Comments on: The other side of the moon

By: Ruxton

Ruxton — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:46:27 +0000

I was talking to Malibran the other night and I asked her about the Scotto story and she confirmed it was true!

By: Arianna a Nasso

Arianna a Nasso — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:36:26 +0000

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?

By: kashania

kashania — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:47:54 +0000

I’ve heard that Scotto greatly admired Callas early on and was flattered by the comparisons to her early in her career. But then, the bitchiness of the Callas widows became too much and she came to resent Callas.

By: luvtennis

luvtennis — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:23:14 +0000

I agree. Scotto is the first soprano of distinction to be persecuted for taking chances “THAT ONLY MARIA CAN TAKE.”

It’s absurd really. That said, there was something about Scotto’s manner that seemed to invite that sort of treatment, don’t you think. Almost as if she secretly believed that she HAD assumed Maria’s mantle (whatever that might be). Unfortunately, it’s hard not to be smug when you have a cool secret that others would die to know. I think her detractors felt the weight of that smugness (real or perceived) and lashed out with a viciousness that was wholly our of proportion to the sin.

By: callasorphan

callasorphan — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:32:21 +0000

I’ve heard and seen Troyanos completely steal the show as Adalgisas. The Norma was really kind of forgotten about.

By: Clita del Toro

Clita del Toro — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:54:16 +0000

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.

By: Meimei

Meimei — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:29:33 +0000

It’s good to see you back, MarshiemarkII!

By: richard

richard — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 02:14:13 +0000

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.

By: bigbob56

bigbob56 — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:48:28 +0000

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

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:40:26 +0000

Noel I wish it were true about Behrens being a “favorite” but she was not. Behrens was one of the “you were sensational tonight”, which of course every diva thought she was the only one to whom he said that to, but it turned out that category included also Jessye Norman (yes Kashie!), Leonie Rysanek, Christa Ludwig, I suppose Birgit Nilsson, and a few others I can’t recall now……., but the ones he truly adored were indeed Renata Scotto, Tatyana Troyanos (yes Peter!!!) and Teresa Stratas (maybe No 1?) so points for Richard (who doesn’t like me sniff sniff).

So Noel, no I do not believe that Battle was ever in that category of the other three. Regarding the Marschallin, in general Behrens would not have been into because she was one of those gilrs to whom “shit happens” as opposed to driving the action, but at the twilight of her career, the VILE Herbert Breslin was shopping around for her to do it including at the Met and SF. It was one of the many things that just never happened at the end, such as the Kostelnicka also at the Met and the Makropoulos in Paris………..

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:29:00 +0000

RRnest Thesiger, thank you thank you thank you for not making me look like I was losing it. Of course pre-Internet things could have taken easily two years to travel from coast to coast. Don’t know where I could have gotten the two weeks bit, except in a 2010 frame of mind, but the essence of my story is CORRECT.

By: Camille

Camille — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:55:35 +0000

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.

By: richard

richard — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:18:55 +0000

And in December of 1979, Scotto brought her Gioconda to the Met. For me that was really the start of her decline at the Met. It was the first role I saw her do that I felt the bad outweighed the good. And she followed Bumbry, who did the earlier Gioconda performances and I was sort of surprised to feel that Bumbry actually sounded more secure in the part and less iffy on top.

Out of my great, great regard for Scotto, who was really one of my all time favs, I continued to dutifully attend all of her productions during the 80s and in retrospect, I believe it was a mistake.
There was far more that was bad than was good and I probably would have been better off closing the books on her ca 1980. But hindsight is always 20/20 , isn’t it?

By: RRnest Thesiger

RRnest Thesiger — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:57:38 +0000

The SF Giocondas were in September and October of 1979. The live telecast, which included the post-performance backstage interview with Scotto, took place on Sept. 16, 1979, according to the SFO archives. If I remember correctly, she said “gente di merda,” which amounts to the same thing, of course.

By: richard

richard — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:23:46 +0000

Scotto, yes. I would venture a guess that Stratas was also one of Levine’s favorites.

By: peter

peter — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:10:19 +0000

Was Troyanos one of the three?

By: Noel Dahling

Noel Dahling — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:58:07 +0000

Surely one of the other two was Battle?

By: Noel Dahling

Noel Dahling — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:56:30 +0000

Thats funny because in the book Molto Agitato the writer says something to the effect of “Behrens was one of his favorite singers.” I read that book about six years ago so my memory could be playing tricks.
By the way, did your Beloved HB ever sing the Marschalin? How did she feel about the role?

By: Alto

Alto — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:51:08 +0000

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/anthony-rolfe-johnson-revered-tenor-dies

By: kashania

kashania — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:45:30 +0000

Scotto!

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:43:28 +0000

But don’t you love competitions Kashie? I think it would be a lot of fun. As always there is a lot of misinformation and gossip that after several generations and gyrations, the final product has nothing to do wiht the reality. So let’s get the ball rolling…… you start Kashie!

By: kashania

kashania — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:38:37 +0000

Or you could just tell us the names of the other two, and we’d be done with it.

By: perfidia

perfidia — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:37:30 +0000

I’ll take the Scotto Macbeth any day over the screeching we were subjected to by Guleghina. At least with Scotto you could hear a performance that had a sense of purpose and understanding of style. Same thing with the “Norma.” Yes she is overparted, but the declamation is spot on.

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:08:58 +0000

Cara Cieca, in view of this thread and the related one on Jimmy Levine’s health issues, we could do a quizz for the young ones:
“Who were the three favorites singers of James Levine”
[Hint: My beloved HB was not one of them]

By: Alto

Alto — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:03:19 +0000

I think condolences are due to a lot more than our tongue-in-cheek Vicar.

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:39:05 +0000

If there were no revivals in 81 then I would have to assume that the story Etienne told that night had in fact occurred two years before and not two weeks before, it’s quite possible that my memory is that blurry, but the “TU sei la merda” and it’s origin I stand by because:
1) I heard it in the theater
2) I heard Etienne’s explanation on the plaza after the performance, there were quite a few queens congregating around him, and I gravitated towards the crowd and there it was THE STAR of the night, Mr Etienne “Callas” who had just destroyed Renata Scotto. Who says that opera is not a contact sport?. He died of AIDS like a couple of years later

By: iltenoredigrazia

iltenoredigrazia — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:22:12 +0000

The San Francisco Giocondas were during the 78/79 season.

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:08:06 +0000

Errata: Our SF friends can possibly corrobOrate or dispute the date of the Gioconda with firm facts
God I HATE typos!

By: CwbyLA

CwbyLA — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:07:23 +0000

does anyone know if a recording of Angela Meade’s Norma exists? I searched operashare but couldn’t find it.

By: marshiemarkII

marshiemarkII — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:04:03 +0000

Tenore, the only thing in dispute seems to be the date of the Gioconda in San Francisco. I stand by my recollection, as told by Etienne at the very night of the Opening of Norma at the Met in 1981. If I have mixed things, could be, it happened 29 years ago, and I am going strictly from memory here, but I related the story as my memory serves, and rather vividly if I may say due to the impact of the events. Our SF friends can possibly corrobarate or dispute the date of the Gioconda with firm facts, I don’t have them at this moment, or else you can provide them.

Your other point is not disputing anything I have said, or implied, or clarified in a second post responding to La Cieca. So what is your point?