Intermission feature
Here’s the place, cher public, where you can talk about anything that enters your pretty little heads during the first week of August.
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
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- 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
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Happy 85th birthday bass-bartione Theo Adam
Happy 80th birthday tenor and teacher Nico Castel
. . . and yours truly also celebrates another one today . . .
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WINDY!!
Happy Solar Return, and may you have many more happy ones!
I appreciate you taking the time to post the birthdays of these many notables. It is good to remember where we coming from.
anyone know when manhattan school of music will announce its productions for the upcoming year?
Anyone know when George Steel is getting out of his breakfast meeting with Agma?
QPF: thanks so much …
…usually , by mid to late August, whatever….
thanks, BP. i kind of thought it was overdue, but i must be addled. i know juilliard announced already …
it appears from msm’s performance calendar (currently loaded through the end of the calendar year) that the fall production will be cosi fan tutte in december … hope the programming proves a little more inspired for the spring!
Whatever:
While “Cosi” is not necessarily one of my “favs” ..I DO find, more times then not, that when I see a “warhorse” such as that done by a group of fresh young student-Artists.. it has opened my eyes..and is almost …for ME.. like seeing and listening to the work anew..I tend not to be all that wild for most of Mozart’s Operas, to begin with (DUCKING…..)..BUT..WHEN I saw “DON CIOVANNI” last month, with Martina Arroyo’s students performing.. it ACTUALLY MADE ME LIKE a work I thought that I didn’t…!!…and I have found the same when I see some of the “usual suspect” rep done at MSM/Mannes/ or Juilliard…
Also…I have found that MSM doesn’t announce a lot of their “Opera Workshop” progtams..(.uusually under the directorship of the wonderful Dona D. Vaughan.)..until much later in the academic year… and these programs are usually..FREE…ADVENTURE-SOME…AND WONDERFUL..!
i agree — seeing a group of very talented young artists bring energy and fresh perspective to an ABC can be invigorating … it’s sort of what regietheater would be like if it worked!!!
still, i’ve always found cosi a particularly frustrating opera — the plot borders on offensive … i prefer to just listen to the music.
chacun a son gout, i reckon.
i just like it better when MSM does the rarities …
I thought this might be of some interest here as a contemporary first-hand report of performances from the “Golden Age” that those few Parterrians who were there can now only recall through the rosy mists of hindsight. It’s in a letter from an old buddy and opera lover who died last week.
He and a friend supered for a Nilsson Turandot matinee, then stayed and witnessed Domingo’s unexpected Met debut. The letter is dated Sept. 29, 1968:
“[Friend] and I were banner-bearers in Turandot with Nilsson, Tucci, Konya, Michalski and Mehta. We were two of the six fools who stand behind the Emperor during Acts II & III. We were magnificent as always. Birgit was more than we were prepared for. Her technique is really perfect. Not a trace of any insecurity or uneasiness. The very top of the voice, which we certainly heard lots of, sounds bigger and even more effortless and overwhelming than it does on any record so far. The character has changed perceptibly since the Angel recording. There is no more doubt as to whether she has really softened or not. She has inserted even more ppps, and to hear what she can do with a voice like hers is really amazing. […] Konya was so terrible that right before the big hernia duet in Act III, he came over to us for no apparent reason, and started to tell us about how he had just had a flu shot yesterday, and was leaving for Europe the next day, and he was having flu after-effects, but “wasn’t-it-stupid-that-one-must-do-all-of-these-scheduled-performances-even-if-one-was-dying-and-trying-to-catch-a-plane.” Then he ran onstage and got even more hoarse than he was when he said all of that to us. […] Tucci was quite good vocally, we couldn’t see much of her from the wings, but it sounded dramatic. Her ppp B-flats were most tasty.
“Adriana was playing in the evening and we got cheapies for it. Lucky we didn’t have to pay more than a couple of dollars. IT WAS THE WORST CRAP I HAVE EVER SEEN. Corelli cancelled, naturally. Irene Dalis was in good voice and temper, but had nothing to do. The replacement tenor was Placido Domingo making his debut. He was really fantastic in many ways, musically, dramatically, and courage-wise too. (He was due to debut on Wednesday, but filled in on 20 min. notice.) Now for the bitter truth. Renata [Tebaldi] was just lousy. Her return to voice, which the critics had praised, and all the fans had been yelling about, was a giant step backwards. She has a bit more velvet and float than the last year or so, but she was almost consistently flat, to a degree seldom equaled even by her own recordings. Poveri fiori was like a …. I really don’t know what to call it. She should have just belted it out and stayed on pitch like last year, it was really about the saddest night at the opera I could imagine. The only thing was we got to see her come into the theater, before the ‘show’(?). She looked better than I had ever seen her. She was really stunning. [Our friend]’s mind was fractured by her flame pink coat and her incredible figure and just general style. It was really a sad night.”
