An option that should be dropped
Dimitra Theodossiou “takes” a high E-flat at the end of Odabella’s cabaletta.
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It could be worse … I mean Renaaaay’s Denver E in the Bolera is the worst of the worst demented filth out there!
Cieca, you’ve wrongfully raised my expectations!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSddRZ5kvY&feature=related
This one makes the 2008 performance almost sound like
singing.
this one is an example of “can’t belto”
OOPS let’s try again:
What’s with the grey wig being removed at the end? Is that some Regie from Herr Loy and Edita expressing displeasure?
Gruberova has done the wig trick before.
the very definition of “mad scene.” CRAZY!
i love that the red-headed onlooker works as hard as he can to not mug during the final screech.
Were the ornamentation done by Berio as almost everything in the vocal line is practically in the wrong key?
I believe a majority of the opera productions I’ve seen in Germany have featured wig-pulling. Gruberova does it with flair, but she’s hardly alone.
Shades of Mara Zampieri in that white tone there.
OMG
I Love Mara Zampieri!
Magda Olivero was born March 25, 1910.
She will soon be age-100!
Sounds like no wig in Seattle will sleep well tonight.
Is that taken from the alternative version of Attila in which the title role is en travesti?
I’ll take the half naked supers.
I see the Dimitra clip and I agree there, but I think this is tricky. It depends on the right timing and the quality of the note. I don’t want to sound like a fanatic, but had Maria sang that in her early years, maybe motivated in l’Arena di Verona, she would have come in at the right time, in the right tone and sing an Odabella for the ages. So I think it is not that the note is not needed there, but rather, if the note is going to be voiced, the singer should make sure it will be effective.
Scooping up to the pitch and screaming to release surely kills any good effect.
richard,
What can I say, I think Edita is fabulous!
Of course, my favorite Lucrezia pirated is Sutherland and Kraus. Unfortunately, they no longer sing for us.
I don’t know about the business about the wig, that is sort of what directors these days are doing. Don’t blame Edita. She makes the best of it.
That Sutherland/Kraus Lucretzia: Is’nt that the production where it was put on with on-going company budget cuts, so the designers used materials from other productions. As a bit of a protest, using garish combinations of fabrics and colors.
Harry, I don’t mind she is not wearing Prada.
I liked this a lot. Is this the only video of a complete opera with Sutherland prior to 1980?
There are a lot of wonderful excerpts from the early 60s on but most of her videos from complete operas are about 1982 or later, and I find the law of diminishing returns kicking in at that point. But this clip from Lucrezia still sounds like really fine Joan.
Has anyone seen the “who’s afraid of opera” programs with Sutherland? I never have and I’m curious. They may be sort of silly though.
The action certainly moves right along.
Richard, I have a distant memory of seeing a couple of those “Who’s Afraid of Opera?” programs–Faust and Rigoletto, maybe. I found them pretty hard to sit through–not the singing, but Sutherland in dialogue with the puppets. I think she’s best seen from the distance of the stage, where she’s not required to act “natural.” I’ll confess, though, to enjoying her very late video of Fille du Regiment.
Sutherland’s later fille du regiment really puts Damrau to shame.
Just listen to the opening cadenzas they sing. I swear, if someone else says that Damrau is suited for bel canto, I’ll slap myself.
i think damrau is suited for bel canto. but she needs a conductor to straighjacket her.
look at what muti did to her for Europa Riconosciuta. that was amazing.
ouf! the Damrau clip was pretty ugly. I think her Queen of the Night is spot on, but I agree with your assessment of her bel canto-ness.
But Damrau’s tone is so much better than dear good old Joanie’s, if I dare say so.
her tone is better? is it better the way she gasps for air between phrases and grunts at the end of her cadenza? no legato. phrases are all chopped up. coloratura is fake. she’s actually copying dessay’s bad cadenzas and dessay is over the hill. sad.
OK, there’s no denying that Joan Sutherland could nail an E flat straight on the head in her prime, but this ain’t it — she runs out of gas at the end and starts shrieking as well, but at least has the sense to cut it off at that point. Which is more than can be said for the other specimens on here.
Carissimo Javier, do you know what tone means? Do you know that tone is not the same as technique?
javier,
Thanks for the clip, simply fabulous. I also love Bette Davis. Those directors tamper with the wigs. I don’t mind, as long as the ladies do their acting and their singing , and they certainly do!
Hogwash !! it is beyond their
technical abilities – off pitch is
off pitch- pitch doesn’t have certain off
pitch qualities ,you either hit the note or you don’t and they didn’t -as long as the idiots applaud they will sing?approximatre pitch notes. They sound as if they are at a Florence Foster Jenkins Song Festival . I can
just see a pianist striking an A instead of a B and playing the diva act of grand emotion waiting for the
idiots to brava !! the mistake – in
the world of music it would be a long wait , not so in opera it seems .
Mazel tov, Manou.
Grazie BAB.
la cieca, where is my credit? i turned you on this clip.