I was star-struck
Opera Orchestra of New York will jump-start its new incarnation in 2010-11 with a double bill of La Navarraise (Roberto Alagna, Elina Garanca) and Cavalleria rusticana (Alagna again, with Maria Guleghina and Mignon Dunn[!!!]), conducted by Music Director Designate Alberto Veronesi at Carnegie Hall on October 25. Eve Queler returns to the podium for L’Africaine on March 2 at Avery Fisher Hall, with Marcello Giordani and lavishly-bevowelled Italian soprano Chiara Taigi.
This season sounds interesting–but I wonder what OONY has done to prevent itself from going broke again.
Alas, no Millo as Santuzza. And Mignon, aged 79!
Mignon Dunn is singing Alfio?
Likely Mamma Lucia. Not a bad role for a mezzo her age. Fedora Barbieri did it in the Zefirelli movie and Barstow just did it in Spain.
Really? Do ya think? I thought surely it had to be Alfio or the chorus…..
Well except for Gulag-ina I am looking forward to next season. Glad to see that they didn’t fold and it’s about time that Queler is giving up the baton to someone else. Honestly, after getting over my initial excitement of seeing rarely performed works I found her conducting sloppy at best.
Pet peeve time: the OONY frontpage on their website has no info or even a link to info about the new season. I had to go to the press releases section to find. Opera companies and orchestras do this all the time and it’s puzzling, why should one have to dig for that info?
After splitting from La Draculetta, it seems that Alagna’s career has taken off again, and he’s all over the place. And the fiasco at La Scala has not affected future engagements by other “big” houses. Good for him.
Two things. OONY isn’t really considered that major though it’s important part of the New York opera scene. And I wasn’t aware that Alagna’s career had stalled.
What’s the betting that La Navarraise becomes a DG recording? Veronesi has been successful at selling his concert pfs of rare operas to DG over the last few years and both Alagna and Garanca are DG contract artists. Unless, of course, they have recorded it cheap somewhere in Eastern Europe and are going to use the OONY performance to publicize and sell it.
Guleghina as Santuzza, that is one for the books. I bet she will be terrific.
You know you are right! After all, Santuzza is a role that lies well on the voices of sopranos who can no longer sing worth a fuck.
sopranos who can no longer sing worth a fuck.
And in that you are not being fair. Guleghina might not be bale to sing her chosen rep well, but she is far from being a soprano who can not sing worth a fuck. There are many more sopranos out there who i think are worthless.
I think Guleghina needs to asses where her voice is and chose the rep accordingly. I think she could do a good Santuzza, probably and great Amneris, maybe a whole bunch of lower laying Russian roles, I think even a decent Ortrud and Kundry.
She just insists on doing Norma, Abbigaile and the like, and those are not the best choices.
Girl, I saw that Turandot in HD. She can’t sing worth a fuck anymore. And I think she probably knows it. And doesn’t care. And I did agree with you that she would probably be a good Santuzza. It’s not too high and/or florid and/or heavy for her, like pretty much everything else she tries to sing. She is a spinto, plain and simple (rather blown out these days). She is not a dramatic soprano d’agilita like Dimitrova was, nor is she a Turandot (although I suppose she was bound to try regardless). Turandot is just too high and loud for her. But Santuzza, let’s see, nothing higher than B-flat I believe? No coloratura writing. It’s nice and short, and one need not be overwhelmingly loud to sing it either. She should be able to manage. In fact, she might drink Alagna’s blood before it is all said and done.
And that’s where we disagree. As bad as her Turandon’t was, she actually showed great care in the music making; singing with pretty decent phrasing and trying to use the music in ways that would humanize the character. Most other Turandots just sing like they are blowing a vuvuela.
She has blown the high register of her voice, yes, but there is a lot of lower-laying parts that she could explore.
To say that her singing is worth fuck after the singing we have witnessed from Lisa Gasteen?
but Santuzza is certainly not a new role for Guleghina; she’s been singing it in New York for quite a long while, yes? and as recently as three or four years ago still sounded quite good in it, and it suited her dramatic style as well. . .
Parpignol: I was not aware that she had done it before. Interesting. I wonder if there is a recording out there somewhere that I could find.
L.A. 6112. Sorry, there were no more reply options higher up.
I have not seen Lisa Gasteen live. I have seen two videos, which I found decent to good. Not great. Not awful. Maybe they were her best recordings/videos. I don’t know. But because I never heard it live, I try to eschew comment. There are too many variables in hearing a recording.
I HAVE seen Guleghina live. Back in the day. When she could sing (still inconsistent and a bit wild, but she could sing). I know where it was then, and I have a good idea of where it is now.
Santuzza should be good for her these days. I believe our dear doyenne calls them the “singing actress” years of a diva’s career. She can follow up with Carmen. Then Ortrud and Kostelnicka. Then Countess Geschwitz. Then retire.
correct, parpignol. She did it at the MET in the early/mid 90s, and then she did it a few years ago again, with (I think) Licitra in both Cav and Pag tenor roles).
And Jatm2063, I can understand some roles being “too high” for her in her current form, but I can’t imaging anything being “too loud” . The voice was and is enormous.