Fascinating, Batty. It seems like some of the 40 year old memories around here are, in fact, a little hazy (and wrong). No surprise. It’s human nature and physiological; memories are not immutable. This letter is an interesting peek into the past.
Thank you so much for sharing this, for all sorts of reasons. Not just the whiff of ‘plus ca change’, but also for the wonderful image of the star tenor wandering upstage to kvetch with the extras about having to sing! Of course, singers *these days* have no respect for the work, the composer and the audience…
thanks Batty, excellent letter, it confirms what I always thought of both Nilsson and Tebaldi, having heard them on recording only, unfortunately. Tebaldi never impressed me and was a bit overrated in my view. And what a disappointment to get Domingo instead of Corelli, a real tenor.
speaking of overrated, Ramey reacted to the telecast of Comte d’Ory on Facebook by saying something like Florez had absolutely nothing on Rockwell Blake and got some heated replies, most agreeing with him. I wholeheartedly agree with Ramey in this case.
That’s interesting. I also agree, and give him credit for saying so.
It’s a fairly sterile argument, though, given that Blake has been retired for six years. I prefer Marilyn Horne to Joyce di Donato. Cool. So where does that get us?
So your point? No one’s supposed to be compared to Carreras because he’s retired or to Callas because she’s dead? Ridiculous.
No, the point is that we have the singers we have. Thinking that Rockwell Blake was better in the role 20 years ago doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy someone else singing the part today.
“I prefer Marilyn Horne to Joyce di Donato.”
Neither is a *patch* on Pat Kern!
Sorry to hear about your old buddy’s demise. Thanks for posting his letter (from the year I first moved to NYC). Your buddy was an excellent writer and a keen observer.
– It was so good to read about Tucci again on this site. She didn’t record very well, but in the house her voice had a special dynamic quality to it.
– I saw that Adriana, too, with Domingo & Tebaldi. But the night I went it was Regina Resnik instead of Irene Dalis as the Principesse.
How was Resnik that night?
I hadn’t heard Resnik for a couple years, since she did Azucena at War Memorial SFO, which she had sung and acted very well (with a pronounced degree of subtlety, by the way).
– I had never heard Adriana Lecouvreuer or even a recording of it, so I was sort of taken aback by (what sounded to my ears in those days) the grand, wide, post-Wagnerian verismo vocal line Resnik delivered in ‘Acerba voluttà’. Her tone had lost color since I had seen her as Azucena, commensurate to her volume getting larger. But in spite of the role ‘having nothing to do’, Resnik was the biggest personality on that stage.
– She belted it out with a huge, white sound all the more stark in contrast to her dictatorial, riveting chest tones. That was it. There wasn’t much in-between.
– Subtlety? Who cared. It was in the grand old style of singing I had only heard on recordings of Bruna Castagna and Ebe Stignani. She and Tebaldi were perfectly matched in the duet in the finale of Act 2. To my eyes and ears, only Ethel (‘I can sing louder than you’) Merman could rival that kind of performing style.
Sounds riveting. Sometimes our favorite singers have nights (or eras) where their drama is stronger than their vocalism. Such moments need not be complete disappointments (although obviously, they are far less than ideal). I already have at least one such experience in my record-book, after only 9 years.
Thank you, phoenix. Reading his letters is almost like having one last good visit. I wonder what people will do when they can only have text messages to look back on?
Irene Dalis? The Principessa I actually don’t mind but last night on Sirius I heard her Lady Mac and it has the most spectacularly WRONG D flat in the history of bel canto, alongside a Big Mac in his early, pearly prime. He sang so easily!!
Dalis has to be heard to be believed on a few of those phrases…truly scary.
She smokes like a chimney, from what I’ve heard, and still does. How did she, Della Casa and Fischer-Dieskau (and Stratas too) stay in good vocal shape?
Very intersting to read a contemporary account, thanks!
But to be fair, Tebaldi is frequently criticised for her flat singing today. It’s not as if everyone looks back at the Golden Age and declares every performance a masterpiece. The only thing I ever hear about that 1967 Adriana is that it was the occasion of Domingo’s Met debut and helped to launch his international career.
