Hunch confirmed
“Internationally acclaimed opera singer and arts administrator Plácido Domingo, General Director of Washington National Opera (WNO), will lead a group of his protégés in a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto on August 2, 2010, at Beijing’s Reignwood Theater…. The concert performance marks the first time that Domingo, a legendary tenor who has recently made highly praised forays into the baritone repertoire, will sing the baritone role of Rigoletto. [Washington National Opera]
As for the “racial slur” comments, all I have to offer is this: I am a gay man of middle-eastern background, so I fall into plenty of stereotypes. And frankly, I find very little value in overt PC sensibilities. I like the comment that someone made earlier about the tone and intention being far more important than mere words themselves. I respect people’s right to be offended but I also give lots of leeway for sake of humour. Sometimes, a joke is just a joke and not meant to be malicious.
Because of my Iranian background, after watching Team America some of my close friends started calling me “durka durka” and we ALL laughed (and still do).
Of course, context is everything and it is very difficult to discern tone of voice from written posts. That’s why I personally stay away from un-PC jokes though I enjoy them in private. It also has to do with the company in which a joke is made. People can be justifiably sensitive so that kind of humour is perhaps best left to only certain situations.
Sometimes a little bit of bad taste can be used to shatter political correctness and/ or to debunk pretense. I once was familiar with a ‘stuck-up’ politician, who had trouble with any word that had the letter ‘R’ in it.(a form of speech impediment). It led to unintentional comical situations. He would be talkng on TV about not, a coming election but in his words “the coming ERECTION!” What could anyone do, but laugh.
A lecturer friend told me, this same shit politician unsuccessfully tried to lean on him to give the pollie’s kid, better marks at Uni.
Then I met a woman that thought this same politician ( a friend of hers) was the ‘ants’ pants’ as a person. Telling me how this ‘sun , moon and stars shining out of his arse’ politician;had even feted her and members of her family in a chauffeured (Govt funded) limo with a picnic in a big city park. And how they all ate pies for lunch!
She incredulously exclaimed “Oh you should have seen ‘…….’(the pollie). There he was, with it (a pie) in his hand and sauce dripping everywhere”. I could not help myself but ask ” In his hand?…In full view? Why didn’t the Police lock him up for such indecent exposure?”
She grew angry and said I should be horse-whipped. So I dropped the big bomb on her. I told how the night before ‘I had an orgy with 4 others in a massive Errol Flynn bed that took 6, complete with mirrors’. I even gave her a running commentary of the amazing bed! Used and done bluntly :to cut down to size a snob and pretentious social climber!
Motto:’Everything ….in the right place …right time…and to the right degree’.
Who gets to decide when the time, place and degree are right?
There’s no point trying to come up with a lingua franca for offence. As Maury said earlier in the thread, the key is recognising when one has upset someone and responding accordingly.
I once saw a white man explain to a Bangladeshi woman why she was ‘wrong’ to find the term ‘Paki’ offensive. Crying foul whenever people take offence at something is just as pernicious as taking offence too easily.
armerjacquino: Your final sentence is the ‘diffraction effect’ of two mirrored argument points, facing each other.
If one starts by accepting in one’s own eyes-in any personal interaction -that you are ready to respect any other human being as a equal human being, – I do not think anyone has much to justify or worry about.
But applied stiff upper lips and politeness at any cost, is for wimps and mannered hypocrites. That enforced type of ‘P.C conscious agenda’ attitude plays straight into the hands of the ‘me-me-me’ people, who sense they have all the power, to walk over the rights of everybody else ..
Harry, that makes wonderfully good sense. (Boy, when’s the last time we saw that sentence posted here?)
Might I add amerjacquino to your comment:” Who gets to decide when the time, place and degree are right?”..
One learns by degrees of self assessment,and arguable fair sense of reciprocity.By taking people on, at their own game.
It is like one opens the door to some whacked -out book-banger, who does not want to take a polite ‘No’ for an answer!
