Gay blades
So a member of the cher public writes, “The odious Command Opera says that Netrebko has cancelled the Mariinsky Bolenas” which, according to the Mariinsky site certainly seems to be true. Or at least what seems to be true is that the rumored or planned production of Anna Bolena at the Mariinsky is not happening for whatever reason.
La Cieca wonders exactly when that would have come together since the soprano is booked for Don Pasquale through November 18 of this year, followed by guest performances of La boheme in mid-December and concerts at the start of the new year.
Does anyone recall if that Anna Bolena was officially announced? The closest La Cieca can find is a post on the Netrebko fan blog from November. The first officially scheduled Bolena for Netrebko is in April 2011 in Vienna, followed of course by the opening night of the Met’s 2011-12 season, but you all knew that.
And about the “odious” part, now honestly, “Miss Netrebko can never ascend to the dramatic vocal heights of Miss Callas vocally as Anna Bolena and accept this reality, however the artist may certainly equal someone such as Miss Scotto…. The Metropolitan audience who applaud even banal performances wildly, cannot be counted on to do so this time. There are effete knives out for Miss Netrebko in certain quarters of the city to make certain she will NOT be favourably compared to Miss Callas.” I mean, honestly.
This is completely off topic but I was at the Met Central Park Summerstage recital tonight and thought I spotted Angela Meade in the VIP section chatting with some opera fans. Was I seeing things?
Probably not. She’s a buddy of Michael Fabiano’s I think. CerquettiFarrell has posted a vid, in another posting, of them singing Lucia together at AVA. They were both in the same Met auditions, and he was at Norma the other night.
The AVA/Bill Schumann group are pretty close-knit, or at least some of them are: you’ll usually see the same faces at performances of Stephen Costello, Michael Fabiano, James Valenti, Bryan Hymel, Ailyn Perez, etc.
There are “effete knives out”? Honestly, that may be my new favorite expression. Heard Sutherland sing it late in her career and she was wonderful and absurd as always. Was a supernumerary with Carol Vaness when she sang it mid-career and it was okay, but not up to her higher standards. It really is a brutal part.
I took my “effete knife” out once and women fainted, strong men wept and the horses bolted in the street! That will teach me.
Though often Commandopera’s posting have all the lucidity of a baroque libretto – perhaps CREW drinks of the waters in the park near the conflux of the Ottawa and Rideau Rivers too often – he does have a few points.
willym, really. Pictures or it isn’t true. You should know the rules by now!
December 4, 2009
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO {450}
Mozart-Da Ponte
Figaro………………Luca Pisaroni
Susanna……………..Danielle de Niese, Acts I, II
Susanna……………..Lisette Oropesa, Acts III, IV
Count Almaviva……….Ludovic Tézier
Countess Almaviva…….Angela Meade
Cherubino……………Isabel Leonard
Dr. Bartolo………….John Del Carlo
Marcellina…………..Ann Murray
Don Basilio………….Greg Fedderly
Antonio……………..Patrick Carfizzi
Barbarina……………Ashley Emerson
Don Curzio…………..Tony Stevenson
Peasant……………..Joyce El-Khoury
Peasant……………..Jennifer Johnson
Steven Eldredge: Harpsichord
David Heiss: Cello
Conductor……………Fabio Luisi
Production…………..Jonathan Miller
Stage Director……….Gregory Keller
Set designer…………Peter J. Davison
Costume designer……..James Acheson
Lighting designer…….Mark McCullough
Choreographer………..Terry John Bates
This is the one in which Oropesa finished for de Niese.
I went to hear Meade, Pisaroni, Tezier — all in good form — and was delighted get to hear Oropesa as well, as a kind of bonus.
as much as every queen here seems to jizz their panties over Meade, i don’t get it. the voice is kinda boring for me, but i’m relying on the wnyc casta diva. and people say SR’s vibrato is irritating
I agree with you. Pretty voice but doesn’t leave me thrilled.
Of COURSE Netrebko isn’t going to sing those Met “Bolena’s,” because she can’t sing the part and she knows she can’t. The cancellations at the Marinsky are her first awkward step in getting out of them as gracefully as possible. So who IS going to sing the Met “Bolena’s”? Remember that bel canto opera that Fleming says she has “upcoming” but isn’t allowed to identify? Well, we have one “very likely two” and another “very likely two”: could the total just possibly be FOUR?
Renee in Bolena–running for the bathroom!
I’ll hold your hair back if you hold mine. Renee had what it took for a fantabulous Bolenna back at the time she sang Lucrezia at LaScala. After her Armida (and that one wasn’t all that bad) I doubt she can sing Bolenna with any degree of decency.
