parterre box

34 comments

• richard says:

  Today is also the birthday of Italian soprano Gabriella Tucci who turns 81. She’s not so well known today because she didn’t make many recordings but I saw her quite a bit in the first few years of my opera-going.

  It wasn’t the most impressive voice that had ever trod on the Met stage but she had a stunning pianissimo and a terrific, instictive understanding of how the music in Italian Opera should go. Wonderful as Butterfly, Tosca, Aida, Amelia, Maddalena in Chenier and so forth.

  So happy birthday to both ladies!

  on August 4, 2010 at 3:42 PM
  • Camille says:

    Gabriella Tucci was the first (recorded) Leonora in Il Trovatore I ever listened to and through her and fabulous Franco I became acquainted with the opera. I always liked her. To this day, when I hear Trovatore I think of her, and am grateful.

    on August 5, 2010 at 2:13 AM
  • SF Guy says:

    Tucci is a lovely, poignant Liu in the Nilsson Turandot:

    on August 5, 2010 at 2:53 AM
• Clita del Toro says:

  I saw many of Tucci’s performances at the Met. A wonderful singer!

  Happy Birthday, Gabriella and Debbiella

  on August 4, 2010 at 4:10 PM
• kashania says:

  Here’s the 60 Minutes piece on Debbie. The focus is almost entirely about her weight loss but there are a lot of snippets of performances as well:

  on August 4, 2010 at 4:11 PM
• kashania says:

  Tucci as Aida.

  on August 4, 2010 at 4:19 PM
  • iltenoredigrazia says:

    I would not have recognized Tucci on that clip. I saw many times at the Met and I remember a slim, elegant lady. Where did those breasts come from?!

    on August 4, 2010 at 4:42 PM
• calaf47 says:

  Today is also President Obama and Sarah Coburn’s birthdays. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all the August 4th personalities…and many happy returns.

  on August 4, 2010 at 4:22 PM
• kashania says:

  I’ll be back with a youtube clip of Obama and Coburn singing the Ballo duet.

  on August 4, 2010 at 4:54 PM
• Signor Bruschino says:

  Did I read somewhere that the Ariadne with her and Dessay is going to be released, or is that just wishful thinking on my part (and for that matter, the Dalayman Wozzeck???)

  on August 4, 2010 at 5:20 PM
  • richard says:

    Yes, I’ve heard that too.

    on August 5, 2010 at 8:52 AM
• Billys Butt says:

  I agree with all those of you who say that Voigt had a glorious voice BEFORE the surgery (her Chrysothemis and her Kaiserin were amazing back then), but that things have gone downhill since and that in the past two or tree years, the decline has been frighening, not to say shocking. I also agree that she has her deserved place among great singers just because of those years when she was not yet “slimmed down”, but when her voice was an outstanding and very impressive, beautiful instrument.
  However, ever since the surgery, she hasn’t been the same, and while some of the performances right after it (the Berlin and Vienna Marschallin, the MET Elisabeth) were pretty good, her voice is now just a mere shadow of what it once was. I found her Salome from Verbier earlier this week somewhere between very sad and shocking.
  It’s still on the arte website, for those among you who haven’t seen and heard it yet: http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Salome_de_Richard_Strauss_en_cloture_du_Verbier_Festival/
  Let’s be honest: If it would not have been an established star and big name, but a no-name soprano who nobody ever heard of before, and she would have sung Salome the way Voigt does it here, the critics and all of you guys and girls out there would have torn her apart, and the audience’s applause would have been less than ten percent of what Voigt got. But BECAUSE Voigt is an established star and big name, everybody tries to find good things about her performance and talks about the past instead of about what she is actually delivering here. Fact is, this is NOT a world-class Salome, this performance is a gulf apart from the great, memorable interpreters of this role (and I’m not even thinking of legends like Welitsch, Goltz, Varnay, Nilsson, or Rysanek; Denoke, Stemme, Naglestad are a hundred times better).
  If Voigt just had the slightest bit of healthy self-criticism, she would not do this to herself. She is exposing all her weaknesses and faults, and one can not help to compare her to “Voigt before surgery” and come to the conclusion that she was a million times better then, and that what is left now is a seriously damaged voice over which she has lost control.
  The most frightening part, however, is for me, that she is still scheduled for Minnie and ALL THREE (!!!) Brünnhildes at the MET. How in the world is she going to sing that on an international level? Of course Tommasini will write (wait! I’m sure he has written that review already) that her Brünnhilde is the greatest, most impressive achievement of Wagner singing since young Flagstad emerged on the scene. But in my humble opinion the MET should hire Stemme instead. For Minnie AND Brünnhilde.

  on August 5, 2010 at 8:46 AM
  • quoth the maven says:

    No, he will write what he always writes: a paragraph about her weight loss (which happened six years ago), ending with a comment about although the voice has changed, she is nonetheless a worthy Brunhilde, maintaining her status as one of the world’s leading dramatic sopranos.

    on August 5, 2010 at 10:02 AM
    • kashania says:

      Quoth: That is probably an accurate word-for-word prediction!!

      on August 5, 2010 at 4:21 PM
  • Camille says:

    Thanks a million. Billy B. For saying, in an intelligent and humane manner and not an ad hominem, what needs to be said. It is far beyond being just sad at this point, and no one knows quite what to say.
    I vote for Stemme for Brunnhilde but think Westbroek has a slightly better placement for Minnie.

    All I know is that there will be a lot of “because of illness” inserts coming up for those performances. Who will actually sing what and when, is wide open to speculation and anyone’s guess.

    on August 5, 2010 at 11:27 PM
• Olivero is my Drug of Choice says:

  The current state of the voice of La Voigt:
  

  on August 5, 2010 at 9:09 AM
  • schweigundtanze says:

    The most disturbing thing about that is her breath control. Why is she gasping for breath so badly after only a couple of notes? Yikes.

    on August 5, 2010 at 3:41 PM