Till we meet again!
La Cieca will next post from the dear old Deutschland, cher public!
Cher Public
- MrGuy1804: You are right on the money. I was not terribly impressed with any of the singing. There were a few... 12:29 AM
- Camille: That was fun, thanks! I had completely forgotten Eastern Airlines, the Wings of Man. With a name like... 12:22 AM
- Henry Holland: Thanks! Too bad they didn’t do Der Zwerg instead of the (wonderful) Puccini. The LA Opera... 12:09 AM
- Camille: Thanks Blue, for the review. Lord, what are “earthy colorings”? 12:06 AM
- Gualtier M: Here is Carmelita Pope in the actual 70′s era Pam commercial at 2:36 in: httpv://www.you... 12:03 AM
- CruzSF: kashania, please tell us more about these performances. Who? How presented? And don’t neglect the... 12:03 AM
- bluecabochon: Lucky you, Bob! I;d see it again if I could. Here’s TT’s New York Times review:... 11:53 PM
- kashania: HH: I thought of you tonight while watching the COC’s double of Florentine Tragedy and Gianni... 11:28 PM
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I was at Queen of Spades last night and Mr. Jordan’s NY Post review said it all. The night belonged to the baritones — Alexey Markov was great. Why haven’t the fellows at Barihunks discovered him…..just wondering. Hope you’re enjoying your trip, La C.
Vocal cords age lke the rest of the body tissues. It’s unrealistic for any singer, e.g Mattila, to perform at the same level as they did 25 years ago unless you’re Domingo! The question remains: how long a singer will sing after the onset of the vocal decline?
Zerbinetta (at 20.4.1.1.1.), you are so right! I too have had the tafelspitz at Plachutta’s Hietzing branch…
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/PlachuttaHietzing.jpg[/img]
… following a visit to the nearby Schönbrunn Palace…
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Schoenbrunn’sChristmasmarket.jpg[/img]
… and I completely agree that, à la our very own Irish stew, the general idea is that you stretch the modest ingredients to give the impression of good living. [Not that the bill at Plachutta would suggest that one is in the impoverished Emerald Isle.]
And by the way, Happy Saint Patrick’s Day in case I am to overocme to tune in tomorrow. Did you know that he is also the patron saint of Nigeria – where they also brew Guinnness?
I believe that the Café Am Schottenring also does top tafelspitz, though I have not tried it.
OMG it is now 10.45pm Stuttgarter Zeit, La C must be spinning out of her latest Karmeneregiexperience…
Now I am certain that I got the gaps out of the way for that palatial view…
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Schoenbrunn.jpg[/img]
….but just to be sure…
I had a fantastic Tafelspitz years ago at the cafe in the Hotel Imperial, but it might have been a bit chic’ed up. I had another, more robust one last summer in a nice art deco-ish cafe (quite well known, I think – vaguely literary) not far from the Judenplatz. The temperature was about 35 Centigrade, so I was crazy to be eating such a heavy dish, but it is one of those things I have to eat in Vienna, along with Kipferl and Plunder of various kinds.
Monty, did you sample the Imperial Torte when dining chez Imperial? It uses marzipan instead of apricot in the filling. I stayed one year in the Bristol Hotel (same ownership as the Imperial), and received a mini Imperial Torte as a departing gift – it didn’t last all the way to the airport!
Not so keen on Imperial Torte, I’m afraid
I tend to prefer the more ‘heimisch’ cakes — the ones with fruit, nuts, poppyseed and curd cheese …
A year in the Bristol must have cost a FORTUNE. I had dinner at the Korso restaurant once in the late 80s and that delightful man Kurt Waldheim was on the next table. I nearly shoved his face into his food.
Sorry for my poor wording; should have been: “One year, I stayed at the Bristol (for four days)….”
(and good for you re: Waldslime)!
I thought maybe you were like the Waldners in Arabella. Did you have a beautiful daughter who needed to be brought out in society?
No lovely daughter (the “beauty” gene, unfortunately, seems to have passed over my family).
