It’s an honor just to be nominated
La Cieca is happy to announce that voting season has begun for the 2010 first annual parterre box awards for excellence and repugnance in operatic production and performance during the 2009-2010 season.
And now, here’s your chance to choose among this year’s nominees for the “Lorgnette d’Or.”
Please vote for one nominee in each category.
The polls will remain open until Wednesday, May 19 at noon. At that time La Cieca will tally the votes and announce the winners of the coveted “Lorgnette d’Or.” In the meantime, members of the cher public are encouraged to suggest worthy recipients of honorary “Lorgnettes d’Or” such categories as “Lifetime Achievement,” “Service Above and Beyond the Call of Fach,” and “Why the Hell Not.”
Until then, vote early and often!
I don’t understand there not being a nomination in the Worst Performance by a Divo category for the very badly sung Stifellio of Jose Cura.
That is because he had great competition from the 2 tenors who shared Calaf and the one who covered.
I might weigh in with a little squeak of support for Licitra. When I was dithering over whether to see Turandot, a friend of mine made the point that while Licitra is horrible in Verdi, Puccini suits him a lot better.
And it’s true. His Calaf wasn’t a performance for the ages, but it wasn’t filth either. And my god, compared to the tenors I’d seen on my previous visits to the Met- Fraccaro and Berti- well, actually, there’s no comparison.
That’s a fabulous list of 1920′s tenors, and I would add Melchior, Tauber and Schipa. And just think of the sopranos – Ponselle, Rethberg, Muzio, Leider, Arangi-Lombardi, Raisa and Jeritza. These are dire times indeed.
enzo – good point; but, you know, you could make a list
of 1930s tenors, then 1940s tenors, even 1950s, and you’d
be very surprised at the quality. I just skimmed through
rosters for those years in the Met annals — well, it makes
you want to cry when you see what riches they had compared
to now. The 1940s were compromised by the war to a
degree, but the 50s came back strong – and then along
came Corelli!
There are about us a lot of wonderful singers
but not at any particular opera house especially so the Met , and
many are happy where they are
and with what they sing , the opera is not just about sopranos
though if you read here one would
think so . Even the 60 ? yr. old Podles draws them in wherever
she sings and is an untouchable
great one of any operatic time.
And Podles sings ******horror******* Rossini!
Yes she does sing Rossini !!!!
and with all the notes !!!!!!
not like some second rate Met
stars who fake their way through
everything and trade on their
second rate so called glamour .
Podles was absolutely fabulous in the Boston Tancredi this fall. Why the Met didn’t mount this opera for her is totally beyond me. OK, there may have been short-term practical reasons – but she’s been around for a LONG time. Too late, now, probably.
It seems she is appearing at the ROH – Poland- Spain- etc. in
opera houses -there are still parts for this legend -but not at
the Met- if you look at the boxes with worst or best of “divas” you must conclude not
one can approach the art of
Podles-compared to Podles they are all second rate
hacks and they know it- and one
can suspect their aim is to keep her as far away as possible- the
second rate managers and
singers “never forgive talent”
It shows them up for what they are .
How could we leave out the category of “Production we are the most happy didn’t make it to the Met” ( and hopefully never will)? With all the “Guess what opera this is?” quizzes we have on this site, I would think there are a lot of candidates! The more reviews I read from Geneva, I know what I’d vote for!
You don’t think newyorkers are open to plot distortions? I would love to see it at the Met. With that cast and music, if they decide to stage “the shining” (or a similar horror story) to that music, it will only make more appealing to me.
Fortunately New Yorkers have a variety of places to satisfy their opera “thirst”. If you really want a horror story cum Rossini production I’m sure there’s a place that can accommodate you.
However, there are still artists who can make productions “relevant” without distorting the composer’s work,and it would be nice to see the Met support them.
No, I don’t want to see horror Rossini productions. What I wanted to say is that staging is somehow secondary, or maybe even tertiary. What matters in opera is music first, good voices and interprets second, and only then staging has a somewhat minor significance. And I don’t support distortions either, but I don’t dismiss them just on the basis that it is not identical to original text. Some of the so called “modern” productions can have potential, even if at first glance might look like complete aberration. So, let’s keep an open mind, we might be pleasantly surprised
I agree that the music/singing is the most important thing. And singers who can convey the dramatic intent of the music are essential.
The problem with directors who have a “concept” but no familiarity with an opera and its traditions is that they miss some of the important dramatic points of the music.