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/adrianadomingotebaldisoox0.png[/img]
For those who are interested:
Tomorrow Aug.2 at 8:00pm (2:00pm EST), France Musique will be broadcasting from Chorégies d’Orange a live performance of Rigoletto with a very italianate, luxury cast:
Leo Nucci, Vittorio Grigolo, Patrizia Ciofi.
Here is the link:
http://sites.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/em/concert-soir/emission.php?e_id=80000056&dd=20110802
Absolutely worth listening to – if only for Ciofi who was absolutely sensational on Saturday. Nucci – hmmm certainly worth watching, but his voice is 69 after all. Grigoletto terrible ham acting (think provincial opera in Bari), but in good voice (no repeat in “Possente Amor” cabaletta. Also….encore for “Si, Vendetta”. Only hope mistral better than Saturday.
Brava. I LOVE Ciofi, so nice to hear!!!
I was just watching a production of La Fille du Regiment with Devia and Podles, and I have come to the conclusion that the Marquise of Berkinfeld would be a great role for Domingo.
That’s actually a very funny idea. Domingo or not, would the Met ever consider casting a male singer in drag as the Marquise? They’ve already got men in maids’ costumes dusting the furniture at the beginning of the second act. (And think of the possibilities for his/her interpolated song.) Still, I’d love it if they could coax Caballe back to New York to do it.
But wouldn’t Domingo consider it beneath the dignity of opera’s CEO to appear in drag, or to do anything comic onstage? Otherwise he would have done it by now. (The nearest I can think of him being funny onstage was Danilo in the Met’s Merry widow, which I missed–was he the least bit fun in the role?)
… and he would be prettier than Podles.
Voigt Lessons:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/arts/music/voigt-lessons-deborah-voigt-at-glimmerglass-review.html?_r=1&src=tp
Oh. Dear. God. I
Another:
http://www.timesunion.com/entertainment/article/Voigt-performance-touches-audience-1681653.php
Accidental early post-
I can not tell if this is going to be the most horrifying camp nightmare this side of Liza in Sex and the City 2 or the most spectacular camp extravaganza since Mariah Carey’s recent HSN appearance. I have a sinking feeling its going to be the former. To me, the greatest one woman show of all time is Lena Horne: The Lady and her Music. While Ms. Horne’s monologues could ramble on a bit here and there, her description of the painful discrimination she experienced in Hollywood throughout her career (first race, then age) were as humorous as they were painful. They also were not written to eek out sympathy from a public as, for example, Ms. Horne starred in major Hollywood releases and new theater productions as Ms. Voigt has been doing at the world’s largest opera houses in recent season. Most importantly, Lena’s stories were accompanied by a series of vocal performances where every word and note was flicked with years of experience, learning, joy and pain. Like the following.
Or this,
I’m the last person to say that someone who has struggled with addiction should never air their issues. But there’s a kind of conceit in transforming that pain into a revenue stream while you’re actually still in the midst of an incredibly successful opera career and where (but for the black dress) few opportunities have been taken away from you. Moreover, there are really important forums were other recovering addicts help each other by sharing their expereince, strength and hope…and its not Glimmerglass. Its called an AA, NA or OA meeting room where speakers are often encouraged to come. I don’t know, it just all seems incredibly premature to me and, in a sad way, incredibly self absorbed which is the root of any addicts disease.
I have no ability – or right – to discuss addiction issues, but the show itself has been received well, it seems, so I don’t worry about your Liza analogy. You do make good points… but none of us knows what DV does in any of those other forums (except, from the review she obviously participates).
There is something to be said for using your experience to inspire others…taking something that was horrible and using it for something good… but, of course, we don’t know the intention.
I think the only real qualifier for whether someone should write a book is whether anyone wants to publish it.
I was unaware of any kind of rulebook relating to age/experience/stage in career. It is judgmental, pre-emptive and absurd to criticise someone for the crime of daring to write a fucking autobiography.
AJ (and Bosah)–
Every one may not have a “right ” to sing, to expose their past history or to write, (autobiographies or anything else.) I’ll leave that discussion to my betters. However, I note that everyone seems to have a “right” to HATE, HATE, HATE! We have hate for not only DV in any role (including that of a writer) but also Placido (ditto in any role, tenor, baritone, conductor or director) Steel, the NYCO, the NYCO union, scoopers (you know who,) machine gun staccatos, old singers who are washed up, young singers who have much to learn and, in the case of a couple of posters (no longer present, thanks to LC’s final loss of tolerance,) anyone who express a contrary opinion.