But I did find a “Richtige” once at the St. Francis Hotel a few lifetimes ago…
“Das ist ein Fall von anderer Art”
I have never been to the Café am Schottenring! I will have to rectify this. I should get out to Hietzing again, too, I haven’t been there since Christmas-market time–judging from that photo I gather that was when you were there as well.
I wish you a happy St. Paddy’s as well, though I am not Irish and have not yet seen a sign of it in Wien. But last Sunday I saw a… highly unexpected Irish party in Odeonsplatz in Munich. They do like their beer there.
Today is also the birthday of Teresa Berganza!
I think it’s kind of silly to say that the odd Mozart role would have done Mattila good, because she never really sang Mozart in a healthy way either. As I was saying a couple of weeks ago, she has *never* produced her voice with complete freedom and hence technical security, and so she was always going to experience above average wear and tear. I must say that I do think Manon Lescaut and Tosca caused her particular strain, and had she not done them she might be in better shape now, but I think the most obvious change in her vocal quality became apparent during that second run of Met Salomes. Still, a fabulous artist, a fabulous voice, and never less than convincing.
I was lucky enough to hear her Elsa and Chrystothemis in the mid-90s at Covent Garden, and they remain special memories to this day, along with her Elisabetta from the late 1990s, a Lisa from early this century, a Met Fidelio and several recitals. Her Brahms requiem number in Edinburgh was especially memorable, if mostly for her scarlet one-shouldered dress. Having seen her (very) little black dress when she did the 4 Last Songs the following evening, one could quite see why she opted for the red for the Brahms…
I’m forgetting her Ballo Amelia too (and possibly some other things) – worth catching, but as you can imagine, pretty odd.
Mattila is a star, and a handsome woman, but she dresses like a high-class Helsinki hooker.
I saw all those you mention at Covent Garden Cocky as well as Jenufa – I hope you saw that, it was really something special. Also Arabella with Km and Hampson (however maybe you are not supposed to say so but I find that opera a total bore.) Certainly her Elsa was unforgettable. I also saw her Ballo Amelia as I have said here before and it was not well-sung in any conventional sense but it was certainly a riveting star performance
Don’t tell anyone grimoaldo, but I agree with you. Arab ella has all the appeal of pork rolls at half time in the Synagogue.
Please send details of synagogues that offer half time.
Arabella is basically two duets. But what duets!
I can’t help you with that manou, but I know a local mosque with an amazing pre-game show.
The great thing about synagogues (the more traditional ones at least) is that you can pop in and out when you want, within reason. But the services do tend to go on a bit.
Though acutely aware of Arabella’s faults (overlong, a bit verbose, contrived plot, somewhat enigmatic heroine, clunky comedy, Fiakermilli), but I actually prefer the piece as a whole to Rosenkavalier.
I care more about the characters’ fates and find some of it almost unbearably touching. And armer, what about Arabella’s two big solos (‘Mein Elemer!’ und ‘Das war sehr gut, Mandryka’?)
In fact, only last night I was getting teary over this video extract — and I speak as someone who’s hardly a Janowitz or Solti fan generally. Weikl seems just perfect as Mandryka, though. (I saw him do the part opposite Popp. One of my great evenings.) What gets me every time is when all the turbulence resolves into that gorgeously serene music as Arabella makes her entrance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiHFJHW0-zQ
Ah yes Grimoaldo, I was present at the Arabella but I’m afraid to say I slept through most of it. And I had a ticket for Jenufa, but was expecting exam results to be published that evening and I was entirely too jittery to sit through the opera I’m afraid – I regret it now of course, particularly as it turned out I’d passed, but there you go.
That Arabella with Mattila and Hampson was awful. Dreadful production. If Arabella is played as a slapper, the piece really does become pointless. Strangely, Barbara Bonney — not a singer I usually find very sympathetic, though she’s a fine artist in her way — was the best thing in it. One really felt for her as Zdenka.
OT, but vocal oracle John Steane has died.
http://theclassicalreview.com/cds-dvds/2011/03/the-classical-review-contributor-john-steane-has-died/
No longer we will read of that “layer of wear and vocal impurity” that he claimed to hear in the voices of nearly all singers post-1965 or so. He was clearly a parterrian at heart!