” La Donna del Lago” which I know rather well( I’ve not seen the Geneva production-just read many accounts ) has two beautiful characters who epitomize courage, nobility, and sacrifice – Elena, and the Prince. Once one starts tampering with the story in a substantive way ( Elena “finding” herself, the Prince not having to give her up) that aspect is destroyed. The issue here is not retaining the trappings of Scott’s time, place, etc. but presenting and honoring the values that Rossini conveyed in this music, which Verdi was to continue in his music.
Werner Herzog had no problem putting theatrical life into “La Donna del Lago” without distorting Rossini, so maybe we just need to wait for a contemporary director who can do the same.
DProduct: How do you get good music if good singing (voices) and interpretations are second priorities? Do you mean you that, for you, good opera is first just the music minus the singing, and then the singing is a bonus?
BBC launches a summer of opera.
I apologize if this has already been commented on, but congratulations to La Cieca for being recognised by the BBC for her services to opera.
“Parterre Box is a web-based magazine devoted to opera, with strongly opinionated attitudes including the gay experience of opera.”
Opera Chic must be is spitting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/opera/links/
Take it easy on OC. After all she has blessed us with the great good news that as part of the BBC’s summer of opera there is a program on what makes a “great” tenor led by, you guessed it, Rolando Villazon. Those Brits really know their stuff, right Vicar? I wonder how the admirable John Steane feels about this or if the culture mavens at BBC even know who he is.
Tim
Maybe Villazon is transitioning his career into that of lecturer and not as singer?
Sort of the blind leading the blind. Would love to hear his analysis on the technique of say Bjorling or Bergonzi. Parenthetically Rolando’s site has him down for an Alfredo in Zurich I believe in about ten days from now. I’m anxious to see if, as I hope, he has overcome his Handel related woes.
Tim
Alfredo?! I’m having a hard time imagining that, but hopefully a Parterrian from Zurich will post news in 11 days. I’m open to persuasion.
To be precise, most entries in the “Einspringer” category were not Einspringen; Peterson, Brownlee, and Lindstrom were scheduled to sing their respective roles, I believe. One would have to include Blankc-Biggs, Gavrilova, Dwayne Croft, Leah Partridge, Barry Banks, and Lori Phillips in this list for an actual horse race.
my mistake – Peterson was engaged with several weeks of lead time, and a coach sent to Vienna…
Speaking of filth, I just saw a commercial on NY1 for the greatest opera singer since…Sarah Brightman!
http://iamangelica.com/home.htm
A minority opinion here, but I thought Giordani finally found the right opera for his voice with Turandot. I have not liked him in anything else. To my uneducated ears, his voice sounds wobbly, for want of a better word, in most roles he sings. Perhaps the sheer noise level of Turandot worked to his advantage. And I enjoyed Guleghina shrieking at him, too. Loved her in Macbeth, as well. She may be a barbarous singer, but some roles call for that.
The list of options in both best and worst new productions is particularly galling. In the “best” category, other than the two the two currently leading in the polling, one could make a case for expanding the “worst” bracket. I’m not a huge fan of either piece and thought their respective treatments a little precious but at least their overseers seemed to appreciate what they were working with. Will any of the others be around in a couple? Will their impresario?
one two
Tackiest entrance of the year: Armide (RF), her face coyly hidden a fan, being wheeled about the stage, until she lowered the fan and deigned to show her adoring fans her face.
Should have read “her face coyly hidden by a fan (she was holding), wheeled about the stage, etc….
Of course, this is the type of fan one uses when one is overheated, not fans of the prima donna’s singing…
Give me Rysanek, George London and Karl Bohm in a concert Dutchman at Carnegie Hall -I know, a dream that is no longer possible- and a ‘clever’ production, no matter how expensive and lavish and ‘creative’ could never come up to the ankles of an evening as such.
Those regie productions become interesting for some people when there is nothing else to admire, so people concentrate on the distracting nonsense on stage totally divorced of the work at hand.
No silly stage nonsense would make a soprano that can’t sing it, a good interpreter of Armida. That is an unreachable goal.
Perhaps a lorgnette of failed goals should be given to Gelb. Thumbs down on the puppets in Butterfly. Thumbs down on the ghost and photographer at lucia. Thumbs down on the umbrellas with eyes with mascara in Hoffmann. Thumbs down on Odabella’s Marge Simpson hair. Will we get the voices next season to make us forget all this horror. I hope the Met recovers from what only reminds me of Marlon Brando in ‘Apocalypse Now’, “the horror, the horror”.
Thank you La Valkyrietta! You have said exactly what I have been thinking, though in a million years, I could never articulate it as well as you did.