I find Netrebko waaaaayyyyy too much overexposed at the Met. This season she is (again) the face of the Live in HD season (after 2007-08 with Juliette), she’s the face of Met Player, the face of the subscription finder, next season will be HER season with two new production (along with the opening night), she received a new production this season and last season (even if in hoffmann she wasent the main signer, she was featured on the photos as if she was one). She WANTS to replace the beautiful Carsen Onegin and the Met does it for her, even if its only from 1997. In 2008-09, she only sand four performances and of course one of them needed to be in HD even if Damrau, who sang the original run, was way better.
The only other signer who received two NPs in one season was Dessay but its because she didnt sang a lot at the Met for the past years. Yes Renée Fleming received a gala in 2008-09 but not two NPs in one season.
I find it amusing that you can in the same paragraph complain that Netrebko is overexposed at the Met and that she sang there “only” four times in 2008-09.
She’s a big star. She sells tickets. And (though this remains to be seen) she seems to be willing to devote a lot of time to the Met for high-profile projects. That’s good for the company’s bottom line and, by extension, good for the company’s artistic mission.
Get over it.
With all the Fleming bashing that happens on this site, it should be me who say “Get over it”.
At least Fleming dosent cancel NPs just for her reputation. She goes through the end, even if the critics are a bit bad (Armida). Netrebko canceled Traviata because she was scared to receive bad reviews.
Nebs sang “only” four times in 2008-09 because she canceled all of the other performances because of her baby. So this dosent count.
Saying she canceled the Traviata seems a bit unfair, since she withdrew over a year in advance and was never officially announced for it. And saying it was because she was afraid of bad reviews is pure nasty speculation.
I’m going to be in Europe next spring and hope to make one of the Anna Bolenas in Wien. I tend to really like her, though, so y’all probably won’t trust my opinion of it.
Get your facts straight. Fleming got Susannah and Figaro during the same season, and cancelled her third new production (Traviata) just for her reputation.
I thought the new production of Traviata in 1998 was for the Alagnas. When they pulled out, it was offered to Fleming who turned it down and Racette ended up with it.
No, not “offered.” Fleming asked for the role and accepted it. And then the overload of new roles (four in one year) plus her divorce overwhelmed her and she asked (reportedly) to be released from some of the Figaro performances. When Levine made it clear he did not think that was a good idea, Fleming instead withdrew from the Traviata. (This is how La Cieca heard it at the time.)
One big difference between the Netrebko and the Fleming “cancellations” is that Netrebko asked to be released more than a year before the production opened.
Fleming dropped out three weeks before “her” Traviata.
I’ve been thinking about Netrebko’s schedule some more and I remembered that she was firmly booked to do the Met’s new Traviata production opening December 31, 2010. Between her last Met Norina and that prima was a space of only six weeks, of which surely at least three must have been committed to rehearsals of the Traviata. That left less than three weeks to rehearse and perform her first Anna Bolena? Unlikely.
My guess is that there was some tentative plan for Netrebko to sing a concert performance or two of the opera at the Mariinsky assuming she was up enough on the role to do so. She’s not as far along with preparations as she originally planned, so the plan was dropped. As for being “afraid” and “knowing she can’t sing the role,” that flies in the face of the most prevalent Netrebko criticism, i.e., that she doesn’t know the repertoire or what it requires. It’s implausible that she would suddenly be afraid of a role that she hasn’t even learned yet.
Can we wait and see what happens in Vienna? In the meantime, the Met is doing the prudent thing by having the talented and intelligent Meade solidly in place in case Netrebko flakes out.
Frankly, I can’t understand why folks are so up in arms about the Netrebko Bolena.
Yes, the role is long and has some challenging bits, but the tessitura is not punishingly high. The coloratura challenges are fairly manageable for someone with even reasonable flexibility. Yes, the final aria is a pretty stern test of the soprano’s breath support at the end of a long sing, but it’s not as difficult as the finale of Pirata, in my opinion. And the trills in the final cabaletta can be faked – hell, most sopranos who have sung the role since Callas have faked the trills.
All in all, I think Bolena is the sort of bel canto role that might suit La Nebs. Certainly, it is not nearly as challenging musically as Elvira. In Bellini, the soprano must have virtuoso control over the instrument – Verdi or Mozart offer a similar challenge – because Bellini’s music absolutely requires musical and vocal accuracy to make its effect. Technical weakness or musical sloppiness is intolerable in Bellini, no matter of how strong the singer might be dramatically. Donizetti is simply not as demanding from a musical (voice as instrument) perspective.