Did she sing Amelia al Ballo and record it ? Must buy that
No no I meant her performance of the role of Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera at Covent Garden a few years back, sorry for any confusion.
Perhaps I’m just generalizing on the Mozart but really I didn’t hear any meaningful deterioration (someone mentioned the premiere of the 2000 Fidelio – but really while I wouldn’t call it effortless I really did not hear even that much strain – at least I’ve never heard the role sung live with less strain lbut a lot of beautiful tone) until that 2008 Salome.
And while I’m hardly qualified to challenge you on the specifics of her voice production there are a lot of people who seem to have suffered worse wear and tear in shorter careers singing less demanding roles.
in 2008 she was around 48 – so maybe the voice changed due to hormones
but let’s be frank – she was always a janacek, wagner, strauss voice
why the hell has she NOT done Marschallin????
Earlier in her career she could have been a wonderful, wonderful Octavian, too- but nobody casts sopranos any more.
… maybe because she’s not that great with detailed pointing of the text …
I remember her doing a pretty good Donna Elvira in Washington back in the 80′s. I think that was her US debut. Renato Bruson was the Don and I think Barenboim was conducting.
I don’t understand. Why should a singer who sings Ballo Amelia be damaged by Tosca? I thought Amelia was the biggest dramatic role in the Italian repertoire. If you can do that, why not Tosca and *shudder* Manon?
No way.
OK. I should have said Verdi rep. Even granting that Amelia is not the biggest, it’s pretty big. Certainly bigger than Tosca which even lyric sopranos have been able to do. I don’t see why she can’t do Tosca if she can do Amelia.
By the way, hasn’t she done a Simon Boccanegra as well? So she is good in Verdi rep but not Puccini. There maybe reasons for that but she’s not totally ruled out in Italian rep.
“I thought Amelia was the biggest dramatic role in the Italian repertoire.”
I’d vote for Gioconda with the Forza Leonora, Abigaille (sung the way we expect it sung today), and even Aida close behind.
Regarding Mattila, I already heard some strain in the voice the nights I saw her in the premiere run of Fidelio in 2000 and as Chrysothemis at the Met.
Well, Mattila is 51, a time when a lot of female voices go south. But her tone for as long as I’ve heard had a tendency to whiten and spread on top. The lack of warmth in the middle was a reason why she never really sounded at home in a lot of the bread and butter Italian rep. It was never really the most beautiful, plangent voice. I think it used to have a kind of sharp brilliance, whereas nowadays she sounds more shrill.
AHA! Arianna a Nasso —
You are the first one I’ve seen say this and I have always been feared to, but now I will. I think Fidelio was one size too large for her, although she tried to sing it along Mozartian lines, and for sure, the Chrysothemis needs more steel in the voice, a la Debbie, to cut through that loud damn orchestra.
My number one vote is Gioconda, and then Aida. Turandot depends on the tessitura–if you’ve got a high placement, it is a “holiday” part as Birgit Nilsson called it. Abigaille, is just a bitch. Needs a Deutekom. Sorry if you all disagree but that’s what I think.
Did you really find the Fidelio too big for her? I agree that she sang it in a Mozartean way. And frankly, I think that’s the way a fair bit of the role can be sung. I prefer good-sized voices for Fidelio but they don’t need to be Brunnhilde-size voices. I saw her sing it live at the Met and she created quite a sensation.
Kashania, and I have only noticed this now and only bother to respond (as I have gone from being ill to nearly collapsing in the airport yesterday) because I have been ruminating on her Fidelio for the last ten years and have asked myself over and over what it was that she lacked for me in her interpretattion. And yes, I saw the performances on three occasions, one particularly fine one, in which good old Big Ben sang that fiendish tessitura of his in an exemplary manner, and most nobly.
Nobility, or a lack of a sort of uplifted feminine compassion was what was not big enough for me. I never had the slightest doubt that the Mattila Leonore would lose her struggle, sucha crafty and wiley strategist was that Fidelio. Whereas,e.g., With the L.A. interpretation of Anja Kampe, there was doubt this poor woman would succeed, one felt her plight and sympathised.