Santuzza doesn’t lie high and is often taken by mezzos who scream their way through, but I’d rather hear a more spinto soprano sound. She’s a young woman after all and she should come across as vulnerable and sympathetic, not as a complaining bitch. Ah yes, and she has a high C at the very end, although a scream at that point is common and perhaps not unreasonable.
i was able to catch only the first half of last night’s repeat of the turandot. guleghina was not as bad as i thought people said she was. she was ok but i had a better time at the house with lise lindstrom. giordani on the other hand sounded strangulated, like he was dying, what a mess. in fairness, i didn’t watch it to the end so i didn’t catch his nessun dorma.
uwsinnyc: Screaming ones head off and forcing to the point of dreadful flatness, uniform ugliness of tone and embarassing cracking DOES NOT equal an enormous voice.
The funny thing is that many people remark that Guleghina was trying to make more restrained and gentle choices for her Turandot. More human. More womanly. However, the character is intrinsically a hateful bitch (otherwise all of her suitors wouldn’t have been beheaded just for trying), and so a more human, vulnerable, womanly Turandot goes against what is there. If it ain’t very securely loud and bitchy, it ain’t Turandot.
When Guleghina sang in a more restrained fashion, for instance in the beginning section of In questa reggia, it sounded like she was carefully parceling out insufficient resources, vocally fluttery and insecure (although she didn’t crack, which is a surprise). I suppose that this is a very smart thing to do in her case.
Give me Marton or Jones any day. Even in the bad days near the end when it was ugly and wobbly. At least they really had what it took.
In my mind, any house that attracts and hires international singers is a “big” house. Alagna has been paired with big name sopranos more often lately, not having demands to sing with his ex wife.
“lavishly bevowelled”!. Not so lavishly as “aiuole” which has all the vowels, but what a turn of phrase. Brava!
Where is Dennis O’Neill????
He is appearing on the side of milk cartons ….
I have never heard L’Africaine. Justly or unjustly neglected?
It has some nice moments. Shirley Verrett made it something of a specialty for a few years. There was a telecast from San Francisco with Verrett in (very) late prime, Domingo sounding great, Justino Diaz still powerful, and Ruth Ann Swenson relatively fresh from Merola in the ingenue role. I recall it was a quite lavish production, the last scene was beautiful. All of the scenes were lovely in fact. The only really well known aria is “O Paradis” for the tenor. The baritone has some fun arias (Merrill used to sing them in concert), and there was a lovely aria for the ingenue (Swenson). It’s funny, I can’t remember a single thing about the music for Suleika? the role that Verrett sang. I just remember liking her very much.
There is also a recording running around with jessye Norman, I think.
REALLY!!!!!! WHERE????? I would LOVE to hear it.
Well, you can start with this:
you can also get it on Amazon here
Just make sure you go through La Cieca so you can support the site while you shop. Cieca carissima, can you provide a link that could be used to make the purchase through the site so you get that purchase support?
Lindoro, thanks so much for the Jessye clip. I knew she sang the role early in her career but didnt’ there was a recording. Your amazon link doesn’t work, however.
All the better, we should only shop through the site to help La Cieca pay her bills (all that plastic surgery must have cost her a pretty penny.)
Cieca, can you please help us with that?
Here… this is great fun-
Verrett, Bumbry, AND Norman each taking their turn as Selika in the fine ‘Selika vs. Inez’ duet from the last act (FYI- it’s kinda like Aida & Amneris but short on malice and long on pity).
Selika is also- like Valentine and Rachel (in ‘Les Huguenots’ and ‘La Juive, respectively) another great ‘Falcon’ role, although I don’t believe that Cornelie Falcon herself sang it.
It’s also known for the kick-ass operatic death scene that closes the opera- Selika (and her loyal Nelusko) both commit suicide by inhaling the poisonous vapors of the blossooms of the Manchineel Tree (and for what it’s worth, Meyerbeer wasn’t making that up! I actually have them growing all over the place where I live, and it really is a potentially NASTY little tree- it’s fruit is called ‘The Death Apple’- that everyone is always warned to stay far away from!!)
L.A. Thanks! You are very nice to post that, and so quick too.
I love me some Jessye. In just about anything.
Stevey: The death scene, unjustly abbreviated in this clip, but well worth a watch-and-listen. Verrett is meltingly restrained, as is Meyerbeer’s music, praised by Berlioz, for one. Great composer, great Diva:
Great composer
This looks kind of interesting:
La Monnaie
Les Huguenots
11!, 14, 15, 17, 19m, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30 Jun 2011
Conductor: Marc Minkowski
Producer: Olivier Py
~
Marguerite de Valois: Marlis Petersen
Valentine: Mireille Delunsch
Urbain: Yulia Lezhneva
Raoul de Nangis: Eric Cutler
Comte de Saint-Bris: Philippe Rouillon
Comte de Nevers: Jean-François Lapointe
I think there is plenty to enjoy in L’Africaine. For example this rich and creamy “Adieu mon doux rivage” by RAS
Oops, I mean this:
In the clip above, at about 6:15, she sings, “What a lovely color, so red and pretty.”
But the flowers are all white.
Sigh.
Ruth Ann Swenson sounds lovely in her clip. It’s a bit of a strange aria. I guess it is supposed to sound moorish in certain ways.