Ripped from the Regie
Oh, phooey! Barely 12 minutes separated La Cieca’s posting of the most recent Regie quiz and the correct guess by bassoprofundo. By the way, your doyenne’s current crush Stefan Herheim directed this production for Den Norske Opera. And now for a puzzler La Cieca hopes will be a bit more challenging!
The problem with this one is it could be almost anything:
1. The baritone sings his romanza.
2. The tenor and the soprano sing their duet.
3. The mezzo seethes.
So why not say Aida?
In fact the last section looks like the grooviest Judgement Scene ever
Rosenkavalier?
An OT question for the Old-Timers. I never saw it written down anywhere, but I seem to remember that there was supposedly a curse on LA FORZA DEL DESTINO. It had something to do with the St. Petersburg premiere, I think. Then, after Leonard Warren died, I never heard it mentioned again. Am I imagining things?
From Wikipedia :
“Forza” is an opera that many old school Italian singers felt was “cursed” and brought bad luck. [7]. The very superstitious Luciano Pavarotti avoided the part of Alvaro for this reason.
On 1960-03-04 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi and tenor Richard Tucker, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo’s Act 3 aria, which begins “Morir, tremenda cosa” (“to die, a momentous thing”). While Rudolf Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor [8], others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out “Help me, help me!” before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. His final words were “Help me, help me!”, then he pitched face-forward down to the floor. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only 48.
The “Curse” prompted singers and others to do strange things to fend off possible bad luck. The great Italian tenor Franco Corelli was rumored to have held on to his crotch during some of his performances of the opera as “protection.” [9] A well-known Italian director from the 1950s-1980s who also provided sets and costumes to opera companies nationwide insisted that while he had the scenery and costumes for the opera, he would not touch them himself. “Oh, tu che in seno,” the tenor’s main aria from the opera, was being sung during a concert in Bergen County, NJ, a number of years ago. As the tenor finished the aria, the lights went out in the theater. The power failure was reportedly blamed on a problem in the cemetery across the street.
[edit]
Gee, I guess that’s why I never saw it written down; I never looked! Thanks, Manou. Nice Italics, by the way.
I can even do this
Who’s a clever girls then?
(singular)
I am also very singular