It Came from Beyond the Ramparts of Seville
The first opera film to be presented in 3D, Carmen , shows up on screens worldwide (and in New York City, too) on March 3. And some lucky member of the cher public will have the opportunity to view this milestone in cinematic opera, as the guest of La Cieca! Details after the jump.
All you have to do, cher public, is to offer an appreciation of your favorite Carmen, Don Jose, Escamillo or Micaela in the comments below, and the author of the best comment (by determination of our panel of experts) will be awarded two tickets for Carmen 3D at 1:00 pm March 3 at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan’s trendy “Upper West Side” district.
Write hard, cher public, write hard! (La Cieca does ask that if you enter the competition seriously, you should be available to attend the March 3 showing; there are no exchanges available.)
Not Bizet, but Handel (OT), whose birthday today seems to have gone uncelebrated
This is not meant as a criticism, but as a suggestion or perhaps a reminder. La Cieca is always more than eager to hear your tips and ideas for subjects that should be covered on parterre.com. All you have to do is to send an email to lacieca@parterre.com with a quick line or two about what’s upcoming or noteworthy. There’s even a “TIPS” link in the header on every parterre page (just above the final “e” in “parterre”) that will automatically create an email to send to La Cieca.
Remember, parterre.com is your site too, cher public, and La Cieca always wants to hear from you!
La all-lovely Cieca brings tears to my eyes with her kind remonstrances and godly admonitions. More, please, ma’am!
There’s another film of Carmen-circa 1970?-with Migenes, Domingo and Raimondi. Not bad. Who sang Micaela in that production? Does anybody remember?
Faith Esham
Circa 1970 --> 1984.
Dr. Papas, you’re being as accurate as Anna Netrebko in her PURITANI coloratura!
I hope the video embedding works, I’ve never done it before. Also, I’m not eligible to win (not that I would anyways), but here goes:
Although I don’t like Celine at all, I think that a lot of mezzos could learn from this performance. I find it uncliched, natural, quite sexy, fresh, and obviously, she has excellent diction.
The person who I really want to hear sing Carmen is Joyce DiDonato. I am probably biased and would listen to her sing Wotan, but I think that she would certainly be able to sing the role very intelligently and in a non-cliched way while maintaining a close rapport with her audience and being noticed without taking over the stage.
You know that Celine does have a bit of a La Divina obsession, so much so she was considering starring in a biopic. I believe she has since been convinced not to do so.
Hearing Celine sing in French is hearing a whole other singer. She actually sounds here like a good exponent of French chanson with good style. Perhaps that old pimp she married turned her into a piece of pop plastic.
Debussy plays debussy
Too good for words: War and Peace:
Q: Sergei Sergeyevich, maybe you’ll tell our listeners about your work?
A: Well… Currently I’m working on a? symphonic suite of waltzes which will include: 3 waltzes from “Cinderella”, 2 from “War & Peace” and one from the film “Lermontov”… …we recently produced in Leningrad, with great success, in which the composer Chizko distinguished himself as a tenor, wonderfully playing Pierre Bez’uhov. Besides this suite I’m writing a sonata for violin and piano, upon which completion I’ll work on
This was Celine before her chin got bigger.
Bet the sleeves wound up as drapes in the lounge room.
#22.2,
You missed the ? after 1970.
Wow, that’s one hardworking question mark.
I don’t know Dr. Papas’s age, but I know that in my own current estate, the time elapsed between 1970 and 1984 seems not much more than that between breakfast and lunch.
I know -- cannot believe this is almost 25 years ago:
Time for all the golden oldies here to nod sadly -- besides which I have a lot of affection for Constantine, who seems to get a lot of unwarranted stick. In fact I feel like a Mama to his Papas.
one of my favorite movies of all times, up there with “happy together.” while i love tony leung chiu-wai, takeshi kaneshiro made me want to watch the movie over and over again…
(not in the running)
A fun Italian take on a French Spaniard:
(Betcha didn’t know you just cannot omit that high C in Micaela’s aria!)
è bella, buona, brava ….
There’s no C in Micaela’s aria. Her highest written note, near the end of the first verse is a B natural.
Ribetta adds an additional note near the very end, this was a fairly common interpolation up until the mid 20th century, but it’s certainly not a C. Not exactly sure
but I think it’s a Bflat or else an A.
And if you are going to add an interpolated note, you might as well make it as showy as possible
Wow Richard! That’s amazing, if in slightly bad taste.
You’re right, it’s a B-flat -- I didn’t realize there was also an extra “pieta” in there as well!
C-flat to C, extra D, high B-flat, D to E-flat.
Interpolating a B flat used to be common until the 60′s or so. I believe Albanese did it at the Met. I have a recording of Freni doing it in Italy. That’s one interpolated note that I can do withuot.
what High C ? I dont hear a high C and I’m sitting at the piano.
Yes, thank you. Already sorted.
I loved Troyanos.She was a truly great singer,but I saw her at the ROH as Carmen and she was not at all convincing.She made the mistake of many singers of trying too hard to be seductive,and hyperactive.I’m sure Crespin was too matronly to pull off the role ,but reading descriptions of her performance she was one of the few to undestand that after the card scene Carmen becomes passively accepting of her fate.I only heard Borodina do it in concert but I thought she understand this aspect of the role and she did’nt do any of that cliche snarling in the last scene.My favorite Micaela was Sutherland, Don Jose Vickers,and Escamillo van Dam.