Simple solution! Ask the question….”What exactly IS sin?”. If one proports to have no concept of it in the first place…….how could one be helped, anyway?
Better still I have turned many such determined creatures away (shell shocked) with ‘My Lesson to them for the Day’ instead. Telling them about my jocular idea ‘of the 12 boy friends’.
That ‘photo’ La Cieca prints of Domingo ‘as a Rigoletto’ is that the first-proof modeling done for a Franklin Mint porcelain Domingo figurine; or part of some toy manufacturer’s next Christmas’ ‘must have’ doll collection for kids? Martha Stewart….. where are you?
Something to put in your catalog.
Another ego trip for Domingo. His Simon B had nothing baritonal and was the worst HD telecast. It was a tenor singing SB, and now a tenor will sing Rigoletto. PD should be remembered for better things.
Hi Harriet, 5.2.2.1,
Santa and all his elves can be reached at ditzbobble@gmail.com.
I don’t know about this racist thing, and as a honkie myself, sometimes called a “Pakeha” (white skin) by the natives where I come from, and a poofter, shirtlifter and doughnut puncher by others, I couldn’t care less what anyone calls me. I know what I am and I’m really comfortable with it so what. I would, however, like to put in a word for not losing one’s sense of humour.
After all, if one loses the ability to laugh at oneself, one could be missing the joke of the century.
ruxton: my (very) limited understanding of “pakeha” is that it’s not inherently derogatory. (that’s not to say it can’t be used derogatorily, but …)
is that correct?
also, while i agree a sense of humo(u)r is essential in life, but some things are just never funny. at the risk of belaboring my own example, if you’re a native american, you will never laugh at the “redskins”, or the “braves”, or even the “indians”. just nothing risible there. zilch.
ka kite ano.
whatever – when I was a child over half a century ago, where I come from whiteys were called “Pakeha” and Maoris were called “Horis”. When I went home for a visit twenty years ago I was told that if one used either term in public nowadays it was considered derogatory…I have no idea what the “new acceptable” terms are, but I lament the passing of a naive time when the only identification that mattered was whether another person was a “friend” or not. Our friends were a very mixed lot…and as you ask- if I was an American native- or indeed anything else, it truly wouldn’t bother me what I was called by someone I didn’t know. To me, it really doesn’t register unless it is said by someone close to me.
ruxton: thanks for your reply.
having listened to too many americans who “want their country back”, i carry the baggage of someone who believes that the past they lament was far less naive than they remember. but i also recall n-zed as a country far less cleaved by its -isms than my own is today. so i think we each come by our perspective honestly.
so, how ’bout we agree to a nice shag in the name of global pigment homogenization?
Just another thread drift… ( a radical one….)”
It’s being reported on a number of sites ..and by some Artists on FACEBOOK that Sir Charles Mackaress has died..
He was a real giant of the music world, and a great conductor and supporter of lesser -known works..
REST IN PEACE….
whatever – I always support a thoroughly scientific approach. (*thinks..how do I tell him I’m barren?)
paging doctor bobolink … paging doctor bobolink …
What am I , a gynecologist? My doctorate’s in art history.
well, ruxton’s fecundity apparently is historic … and i suspected if we managed to spawn it would indeed be the ultimate act of artistic creation …
besides, maybe ruxton had a histor-ectomy!!!
Whatever you’ve heard to the contrary, sterility is NOT inherited.
Besides, I’m laughing. Only Manou and La Cieca have been able to make me do that. (Actually, Manou made me jump back from the computer and bark at it like a rancid cocker spaniel, but the principle is the same)
What a thought- Dr Bobolink hovering around in green rubber gloves and an old picture tucked under the arm! Ok, whatever- lets just stick with the creative approach and see what pops up or out!
On the other hand, I’ve soem experience in Urology,s o if you want to Pee at Mondrian, call me.
ugh, if i had a nickel for every time i received that offer.
oh, wait ..
