Airborne
La Cieca’s spy in London reports: “So first Angela Gheorghiu cancelled this evening’s Traviata Faust at the ROH. On hearing the news, Vittorio Grigolo suddenly came down with a ‘chest infection’ —so the performance is going ahead with James Valenti and Malin Byström.”
A female prima Donna is bad enough; a male one is unbearable.
NO ONE should hire Angela ever again..She is an irresponsible jerk…
Hear, Hear!!!!
As announced in the house last night Gheorghiu was indisposed due to ‘food poisoning’. I’m afraid there was quite a lot of booing and jeering from the audience -- almost, one suspects, as if they were not entirely convinced by the explanation.
We were then told that Grigolo had made it to the theatre and started warming-up before discovering that his chest infection wasn’t going to let him sing. The crowd were rather more forgiving of this. I think (and people will correct me) Grigolo had missed an earlier performance in the run with this infection before manfully recovering enough to make the broadcast performance.
I thought Valenti and Byström were both good replacements -- Byström more so perhaps, but then Valenti had sung Alfredo the night before and so may have been a little more tentative than if he had come to it fresh.
Anyway, I left feeling that a good editor could easily lop an hour off Faust to the advantage of all concerned. It does go on a bit!
I regularly lop 3 1/2 hours off it and find that perfect.
Agreed.
Interesting how judgements can differ so extremely. I was at the second performance and Ange hardly bothered to sing out until the final trio when, miraculously, he voice sounded bigger than Gigolo’s and Pape’s together. Earlier her middle register sounded frail and her chest voice husky. Vittorio looks as cute as a button as the young Faust, but I didn’t find the basic timbre at all beautiful -- it’s nasal and tightly produced and he had to push for both high and low notes. If he’s not careful he’ll be joining Rolando in the land of the might-have-beens. Hvorostovsky sang Avant de quitter ces lieux at full throttle without the slightest nuance or inkling of French style but as singing per se it was impressive. He’s never been much of an actor. At this performance, Pape was in a class of his own and even though his francais is a tad Teutonic he has close to the ideal basse chantante timbre for Mephi. As others have noted Pido was clueless. Anyway, that’s my take on it for what is worth!
Wait, so Grigolo said he was sick last night, but then turned up at the ECHO awards?
That seems rather juvenile.
He got sick on the plane back to London, it seems…
Yes, I’m sorry--I didn’t realize the award ceremony was 2 October and the cancelled performance was 4 October. My mistake.
Remake coming…with guess who?????????????
Excuse me, but what idiot find it important to FLY to an award cermony with a chest infection, risking cancellation of a performance? Honestly -- Grigolo is surely the heir to Pav ……. the King of Cancellations (“I need a holiday/dinner/fancy doing something else”)!!
Could we possibly take up a collection to buy Grigolo a one-way ticket back to Italy and ask they keep him there, please?
Tenorfach
Grigoletto :
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SiAM1gC6704
more on other blogs and Opera Chic.
Isn’t he supposed to be cute?
Those eyebrows……
you & I think along the same lines… that’s the first thing I noticed too, and I’ve been seeing a lot of that around quite recently… now I am waiting for the padded shoulders to come on again…
If you haven’t been to Italy in the last few years, those eyebrows are de rigeur on any self-respecting dude from 18 to 30.
Oh dear, well thank goodness I made it a habit to sleep with an 18-30yo Greek man for a few years in the 2000s rather than an italian. Give me a nice full bush any day.
I’d kill for those eyebrows.
Probably easier to click on the link -- many more clips there anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SiAM1gC6704