to continue to hire Ponselle (the Adriana issue), to Santa Fe’s mad
affair with R. Strauss, when the music director did not have a clue how to
conduct his scores, to the Met’s continued love affair with the very peculiar
Brit-Commonwealth casting department, and certain other key posts, well
I can’t make much sense of it. I do know for sure, their hands are always
ready to go into your pocket and they can be exceedingly crass about it.
We’ll skip the details for now. But, God spare us from the eelymosanary
temperament of the so-called “charity” opera houses. They are anything
but!
Kate Aldrich replaced Beth Clayton in Carmen at NYCO several years ago when I bought a ticket believing Clayton could be very interesting in the role. Aldrich turned out to be a first rate Carmen.
Aldrich is now replacing Angela in my Carmen this spring–she’s become my default Carmen, and I am fortunate she is.
re: #21: That about sums it up.
Angela Gheorghiu does not have the “goods” to sing Carmen, and she was a bad choice to begin with. Long time ago, I predicted her late withdrawal. In her mind, there is no bad publicity, as long as she is talked about. I’ll never pay a penny to see AG’s Carmen. Vivica Geneaux looks the part and sings better.
I can’t avoid thinking that this had much to do with Gelb wanting to make a big splash when he first took over the Met. Among his earliest announcements were Gheourghiu in The Ghosts of Versailles and the new production of Carmen. Both sounded unrealistic and so they were.
Gheorghiu “added” Carmen to her “repertoire” because Callas did via a recording. Off the wall? I don’t think so.
Gheorghiu has been on a (unsuccessful) mission to be the next Callas. Anything Callas recorded, Gheorghiu has listened to. Anything Gheorghiu has recorded that she has listened to Callas do, she Makes Like Callas. Pay attention to the way Vampira mimics La Divina’s individual vowel colorations and tonal veilings. I’ve included the youtube clip as evidence.
Worse, though, is the fake facial poses -- trying to effect being “artistically immersed” in her music.
Her press interviews are the stuff of legend: “hopeless twit” about covers it.
Her way of singing is to cover the tone the way one would do for a microphone.
Carmen? How did that even get past the stifle-the-snickers discussion stage onto an actual planned event.
She’s been a fraud for so long even she doesn’t know who or what she is anymore.
She doesn’t even know it. The first “Casta” is off into the first even slight movement, and late,which causes a slight trainwreck in the well accompanied orchestral part, and the extended repeated, I believe A accented is in the wrong place. The dress is lovely and she looks well; the sound is too small to be anything other than a boutique version of Norma, however, the voice for his small nature, is still a ravishing, communicative tone.
She cannot “sing” everything out, it is whispered in a lovely hushed tone, until a mezzo forte is called for and then it sharps. Pity she doesn’t let the legend come to her and accept that she is no Callas.
Never will be. It stifles who she is, which is seen in the horrendous mishaps and indelicate remarks during interviews. The fascination with her perhaps is the delusion she manifests so throughly.
“The fascination with her perhaps is the delusion she manifests so throughly.”
Excellent insight!
I am so glad that I am not the only one to have noticed the extreme and blatant artistic imitations!
It is one thing to learn from the greats and another to just mime them.
She has been ripping off Callas for years and if you know the Callas recordings you cannot escape the realization.
There are some arias which she lifts from various others as well, including Muzio and Scotto.
Inteview-wise, to me it seems that she is trying to rehabilitate her image in Romania. She seems to be spending more time there and even opening a school there or somehow associated with it – probably planning for retirement and teaching – and cluttering the Bucharest airwaves with long, “heartfelt” interviews that are available on You Tube.
They are available on you tube and translations are available on angelagheorghiu.blogspot.com. Some of the content has some interest but mostly it is a well-rehearsed repetitions.
It is fun to see her show up in cocktail attire for mid-morning interviews and also to watch her in action to transition herself into Gheorghiu The Legend, also full of Callas-adaptations.
Well, Ms. Gherkins is not the only one who shows up in the morning for interviews in cocktail attire: Kathy Griffin said the same of Ann Coultergeist, who looked like she wandered in from a “1980s Robert Palmer video.”
Of course, we could easily tell her….the words are ‘A piece of manufactured cheap dolled up plastic’
And to paraphrase that line from the musical of Victor / Victoria: ” And she (sic!)…sungs too!”
Divas should NEVER lick their lips! The presentation is not introverted enough.
In the Callas Paris-debut video, Maria seems to be in an interior monologue.
All that notwithstanding, I rather liked Angela.
“She’s been a fraud for so long even she doesn’t know who or what she is anymore.”
That’s one thing, but the Met management (and, to some degree, Covent Garden) don’t either.