Another thing that bugged me was that she got a lot of publicity for cutting her “strahlendes blondes Haar” for the part, and dyeing it brown. Really. Big deal. Seemed like a ploy to me. Lots of sopranos have played it with cap on, to do the old Wilhelmine Schroeder- Devrient trick of throwing it off at the big moment when she reveals her true identity.
Likewise, she showed little reluctance to remove that “strahlendes blondes Haar” from another portion of her anatomy, for Salome, which I did not see as I don’t go to the opera to view female pudenda. Just not my thing.
Like many others here on parterre.
The original Leonore, who sang in the first edition, I believe in the second, and in the final,third, and successful edition in 1815 was one Anna Milder-Hauptmann, about whose voice Papa Haydn uttered “My dear, your voice is the size of a house!” My absolute ideal voice of Fidelio was Frieda Lieder.
Short story: Mattila’s Fidelio was no sensation with me. She never convinced me of being Leonore, only Karita Mattila out to ambitiously amp up and promote her career.
Sorry, dearest Camille, but nothing needs a Deutekom, queen of the coloratura gargle/yodel.
Monty -- have you seen this Queen of the Night clip? I was so glad mr. Tukrom finally posted it -- much later than the recording she is singing along with, of course, but still…
Buster, whatever people say about Moser — and however well or badly she sang other repertoire (she’s not a singer whose other work I know well) — that Queen of the Night is the best I’ve heard. I know Popplet sings it divinely, but she’s far too lovable. Moser has a raw, aggressive power there that is really quite alarming. Yes, Damrau has that aggression too, but she still sounds like a conventional coloratura soprano, not a jugendlich-dramatisch with a thrilling high extension.
Could not agree more Monty.
A lot of things go south at that age, fellows, so give us girls a break.
She is an excellent artist but she has been singing for twenty-five years and that takes a toll on even a Sutherland with a throat of steel.
I’m just grateful for the few times I have seen her and she was at her best. Particularly that Carnegie Hall concert. I can still remember how she sang the song of Duparc “Le pays ou se fait guerre”, in a most beautiful and pasionate manner.
And the most fabulous of all encores, she took off her shoes, padded out on the stage and launched into Marlena Dietrich’s “Golden Earnings”. Such a fun moment and a golden memory.
OMG–i just noticed the typo blooper of “Goldern EarNings”. Of course, in Dietrich’s'case, there were copious golden earnings, but the song Mattila sang so memorably as an encore was “Golden EaRRings”.
Dietrich was SO funny in that movie being a zigeunermaedchen!
I’m sure Golden Earnings were very much on Marlene’s mind (and ears) too.
httpv://manhattan.ny1.com/content/features/135534/one-on-1--renee-fleming-ascends-career-in-opera
Fave quote: “I wasn’t one of those people who needed to sing…. I just needed to be successful at something.”
OT – Lucia sounds fantastic. Also, Lauren Toolagen (sp?) subbing for Margaret and he is having a ball; he and will are a riot – also they just interviewed the hilarious MET assistant conductor Gregory Buchalter. Having fun tonight at the MET…
i was at the met tonight — dessay made me go back to see her. again, she brought the house down after the mad scene. even when the voice does not respond to the vocal demands of the music, she’s a fascinating, mesmerizing performer — her intensity and total identification with the character are stunning. you just can’t take your eyes off her, even during her silent acting. it took her half an act to get the voice warmed up and going, she started sort of croaking some ugly sounds, but midway in act I, she hit her stride. unfort. she arrives at the high notes rather effortfully — and often they are thin and strained in softer passages. but she’s a magnetic performer and stage animal, she seems to give 110% of herself onstage. i was tense imagining how would the voice hold up to the end, but she did it. (i wish i had heard her 5 yrs ago, i suppose at her “prime”?) at the curtain call, she again curtsied deeply to conductor summers before bringing him onstage. but i worry about her future engagements (puritani? hmmm…), whether she’ll have any voice left. in any case, her lucia is far more watchable and fascinating than netrebko’s.