Ah this is what makes Parterre so challenging! You have to wade through the manure to get the gems.
Can you remind the rest of us of the objective standard by which criticism is labeled fair vs. mean? As is, it seems its primarily based upon which singers/conductors/NYCO directors one favors or disfavors.
ON- I have no real opinion on Voigt one way or another. I’ve never heard her live and she largely sings a rep which doesn’t interest me.
So I’m baffled that you should reply to me with talk of ‘favor or disfavor’.
I’ll make it clear to you: I think it is dumb to slag someone off for writing an autobiography, whether I like their singing or not. I’d run screaming from the room covering my ears if, say, Nadja Michael came in, but the woman has a perfect right to write her lifestory without people writing it off as a ‘horrifying camp nightmare’ before a single word is written.
AJ,
Was your comment directed to me?
Another very positive….
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/music/deborah-voigt-shimmers-at-glimmerglass/article2116432/
The result is an absolute gem and a theatrical love-in. Voigt wins the audience with her vulnerability, honesty and, most of all, her ability to laugh at herself.
Not exactly a review, more of a notice that a show took place and gosh darn, we all had a great time.
I was at Glimmerglass last weekend but I could not bring myself to go see this. The Thursday night Medea audience was informed that tickets were still available.
I did see Annie Get Your Gun and do not understand the favourable reviews. I agree that everyone looked like they were having fun, but in my opinion Voigt should not be singing these kind of roles. Someone needs to tell her to stop. She lacks the sweetness of tone and light touch required for the bright tunes. I enjoy the Merman/Peters versions of these tunes, but have little patience with the show as a whole. I really dislike it when racist references are included and performed tongue in cheek, with a broad wink to the audience as if to say “We are all clever enough to see how wrong headed these people were when they wrote this part of the show”. Yet, judging from the laughs, many find the jokes still work. They made me cringe.
I will return to Glimmerglass next year, but I will skip The Music Man. If the goal is to preserve these american musicals in moth balls I have no interest in seeing them. If they do not have something original to say why say anything at all?
‘Voigt should not be singing these kinds of roles’ is one of the most frequently repeated sentences on this board, regardless of the roles in question, it seems. Not Italianate enough, too brittle for Ariadne, not dramatic enough for Brunnhilde. I think she’s doing the right thing cashing in every which way frankly, the way she gets written off day after day.
Here is a review from the Editor in Chief of Theatermania, who I guess should know whether she “should be singing these roles.”
http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-state/news/08-2011/gun-it-to-glimmerglass_39435.html
Voigt manages to portray Annie’s naivete and lack of guile effortlessly, and once Annie wises up, she’s got sass and brass to spare. Indeed, it’s on the show’s uptempo and comic numbers — “Anything You Can Do,” “I’ve Got the Sun in the Morning,” and “I’m An Indian Too” — where Voigt shines brightest, tearing into the lyrics with abandon (not to mention excellent diction). She does a lovely job, too, on “Moonshine Lullaby,” aided by an adorable passel of children and those three harmonizing trainmen.
And ON, Lipton discusses Voigt Lessons, too. He uses the Elaine Stritch reference.
Working with Zambello and playwright Terrence McNally, what Voigt has created is not, as might have been supposed, the sort of crossover cabaret act that might play the Carlyle or Feinstein’s at Loews Regency. Instead, it turns out to be a highly personal, surprisingly poignant piece — one that, with some expansion, could turn out to be a worthy successor to Elaine Stritch: At Liberty.</I)
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/virgil-thompson.jpg[/img]
[img]http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/7.2.jpg[/img]
Isn’t that a portrait by Alice Neel? I met her in Portland OR in the 70′s at a party. It was a very proper party until Neel started talking about uncut penises. All the old, grand dames were polite, but horrified—and I loved it!
Neel was fabulous!
Yes and the reference is to TT’s comment about chubby chasers.
I guess this answers the question to La Cieca’s blind item a while back about a diva demanding a six-figure advance on her book.
Dignity, dignity, always dignity. Isn’t La Voigt a bit young for this kind of thing? Or maybe she is considering retiring from the stage.
This is not to be argumentative, it’s a real question – who is the oldest dramatic soprano working steadily today?
Connell sang Turandot at CG the other year, aged sixtysomething. I don’t know if that counts as ‘steadily’ though.