Monty – Covent Garden sort of invented Gheorghiu so they have a stake in her supposed superstardom and she DOES sell tickets. Occasionally she delivers. I saw her Amelia Grimaldi in both Covent Garden and the Met, and I can see why New Yorkers are less than impressed – she sounds like a lyric Mozart singer – Countess, Elvira and Fiordiligi would be ideal roles for her there, possibly Elettra and Vitellia, too but she is too lazy and vain to learn them. I think she is on record as despising Mozart which tells you a lot, too about the lady’s “artistic” persona. Her London Amelia was one of the best things I have heard her do – reminded me of the wonderful de los Angeles on the Gobbi recording – delicate, vulnerable and very musical. This is what is so frustrating about her: she is evidently gifted, if not overendowed in the grey cells department, but she has squandered her talents,
Her earliest Youtube videos from Bucharest and her early live performances show immense potential.
She is a case where the stardom hurt the artist I think.
I’ve always thought she’d be a good Elvira, but I saw her breakthrough Violetta in 1994 and thought she was a self-regarding, fussy singer even then.
She was supposed to sing Elvira to Nebs’s Anna in the last revival of the Zambello Don G at Covent Garden – she was replaced by Joyce DiDonato and I can’t remember who sang the Anna intended for Nebs, who didn’t want to repeat a role she had already sung twice there.
It was Poplavskaya, and she was Not Good.
but she is too lazy and vain to learn them. I think she is on record as despising Mozart which tells you a lot, too about the lady’s “artistic” persona.
Regina, you must remind La Cieca to tell you some time what she thinks of mind-reading and the “I think I heard it somewhere” gambit.
Maria Callas’s career in America was derailed in part by lazy repetition of hearsay, e.g., the “Champagne and Coca-Cola” misquote. If we’re going to tear singers to shreds (and we are) let’s at least bother to use sharp knives.
Angela could sing Lauretta *tomorrow* –it’s a question of color and tessitura.
#23 hit the nail right on the head with this sentence:
“Worse, though, is the fake facial poses — trying to effect being “artistically immersed” in her music.”
And I thought I was completely alone with the self same thought. It’s a relief to know I have some company.
(Having said that, I love listening to her. She’s got a gorgeous sound with a vulnerable “catch” in her throat that is very appealing. I just hate watching her fake her way through “acting” like she’s sincere.)
Does anyone remember ‘Lucia’—the social queen of an English
town (Rye), much portrayed by E. F. Benson in his Mapp & Lucia
series of four or five novels? The more I think about it the more
Lucia and Angela are the SAME persona; it’s remarkable.
Luciaphiles will know what I mean!
Au Reservoir
MrM/sfe
though Benson’s actual opera singer, dear Olga, is perfectly delightful
Very true, Parpignol, in fact she was just about the only sane one
in the stories — and we know how unlikely that is for a singer!
But, on the other hand, she was American, no? Born in Maine
I believe. Mr Georgie once accompanied her on a concert tour
of America! My, Fred Benson was a rascal, yes? His mother slept
every night with a woman named Ben, while her husband, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, slept down the hall. Ah, them
wuz the days!
I hope that AG will return in suitable roles. As I said the other day, her Un bel sogno di Doretta in the HD Rondine was beautiful. The Casta D above is very thin. Certainly NOT in the Sutherland rank. Why do artists always want to do exactly that which is beyond them? Reminds me of the “Peter Principle.”
Munsel, whom I also mentioned the other day, was yet another who did very well in what she was doing but wanted to do that which was beyond her.
But an artist ISN’T an artist unless he or she occasionally pushes the envelope, takes risks and does something both unexpected and a bit dangerous. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t but if there is no impulse from within to explore new territory, any kind of artist will sink eventually into dull routine.
To Post 15, it is not as tho she was being asked to prepare Carmen for two performances only.
First, she already recorded the role.
Second, she was already booked somewhere for a Carmen with Maazel that ended up being cancelled very close to the event (not due to her, if I recall correctly)
Third, she is the one who cancelled the first six. She used personal reasons but frankly I never believed that story anyway that it was her reason.
Presumably she had enough in the tank on the role to do the performances, if honoring her commitments were higher on her agenda than self-service.
She should have cancelled the whole run when she cancelled the first six.
I prefer this animation, possibly inspired by AG, while I can revel in the fabulous pronunciation of the audio:
AG is ridiculous but I think she’s doing the audience a favor here. Hearing an experienced mezzo who knows the part–I’ve never heard Aldrich but she seems ideal–is vastly preferable to watching but not being able to hear a superstar who spends the whole evening in front of the prompter’s box.
I still would love to hear her sing something appropriate for her in a house smaller than the Met.