The other side of the moon
In light of all the recent discussion of Norma, La Cieca thought it would be interesting to listen to a great (and controversial) Druidess of the recent past.
Norma: Renata Scotto; Pollione: John Alexander; Adalgisa: Joann Grillo; Oroveso: Mario Rinaudo; Clotilde: Lucia Nemer; Flavio: Frank Munafo. Philadelphia, Academy of Music (Opera Company of Philadelphia) January 10, 1978. Conductor: Conductor: Carl Suppa.
I’ll second that one, i.e., the Scotto MacBeth over the Ghuleghina one, having recently heard it on a broadcast and finding, to my relief, it was not as bad as I been told.
Scotto’s Sonnambula and her La Straniera are really kind of model examples, so I am wondering what her Norma WAS like. After having survived La Rotonda Eaglen’s Norma, plus the execrable mess made by Guleghina, I would be most likely very gratified by at least some of that which she accomplished.
Richard, I believe, is probably on track with his guess about La Gioconda, or Giocondetta in her case, as out of her depth.
Sorry to come in late, here is my memory of Scotto and Norma and the boos: Scotto had given an interview in the Sunday NY Times and dissed some other singers. She had done a radio interview with Sills and the two were hilarious and giggly and girlfriends.( Scotto had withdrawn from Siege of Corinth at La Scala years before, Sills stepped in and had a great triumph, Scotto had a healthy baby).Anyway, NY Times asks Scotto about Sills, and SPECIFICALLY, her singing and Scotto says “Well…she’s a very nice person”. Then thay ask about Maria and she says ” I am a better singer and better actress than Maria Callas ever was”, and I think that was the end of Scotto. I am told that someone sent her a Miss Piggy doll before Norma that she was delighted with and showed around backstage, then went onstage and someone yelled “Miss Piggy”(well she did wear those platforms that looked like little black hooves) and she came off and ripped the doll to shreds and threw it down the hallway. I also remember the telecast of Giaconda from SF: Pav was the star of the night, she asked if they could skip the 2nd act bow and he went out anyway and they went nuts. Afterwards – on TV -she was saying “King of the high Cs – I only hear b flat !!! Domingo is the only tenor”. I hope this is an accurate memory, if not,like the Countess Aurelia, I don’t want to know
It was always very entertaining but Scotto was ALWAYS a very loose cannon. There are a number of stories about her dissing colleagues; it was her choice to do so and
she was pretty adult about most of the fallout. Stupid she was NOT.
But she is WEIRD. My first inkling of this was around the time of a break she had with the Met in the early 70s. Again she was a pretty canny manager of her career. Bing’s Met saw her as she was when she started out, an ambitious soubrette with a few add on roles such as Butterfly and Traviata. And by the early 70s she saw a much more varied rep for herself.
I was lucky enough to see her in most of the early rep she did at the Met, so I saw her as Lucia, Gilda,
Adina, Amina and so forth.
But she wanted to move on from these roles, she had already done Vespri in 1970 and evidently decided that she wanted to move into a more dramatic rep.
So far , so good and this all makes sense. And she gave the Met a miss for a season to let them see what they were missing.
And she returned after about 18 months in Vespri and really cemented her place as a powerhouse at the MEt.
Ok, where does the WEIRD come in? Well during that very smart negotiation she did with the Met about shifting her roles into more interesting ones, she gives this interview stating that she was in contact with Maria Malibran and she was taking direction from her. Malibran explained to Renata that she was really a soprano sfogato and was limited in her existing rep. And Malibran “told” her that her place was in the heavier, more dramatic roles.
This interview was in the press, in the early 70s there was nothing like the multitude of media outlets there are today; there were the city newspapers and Opera News and that was about it. And Opera News was certainly not at that point in it’s existence going to host a singer’s tiff with the MEt the way it will do today.
So from then on I realized that Scotto was really very clever and decisive about managing her career but that she was also somewhat crazy.
I was talking to Malibran the other night and I asked her about the Scotto story and she confirmed it was true!
Kinda Off Topic: I was watching Classic Arts Showcase on TV this morning and saw a clip of a 1965 Callas concert with Pretre conducting. She sang Ah non credea. It was absolutely beautiful and moving, although carefully sung. I was shocked that Maria could sing so beautifully and sound so good at that late date. You’d never know that it was her last year in staged opera.
I did see her Met Tosca that year.
Fascinating to hear details about what Scotto went through at the Met in terms of the Callas Widows (and what role she herself played in that through her media work). It’s hard for those of a younger generation to understand that kind of fanatiscism over a singer. Sure, we tear apart Fleming et al. here, but no one, not even La Cieca, seems invested to the extent that we’ll mess with their performances and try to “bring them down.”
It must have been terribly exciting in the 70s to have Scotto at the top of her game, expanding her boundaries with success, and not knowning what kind of decline would follow in the 80s.
What was the European impression of Scotto in the mid/late 70s once she focused her career more on America while Freni avoided the US for most of that decade?