I remember reading the orginally HvK had asked Freni to sing Turandot and Battle to sing Liu on the DG recording…

IIRC, van rensburg is quite tall and not bad looking. brownlee is quite cute. i can’t recall who the others are.

I’ve always considered it nothing more than a guideline to be given casting A WHOLE YEAR in advance – much less the five years that companies use to plan their productions.

A singer can be fine on Tuesday and unable to sing at all on Friday. Those who plan their operagoing far in advance really have to take the casting on faith – and with more than a dollop of salt. This is why impresssari search high and low for good, willing understudies – and even more, for prominent singers willing to share a role in a revival.

We complained about cast changes when I was a kid, and it meant getting Curtis-Verna or Amara instead of Tebaldi or Milanov.

As for opening night with WAGNER (shock and horror). The MET has opened with Wagner about three times in the last 30 years: TANNHAUSER (’78), LOHENGRIN (’84) and the last time DIE WALKURE was new – opening night in 1986. Into every opening night party maven’s life a little variety must come. And this time it’s called DAS RHEINGOLD. It’s even short (as Wagner goes).

Every singer is different: some can get off a Trans-Atlantic flight and sing a performance the same night, others suffer sever jet lag and need several days to recover, some singers have naturally resilient immune systems, others less adaptable to sudden changes in climate…the variables are endless. One would like to think that most highly demanded performers are aware of how their bodies respond to these variables and create their schedules accordingly.

I would deduce in this particular instance that Damrau would not have taken on such a formidable schedule had she not believed she could accomplish it, not to mention that both the Fille and the Barbiere are revivals for her; I think it would be quite a different matter were one or both role debuts.

Either way, one cannot hold the fact that illnesses and such against a singer, as they DO and WILL happen. It’s part of a singer’s responsibility to know how to handle those imperfect situations and to be technically and physically secure to perform through them…but it is also, I believe, the responsibility of the listener to be forgiving when these types of things happen.

Also excellent are the lesser Verdi operas she recorded, such as the I Masnadieri.

As far as I know, she made no recording of Masnadieri. Caballe did this one for the Philips series, and Sutherland for Decca.

I do like Ricciarelli in Stiffelio for Philips though, even though the seams are starting to show.

The second time was a specially-arranged Verdi Requiem after a stagehand was killed by stage machinery. She was just wonderful in that- and I remember her breaking down in tears at the end (in silence, we had been asked not to applaud) and being comforted and basically walked off stage by Baltsa.

Her years at the top coincided with my early enthusiasm for opera. The only time she really impressed me — and I must have seen her about a dozen times — was as Giulietta to the Romeo of Troyanos in about 1985. One of the things that always irritated me about her were the little drop-outs in her legato — a problem for Mattila too, as I noted once again in a recording of Freundliche Vision that was on the BBC Radio 3 this morning.

I agree that the whole “sang stuff too heavy for her meme” doesn’t really work for Ricciarelli. She sang most of the heavy stuff in recording studios. She was not singing Ballo, Aida or the Leonoras with any frequency during her prime. In fact, I recall an interview with her in ON where she criticized Montsy for singing the big Verdi heroines (“For me, Price has the Ballo or Aida voice, for me (and Montsy), no.”)

I think Ricciarelli simply had an incomplete technique – not a surprise for an Italian trained singer of that vintage – and she sang to many different things.

Singing is like sport – there is a lot of muscle memory involved and singers who ignore that fact in the interest of “art” or commerce do so at their own considerable risk.

Her first aria last night was so-so, though she improved almost immediately. I can’t report about Act II. The prospect of sitting through the extra tenor aria with Mr. Banks propelled me home.

On the main bill at the Academy of Music are :

Otello with Clifton Forbis, Arnold Rawls, Norah Ansellem and Mark Delavan, with the first two playing Ottello different evenings Oct 1 through 15, 2010.

Romeo and Juliet with Stephen Costello, Ailyn Perez Feb 11 thru 20, 2011

Tosca with Adina Nitescu, Thiago Arancam and Boris Statsenko April 29 thru May8, 2011

At the Perman with Curtis singers:

Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen March 16,18, 20, 2011

Hans Werner Henze’s Pheadra June 3,5 and 8, 2011.

Philly is only a short train ride from Manhattan and perhaps some of the local regulars at Parterre would like to see some of this stuff.