Connell is working pretty steadily – she was in London for Hansel und Gretel when she did that Turandot, having done Turandot in Hamburg earlier (and then again later) that season. Rather gutted to see there was a Fidelio at Cadogan Hall shortly after which I missed. Since then, there have been 2 runs of Elektra, one of Isolde and one of Lady Macbeth, with some Ortruds coming up. All this is per Opera Base.
Gabriele Schnaut continues to be indulged, mostly in Germany, although it looks as if she may have finally accepted she should only be doing character mezzo stuff. She may well be younger than Connell too, I have no idea.
I heard Deborah Polaski sing a Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde last year, at age 61.
Bosah — How were Polaski’s high notes? I like her a good deal but even in her prime, her high notes weren’t her strong suit. And the GD Brünnhilde has a few punishing high notes.
Kashania – they were extremely short, and not very beautiful. In addition, she had to struggle to get to them. I was at the last performance, and she sounded tired from the start. Earlier in the run she was much better, apparently, but when I was there the Hagen (John Tomlinson) got about four times as much applause as the Brünnhilde.
Interesting, then another question. At what age range do dramatic sopranos usually retire to the concert/recital stage? I don’t see many doing the full opera rounds above age 55, say. But, I probably don’t know enough about ages to say for sure…
I get the sense that Stemme has a good number of years left and she’s, I think, late 40s. Urmana’s still going…
55 is a pretty good cutoff for most sopranos, really, dramatic or otherwise.
Thanks. So then, after the Met Rings are done, Voigt will be 52, according to Wiki.
I suppose it all hangs on whether she did nessun dorma ending in the original d-major, or whether it was transposed… I think La Jenkins essays it in B-flat.
Or this version…
(I posted this a while back, but it caused me such fits I can’t resist doing it again.)
I think she’s taking as much money as she can while she still can. I don’t think she has much of a high-profile career left in Europe. And even at the Met, it’s hard to miss that she no longer gets huge ovations from the audiences. During Walküre (in which I think she did quite well but not brilliantly), most of the cast got louder cheers than she did. How much of a Met career does she have beyond Brünnhilde, I wonder. I think she realises that she can only count on being an A-name for a short while longer.
In the show, she apparently talks about heading into “a transition.” I haven’t seen it… just related to me.
Personally, I’m happy for her that she seems to be having a successful summer.
Partigiani- maybe you can help me with this personal query…
Does the Met still do the gay and lesbian mixers? I’m asking because, after 8 plus years in a relationship, and now at the tender age of 36, i’m single and the idea of meeting guys at Splash scares me more than the idea of Gherghiou first thing in the am
I’m pretty sure that NYCO does th… oh.
This was a pleasant surprise. I’d be excited to hear them in the theater, but what soprano these days has the technique to sing the final triplets audibly and correctly?
Now Grigolo has a real bariton to play with
And Erwin has a great TV spot
I’ll do my usual then- accurate coloratura does not imply much about technique. Time and time again, people post in praise of technique and cite accurate coloratura as proof or justification. Everybody seems to have a slightly different definition of what technique means anyway, but the fact is that there is such a thing as coloratura facility- some singers can just do it. I also have a theory that singers who have a lot of tension and thus have restricted breath flow, voices that are not nearly as released as they could be, and an inability to produce a clean even line (for instance, a great many baroque specialists) also find their restricted sounds easier to control and marshall into rapid fire coloratura than they might if they actually had bothered to work out how to release their instrument fully. Look at Simone Kermes, who I think is an example of both things. You could never say that a singer who produces such a mewling, unsupported, uneven line like that has good technique. She has a very personal technique I suppose, but it isn’t something anybody would dream of holding up as an example or try to teach to their students. Yet the one thing she can do is accurate coloratura.
I’m not saying th singer in QPF’s first clip doesn’t have good technique- I think she is very fine. But I’d cite the healthiness of the production, the even line and the consistency in the release of the registers as evidence of good technique, not her coloratura which also happens to be excellent.
Another point though- I can’t believe QPF is trotting out the ‘who else, in this day and age, can manage…’ about a Gilda, as if lyric coloraturas are somehow in short supply. Surely, along with Rossini mezzos, they are the least of our worries? I’ve never heard a bad Gilda from a vocal point of view in all the performances I’ve heard of the piece over the years at the Met (not the most recent ones, to be fair), ROH many times, ENO and just last week at Holland Park. I’m not saying it’s easy- far from it. Just that we are, as it happens, blessed with plenty of singers who can do it justice.