It would be impolite – I’ve never met Mondrian.
oh, sorry … i thought the offer was to pee at *the* mondrian. =:o
Not the Met, the MOMA.
I, too, gave up on Placido a number of years ago. He was okay-ish as Samson, with Borodina making a distracting spectacle of herself by not singing well and blaming it on allergies. But his Siegmund, although well acted and arguably well sung, was not convincing. He’s simply too old for the part.
Now he has migrated to parts meant for old men, so he isn’t incongruous visually, and reports come back that the acting chops are there, and the performances are wonderful–from people who value the acting more, perhaps, than the legitimacy (for want of a musically precise word) of the singing. It does raise the question, what is a tenor to do when the top notes are gone? Stop singing entirely? Obviously, Placido does not want to stop.
I could see him as Rigoletto; one feels for Rigoletto. Scarpia would be a big mistake, and I doubt if he could pull off Iago, for the same reasons: he’s a very good acting singer but his strength is in the humanity he projects. He is not suited to merciless characters.
As for slurs: we all are serially guilty of them, because there is always some new sensitivity to discover after the fact. Most of us don’t mean them, not really, but tragically, some people do. So none of us is allowed to be free and easy with what other people wield as a vicious knife.
My problem is that I really don’t get the “great artistry” thing with Domingo. His voice is really amazingly well preserved, the top is no longer available of course and his voice is a bit lighter textured and somewhat nasal but otherwise is in great shape. It doesn’t sound old, no wobble, rarely dryness or roughness you can hear in old voices, no pitch problems.
But I don’t get much fire or inspiration. Even in the days I enthusiastically followed his career I felt his performances ranged from being really exciting to
just being well and correctly sung. And as the years went on, the fire was there less and less and things were more and more often phoned in. and more and more compromises were made to deal with a difficult and reluctant top register.
I never felt he had a truly impressive grasp of musical styles or languages, once he was outside the Italian rep, things tended to be somewhat generic.
As was his acting. Of course all performers have a limited number of expressive tools and recycle them in various combinations, but the truly inspired ones
can make these combinations seem unique. But I think of Domingo being “expressive” and I picture in my mind’s eye, an eyebrow raised and the eye underneath it sort of squinted. Over, and over, and over.
I watched the boccanegra on PBS. With the visuals, it was a bit more interesting than when I heard the broadcast but I wasn’t moved at all. To me it was a very light textured voice without much depth and so from the get go there were limited options for creating a truly inspired characterizations.
Domingo is still a HUGE star, maybe still the biggest
name in opera, even bigger than Fleming , or Trebs, or whoever but I just no longer get it. I don’t mind that my own opinions place me in a minority position, I accept that for others there is something there that doesn’t register with me.
I haven’t read all the posts, but I agree with everything Richard writes–what’s the big deal about Domingo’s “artistry”? It’s a myth. I do like his voice itself, but when I saw him I always got the feeling that there was no “there” there.
I recently saw a bit of an old Hoffmann DVD on TV– the Olympia scene: Domingo didn’t seem into the part–he walked around as if he were lost–and wearing those silly glasses made him appear even sillier.
I had the same reaction when I saw his Parsifal, except there that he looked like an old bum. Don’t remeber a note he sang!
Not good actor, lousy language skills, “no inspiration or fire”–such an artist–it shouldn’t happen to a dog!
I think he should sing Rigoletto on the moon!
Domingo will continue to sing at major opera houses around the world as long as he is able to sell tickets and he’s doing that quite well. Tickets to his performances of Cyrano in San Francisco are only available as part of a subscription package so they must be banking on his name to sell subscriptions. They are advertising that it will be very difficult to get tickets to his performances. Much of today’s audiences are not aware of the current state of his voice. They just know he’s a big name. Opera companies are not in great shape financially and Domingo is a sure way to fill houses.