tezier had a somewhat constricted and shallow tone — at least initially, he got better as the evening went on. unfortunately his enrico seems more creepy rather than menacing — he has a somewhat dettached demeanor (which last week made me think enrico seemed more drunk than anything else).
calleja is a tremendously elegant singer — in that sense, he reminds me of bergonzi — the voice is quite attractive, slightly covered tone, with a fast vibrato. he could afford to take some acting lessons from natalie though.
i don’t hate the staging. i think some of mary zimmerman’s touches were quite clever, such as the fussy wedding photographer (if slightly distracting).
all in all another good night at the opera (but i did miss the glass harmonica).
and again, what’s up with those interminable intermissions? how is it that lucia starts at 8pm and ends at 11:45pm? it’s ridiculous.
does anyone else think that lucia is a role that la rad should attempt? i mean, technically she has all the goods, it’s just a question of the temperament. can she do mad convincingly? (her toscas were rather lukewarm, so i have my doubts in that department.)
I don’t know about Rad as Lucia. I don’t think her tone is right for the part. And Lucia spends a lot of time up high. Rad has the facility up there but I wonder if her voice would thank her for sustaining that high tessitura. She has said that she would like to concentrate on the dramatic bel canto roles (like the Donizetti Queens and Norma). And apparently, she was quite a good Lucrezia at the WNO. I think that’s the right direction for her.
I think Kashania is right that Lucia would be a disaster for Rad, not just because of the sustained high tessitura in places, but also because I think she fundamentally lacks the ability to spin lines with the requisite pliancy (morbidezza, if you must) for moments like ‘verrano a te’.
Where I don’t agree with Kashania is where he says that the dramatic coloratura roles like the Donizetti Queens etc are a good idea for her. I also think these have too many problems – recorded evidence of her Lucrezia Borgia is pretty trying, for me at least, with dreadfully inaccurate coloratura (give me Netrebko any day) and that really unlovely, tense sound that is completely unsuitable for the tender moments in bel canto, and the persistent intonation trauma.
I’d actually find her easiest to appreciate in Rysanek type roles I think – I do find the scale of the voice thrilling, and it really has a cut to it – maybe Sieglinde, Ortrud and such like are what she should be gearing up towards.
She’s an unpredictable singer, difficult to pin down. The best singing I’ve ever heard from her, for example, was in the totally unexpected role of Angelica.
I went again to LUCIA tonight….really wonderful performance. The HD should be spectacular. I think JJ and his boytoy Zachary Woolfe really missed the mark on this one. Dessay, imho, is absolutely mesmerizing…completely in character and committed throughout. The men were wonderful vocally but not in her league dramatically.
As for the long intermissions…it’s pretty well understood that this is a purposeful action taken by the backstage staff to stick it to Gelb who is looking to cut perks and benefits in the next contract (and overtime payments in the current one). Joe Volpe was very good about drawing the line with singers and directors…but his friends backstage and in the technical unions (including his own son!) were always very well take care of and they don’t want to see the gravy train come to an end. Ergo, the “slow down” tactics at every intermission.
I just wonder how they think this it is going to do their cause any good by making the intermissions a ridiculous length and the performances end in the middle of the night? Do they want everyone to decide to stay at home?
Lucia is scheduled to run for 3 hrs and 40 so it does not sound to me that anyone is dragging the intermissions in this case.
Yeah, but according to my synopsis, Lucia is only about 2hrs 10 of music, so even allowing for slow conducting a 3hr 40 evening is a long haul. And not only is it irritating for the audience, you’re also starting to bump into overtime issues for everyone (hence the strong rumours of ‘slowdowns’ backstage).
I love Dessay, but my favourite part of the evening was Zajick giving an Inuit throat singing masterclass in the OB booth.
i left the LC plaza at around 11:55 last night and got home at 1:15am. and i live in bklyn!!! do they think about folks that have long way to go? i was chatting up with a mother and son from upstate. they drove 2 hours to stand in the rush line, and what time are they getting home?