I’m also beginning to wonder how true the canard about there being no singers around who can do justice to these great scores is about any voice type. Recently, 2 extremely impressive yet totally unknown spintos turned up at the ROH in Aida and Butterfly, and San Francisco has had a choice of 3 Odabellas each of whom seemed to have an authentic Italianate dramatic voice appropriate for the role. Perhaps what all 5 of these ladies lack is anything really arrestingly distinctive in their voices, but they all seem like fine singers worthy of singing this repertoire in any house in the world.
No, you miss the point. The triplets in the stretto of the vendetta duet are so difficult to articulate at the right tempo. Most sopranos have to bluff their way through them. Did you ever hear it correctly sung at a fast pace? Verdi expected them to be done or he would have provided an alternative (ossia, facilité).
I’m used to hearing them about as well as this woman does. Verdi doubles the vocal line in the strings in any case which always makes what the singer does seem clearer than it otherwise might probably because he knew it was difficult. But apart from that, my comment was about how the success or failure of this passage is not necessarily down to technique, at least as I understand and use the word, and so i don’t think it’s me who is missing the point. Whether he wanted it sung as written or not was never up for discussion- obviously he wants the soprano to sing what he wrote.
Having listened to her again by the way, I’d hesitate to hold her up as any kind of technical paragon- there is more than a hint of a Dessayesque unhinged quality.
Interesting comments… thanks. The soprano isn’t my cup of tea at all.. but she doesn’t remind me at all of Dessay in personality.
The “soprano” has a name, her name is Nathalie Manfrino. She has another thing in common with Dessay, aside from her first name: they are both French, which seems to be a BIG handicap on Parterre.
Apologies for missing the name….. but I couldn’t care less what her nationality is.
You are not the only poster on Parterre.
Um, I actually noticed that. LOL. You were responding to me… so I responded. *shrug*
Bosah, I wasn’t talking about personality, although I could see how it might have looked like I was. I meant vocally unhinged, rather than personality-wise. All seems a bit shallow of breath and resonance, and only just on the body. Gives her ease and freedom at the top for now but I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if it ended up a bit of a flapping, thin mess in a few years. I agree though with Oedipe that the results for now are lovely, more so in the Mireille than in the Rigoletto.
Oedipe: the only recent parterre darling accepted by absolutely everyone on this site is French, Stéphanie d’Oustrac:
Oedipe: the only recent parterre darling accepted by absolutely everyone on this site is French, Stéphanie d’Oustrac:
Really ? I didn’t realize Cerquetti-Farrell’s opinion represented “absolutely everyone”! You could have fooled me! I thought the “darlings” on this site were Eva-Maria Westbroek, Anja Harteros (better than the Italians in Italian opera) and, above all, Jonas Kaufmann (much better than anyone in French, Italian, German, you-name-it opera). With a special mention for Angela Meade.
Drawing up a list of parterre darlings is almost impossible, you are right. But I remember a buzz, and an absence of naysayers when she was discussed here after CF brought up her sensational Lille Carmens. You don’t like her? I think this clip is sensational.
But I remember a buzz, and an absence of naysayers when she was discussed here after CF brought up her sensational Lille Carmens.
Buster,
I do indeed remember CF raving about d’Oustrac’s Lille Carmen. I think the absence of naysayers was due more to indifference than to approval.
I love d’Oustrac and can’t wait to see her as Sesto in Clemenza at Garnier this September. But I thought she was miscast in that Carmen. And people think Uria-Monzon is too “intellectual” for Carmen? D’Oustrac in the role looked to me like a BCBG girl from the 16th district of Paris, pretending to be part of a gypsy camp; to me she looked/sounded like what she is, a classy young lady, Francis Poulenc’s great grand niece!
Thanks for explaining, very interesting. Did you hear her Voix Humaine? I wanted to go, but then I found out it was done without the orchestra. And I had Maria Ewing’s Elle in my head still…
No, I missed it unfortunately.
The lovely Nathalie Manfrino as Mireille (with the mistral thrown in for free as a special effect:
I wouldn’t mind at all seeing her as Juliette or Marguerite in the near future.
Thanks for the Erwin spot! Went to my computer, fired up Spotify, and am listening to Rojotango right now. Spotify is great–although I am still using the free version so there are annoying ads every few tracks. May spring $5/month for no ads.
Just started using Spotify. How many hours do you get with the free version?
Born on this day in 1925 director John Dexter
Happy 74th birthday soprano Gundula Janowitz
Gundula Janowitz and Corelli in prison:
Many happy returns!
That Don Carlo video is a real treasure. Does anyone know if more of that production has been preserved on video???
Here are Mr. and Mrs Corelli in Werther