Annie Gets Her Rod
UPDATE: The news breaks today, and yes, it’s Debbie, but no, it’s not Shirtless Nathan. Letting his defenses down in the role of Frank Butler at Glimmerglass will be Rod Gilfry. (Meanwhile, Mr. Gunn will continue his exploration of the esoteric Blusenrolle fach by role-debuting Eugene Onegin in Cincinnati.)
EARLIER: So La Cieca hears more whispers about the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival, specifically that Deborah Voigt and Nathan Gunn will headline Annie Get Your Gun. Remember, you heard it hear first, even if it’s not true.
It looks like Frank Butler will be sung by Rod Gilfrey, not Nathan Gunn.
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/141417-Glimmerglass-Annie-Get-Your-Gun-Finds-Its-Annie-Oakley-and-Frank-Butler
John Simon, who was theater critic of the New york Magazine for a long time once reviewed Regina Resnik when she took on the Lotte Lenya role in Cabaret, “Resnik can no longer sing like an opera singer but she still acts like one”…….
Hmmm
John Simon was protested for years by readers of New York magazine for his bigoted, often anti-semitic, racist and self-loathing put downs of performers and plays, frequently quite obviously using some “dreadfully clever” pun he’d devised rather than honestly reviewing what was actually on stage. He was finally and justifiably bounced from the magazine.
As to Mmes Lenya and Resnick, the former’s American debut drew the comment that her voice was “an octave below laryngitis”
Continuing: and could never sing like an opera singer so how inauthentic could Resnick, even in decline, have been. Mr. Simon was a virulent case of self-love run totally amok.
How can he be “self-loathing” in comment A and “self-love run amok” in comment B?
I have grave reservations about Simon’s work myself, whom I happen to know personally and know to be erratic, but that would constitute REALLY erratic extremes self-esteem, no?
This is one of those Simonisms that’s so tautly phrased it sounds bitchier than it is. I saw Resnik in Cabaret and she did indeed act the role as an opera singer, i.e., in bold, carefully crafted strokes, with a very clear sense of how to project physical movement to a big theater. She did not have the subtlety or grittiness of a Lenya; she played Frau Schneider as something of a grande dame reduced to taking in boarders. It worked quite well, but it was an opera singer’s performance.
I could sing Sally Bowles *tomorrow*– it’s a question of color and tessitura.
Rod and gun or rod and Gunn; doesn’t matter, so long as Frank packs a six-shooter.
Comment of the Day, in my book.
Gunn packs a six-pack, not a six-shooter.
Well, I’ve seen and appreciated the former and would love to examine the latter.
Thanks, Alto, and perhaps “thy Rod and thy staff they comfort me” will be, um, inserted into the lyrics of “An Old-Fashioned Wedding” (if the song is used in the Glimmerglass production).
Yes, there are times operatic and non-operatic when nothing but a rod or a staff is sufficiently comforting.
Ah, truth, shmuth. The important thing is that I read it here first.
I agree that our doyenne has been keeping things quite lively despite the summer off-season. I’d LOVE to have another vocal identification quiz. Those are good for any time of year. And frankly, I want to see if I can actually guess more than 50% of the singers accurately.
In all seriousness, this should be at least clinically interesting. I never thought of Voigt as a belter in the Merman mode, but she has done cabaret with some success; has anyone here heard her in cabaret, and how was it?
I have not heard the cabaret songs, but I have heard Voigt in some pop-style Christmas music and she swung it well enough to win the approval of Eileen Farrell in the front row. The original Merman keys for the show are fairly high (she lowered most of the music for her 1960s revival) and it would be simple enough to move some of the solos up a step (if necessary) to lay in a more comfortable tessitura for Voigt. Remember, it’s a small house and she doesn’t have to outsing a Strauss orchestra, so the original keys might be just fine.
Actually lower might be better if Debbie wants to avoid sounding too operatic in the role. (I think she is a good pop stylist and will adapt her voice well). Take the example of Joan Diener who sang both opera (Traviata for Felsenstein) and musicals (Man of La Mancha) – she sang in a chest belt in her lower range and then flipped into an operatic head voice higher up. Many Aldonzas have struggled with the way the vocal line flies around requiring two voices. Of course, Aldonza is complex role Aldonza/Kitchen Slut vs. Dulcinea/Don Quixote’s Lady so two voices is part of the character. Annie Oakley needs one voice but she does have ballads like “Moonshine Lullaby” which could work in a more classical vocal style.
Yeah but she also has tricky rhythmic songs like Old Fashioned Wedding and you don’t want it to be slowed down to the point where the frentic part of her character is lost. This horrific version of that duet with Hampson-Battle demonstrates how bad it can get when singers try and work a classical technique around fast moving broadway lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUSpNlhq6cQ
Maybe Voigt should hang out with Audra McDonald or Kristen Chenoweth for a few weeks to figure out how they work their chest/head voice mix magic the way they do.
I actually don’t think Hampson does a bad job in that, especially considering the completely inappropriate partnership he’s saddled (ha, he said “saddled”) with. He’s not that far from the old-fashioned Broadway style.
When it comes to musical theater, there is only one singer Voigt should seek out -- the great Barbara Cook. Unlike a lot of over-60 (let alone under) opera singers, at 80+, she’s still singing in the original keys. Many here already know this but, for those that don’t, the woman is a goddess. To me, the finest female singer alive in any genre…
More Cook! I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning:
I could sing Irving AND Eli Jacobson under the table *tomorrow*–it’s a question of color and tessitura…
Moonshine Lullaby is gorgeous. And Annie also has “They Say That Falling In Love Is Wonderful” and “Lost In His Arms”. However, most of the role is belting.
I’m An Indian, Too
I Got The Sun In The Mornin’
Show Business
Can’t Get A Man With A Gun
Anything You Can Do
Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly
Old Fashion Wedding
I’d really rather hear Debbie Gravitte or especially Kim Criswell
Off topic – will there be a Frank McCourt chat tomorrow?
OH LORD, SOOOO SORRY TO BE SO STUPID. OYY!!! I WAS IN A SORT OF STUPOR. OH, HOW I WISH I COULD DELETE THAT POST!!!
“…a Frank McCourt chat…”
Angela Meade’s Driudic Funeral Pyre Ashes?
Angela Gheorghiu’s Ashes in Place of a Soul?
Angela Brown’s Career Turning to Ashes?
Angela Merkel’s Government Turning to Ashes?
It’s gonna be fine and they will have a ball performing it. Nice of both of them to give up their summer in other places to spend it in Cooperstown. It’s sure to be a sellout.
At last night’s La Boheme, Cincinnati Opera artistic director Evans Mirageas announced that Nathan Gunn will make a role debut in Eugene Onegin next year. Maybe the duel scene will be shirtless. In the snow.
Although only Lensky, not Onegin, loses his shirt, Cincy should use the Munich production. And oh those cowboys.
If Cincinnati Opera did the gay cowboy version of Eugene Onegin, the audience would riot (and not in a good way). One of the most conservative audiences in the country. Almost as bad as Dallas.
Debbie shouldn’t be singing Annie. It takes a brassy, belting voice. Great artist that she is, she will attempt to pull this off herself. Her voice certainly needs a rest after Senta and Minnie…and not to belt Gershwin.
If The Great Daniel J. Wakin and the Newspaper of Record he works for had a trace of knowledge between them, it might have been pointed out that in fact soprano Brenda Lewis (who appeared on Broadway as well as at NYCO and the Met) in fact sang many performances of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN at the Vienna Volksoper, by her account in “the Merm’s [original] keys”.
Did I say GERSHWIN??? I meant Berlin.