Math is hard
Here’s our dear Karita Mattila (left), currently occupied playing Émilie du Châtelet in the eponymous new opera by Kaija Saariaho.
Here’s our dear Karita Mattila (left), currently occupied playing Émilie du Châtelet in the eponymous new opera by Kaija Saariaho.
SEMIRAMIDE !!
The Met revival with Horne and Ramey (Dec 1990) was brilliant. It was also almost-uncut. I can’t imagine why Sirius hasn’t allowed us to hear that one. I also saw it in San Francisco with Caballe and Horne. Phenomenal vocalism.
A Houston Donna del Lago with von Stade and Horne remains a high point in bel canto.
I’ve also seen Tell (5 times), Ermione (twice!), and Otello (twice).
I love the serious Rossini, except I sometimes get preoccupied trying to figure out which other two or three operas he has used that same tune in.
Ooops. I also saw L’Assedio di Corinto with Sills and Verrett and Maometto II with Anderson and Horne. Love that serious Rossini.
To go back to the thread, which is probably what our hostess would like for us to do, I watched the clip.
I gather Emilie is 8 months pregnant. Was she a famous person whose story we are supposed to know? I guess if they gave out Oscars for opera performances this one would get nominated because it looks to be so “Ortrud Plus Amneris.”
OK, so I went to wikipedia and read the entry about her. interesting person.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet
What a life the real Émilie du Châtelet lead: maths genius, lost the equivalent of $1 million at the gambling tables in a single night and dead at 42 after giving birth to a child.
Thanks for posting the clip, La Cieca, I can’t wait to hear the whole thing when it hits the usual pirate/bootleg sources. Mattila would be perfect for Clemence in her Saariaho’s glorious L’amour de Loin too.
Any Youtube footage of Francoise Pollet as the Theatre du Chatelet?
La Grande Pollet was in two memorable productions at the Chatelet-Ariane et Barbe-bleue and Reigen where she played the Prima Donna as a kind of demented Margaret Dumont,beautifully staged by Luc Bondy.She had great comic timing not evident ,obviously,in her Met debut as Cassandra.I doupt very much that it was filmed.What a shame this great soprano’s career ended so suddenly.
I am ignorant about ‘the end of Pollet’s career’. Can you Troppo Primavera fill me in?
I have her recordings of Les Huguenots, Poulence Voix and that faboulous one of lesser known French Arias. I saw her in the 90’s in a concert version of Berlioz’s ‘Faust’. Lovely singer.
I’m not a big fan of Rossini, but I do rather enjoy L’Assedio di Corinto and Tancredi. I bought the Sutherland/Horne Semiramide, expecting to be blown away. No such luck (though the singing is wonderful).
I do admire Rossini’s genius for comedic music yet I can’t make it to the end of Barbieri without getting restless…
Some of you might like ot watch Riccardo Muti’s CHicago Symphony Press Conference, now streaming at http://www.riccardomuti.com/OnDemandChicago.aspx
I thought streaming was for fairies.
No chat for The Nose?
La C must be in da house and has forgotten us!!!
La Mattila looks like Katie Logan come to the end of reading the next days script of B & B.
All opera queens need to take a minute silence today- being the anniversary of the opening of La Traviata – before it moved to Broadway.
After days of looking @ the Karita/Jayne duo it has finally occurred to me what’s wrong with the comparison: Mattila looks like a younger Phyllis Diller. That is to say, she doesn’t look sexy, but funny. She should stop with the Cougartown crap.
bravo for the NOSE!!
WHY WHY WHY will this production go without an HD broadcast@! The visuals sound riveting and would be wonderful to see it
Interesting video. I’d like to hear the rest and hopes that it’ll be broadcast or a recording made of it. I don’t know Saariaho operas at all, although I have heard a few of her orchestral pieces (which I’ve mostly liked).
A couple of other things come to mind right off the bat: 1. it seems popular to set the stage now in dim light. Why? (In this case, it might part of the scene, but I’ve seen it done in a couple of other productions recently and it just made it difficult to see the action).
2. Why do contemporary composers like to end lines with notes higher than the rest of the line? I don’t mean louder, of course, I mean higher in pitch. It seems less like speech and makes it harder for this listener to follow, especially since it goes against expectation.
I saw the performance, and agree totally with you
on point 2.
The monodrama will be on radio France Musique
on March 29 at 8 pm CET.
By the way, Mattila seemed weirdly unenthusiastic
in the bows, especially with the metteur en scène (François Girard)
re: point 2. I only listened to a short extract, but maybe in this case Saariaho was looking to play to Mattila’s vocal strengths. There seemed to be a lot of floating go on in upper-middle register. It reminded me of Barber’s writing for Leontyne as Cleopatra, though there, no doubt, the floats sit higher in the voice. Just a thought — as I say, I haven’t listened in detail.
One more thing, and I’m afraid it’s going to come out bitchy, but: did La Mattila age 10 years since the fall Tosca run? To me, she now looks her age, but there does seem to be a difference between now and just 7 months ago.
Mattila looked old in Manon L. Puccini is not easy on divas who take on verismo for the first time past their mid forties or close to fifties.
Agreed! I saw the video of Mattila’s Manon Lescaut. Shocked, I thought this is not some young college girl character waylaid onto the wrong paths of life, looking frayed. This is a aged life hardened Mae West running her last desperate lap. I love Manon L and it took a while to get that contradictory image out of my head.