Oxymoron says what?
So, when is a diva’s expected surprise guest appearance really a surprise? When she doesn’t appear, of course—though, to be sure, with her track record, a last-minute cancellation is no surprise at all. What is perhaps surprising is the repertoire kerfuffle that escalated into the no-show: apparently not everybody can live for art.
Something about Tosca, and maybe something about Gheorghiu. And I’m out.
Okay this is Angela Gheorghiu and the Richard Tucker Gala yet again. Maria Guleghina was listed to sing “Vissi D’Arte” – clearly Angela and Maria G couldn’t both perform the aria. So instead we got the other “oiseau rebelle” “Adriana” diva – Anita Rachvelishvili – singing the Act IV finale from “Carmen” with Jummy Jonas Kaufmann. Not a bad tradeoff frankly.
Marina Poplavskaya and Marcello Giordani canceled. Giordani’s mother is gravely ill in Sicily. Poplavskaya had no explanation. Giordani was to sing “Cielo e Mar” which was dropped and he was replaced by Frank Porretta in the “Norma” Act I finale and Yonghoon Lee in the “Cavalleria” duet with Zajick. Poplavskaya was to sing “Robert, Toi que J’Aime” from “Robert le Diable” which she is scheduled to perform at Covent Garden in the future. With or without Florez, I assume. So it is still on.
Goodness! This seems to be an excessive amount of shuffling, even by RTGala standards.
Do you (or anyone else) have the full listing for who sang what?
I can reconstruct:
Emmanuel Villaume and Met Orchestra: Samson et Dalila – Bacchanale for intro
Angela Meade: Attila – Allor i Forti Corrono plus cabaletta
Zeljko Lucic: Ballo – Eri Tu
Bryn Terfel: Elisir D’Amore – Udite O Rustici
Jonas Kaufmann: Cavalleria – Addio alla Madre
Stephanie Blythe: Mignon – Connais-tu les pays
Dolora Zajick: Maid of Orleans – big choral anthem that is not “Adieu Forets” but later.
Yonghoon Lee: Le Cid – O Souverain, O Juge, O Pere
Maria Guleghina: Tosca – Vissi D’Arte (lovely, really)
A. Meade, Frank Porretta III and D. Zajick: Act I trio finale of “Norma”
Terfel and Kaufmann: Don Carlo – Dio nell’anima infondere duet
Zajick and Yonghoon Lee: Cavalleria – Tu Qui Santuzza? duet
Anita Rachvelishvili & Kaufmann: Carmen – C’est toi..Oui c’est Moi! Act IV final duet.
Bryn Terfel, Meade, Blythe, Edward Parks, Renee Tatum, Tu’a Papu’a, Theo Lebow and a bunch of other people: Falstaff – Tutto il mondo é burla finale.
Herr Kaufmann really walked off with the evening, though the best moment was Miss Guleghina’s disinclination to leave the stage for 5-6 minutes (bestowing lavish bows and waves the while) after her 4 minute aria.
Miss Poplavskaya made the finest contribution I have yet heard from her.
Rachvelishvili is replaciing Kate Aldrich for some of the SFO Carmens this month, including the one I’m seeing. Should I consider this an upgrade?
Nerva, love the Popsy comment. I wish Covent Garden would stop plugging her.
great comment about the “in house Russian” soprano of Covent Garden. She is totally over rated!
Ta’u Pupu’a. Talk about yummy.
At what event did the dive not appear? A non event?
thoughts about who is actually going to show up to sing at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday evening?
I just received a text message that Madga Olivero was seen boarding a plane at Linate destined for NYC.
Magda Olivero, first cover; Licia Albanese, second cover. Bergonzi is covering Kaufmann.
You KNOW it’s gonna be Nicole Lorange…
Only because Vickers is indisposed, mind.
Nerva o Dea, we missed you yesterday in the Siegfried discussion. Too bad Madame Lorange never sang Wagner
Balsamic, you need to wash your mouth with soap. No using the name of God in vain
Rise Stevens passed on covering the Principessa since she never covered for anyone, ever in her career. Cossotto is standing by for Rachvelishvili.
Marshie: As one who grew up hearing the Number One German Wagnerian diva of the 80s, I now derive no pleasure from hearing any of his operas performed and stay away.
BTW I meant Gudrun Volkert, not Mechthild Gessendorf…
I thought to you, God’s gift to Wagneriandom was Johanna Meier. Now I don’t know what you could possibly have against poor Gudrun Volkert, she did an admirable job covering and stepping in for a full Ring at the Met after the accident, and she was even telecast, though never broadcast.
Johanna Meier was great and was certainly a far more sonorous and less hammy Isolde at the Met than Miss Drop Kick. Much better Sieglinde too.
Just kidding about the others, obviously. Gessendorf sang a good Ariadne for Sawallisch in Philly but as Senta was pretty risible. Volkert I saw in Seattle when she was an adequate , just, sub for Linda Kelm, fored fr fatness by the Intendant that went on to be Jane Eaglen’s biggest American backer.
I remember hearing a Met ROSENKAVALIER broadcast in ?1991? with Gessendorf and Ziegler. Not the greatest voices but my god they went for it- one of the most impassioned, and therefore moving- performances of the trio I’ve ever heard. I shall go to the archive to remind myself who the Sophie was.
I have a nice Ariadne on DVD with Gessendorf, Gruberova, and birthday girl Trudeliese Schmidt, who I think was a hugely underrated singer.
OH I couldn’t rememebr her name, but I was sure you also looooooved Linda Kelm, you must have been her biggest suporter for that unforgettable single night at the Met in the Siegfried Brunnie, she was that fabulous!
Never heard Kelm in Wagner, just as Turandot at NYCO (very good) but she sang several cycles at Seattle to good notices.
Never subjected myself to Eszter Kovacs either, except fr her (dreadful) LP.
Well Kelm was the cover for Siegfried in like 87 or 88, and as such she got one real performance, I was not there, obviously, but the reports were that she was horrifying, in addition to fat. Imagine her trying to do the Awakening pantomime that Behrens had patented
plus she was shrill like the day is long. She was never invited back to the Met again.
Talk about fat you could love, really, very seriously, Elizabeth Payer-Tucci. What a fabulous Brunnhilde she was in the single Siegfrieds of 1981. Really beautiful and huge voice. She had an immense potential, but I understand she went to the nuthouse shortly after. What a pity, she really had the goods; the fat didn’t matter like with Caballe, because she was such a good singer.
Any one know if WQXR/NY will be delay-broadcasting The RT Gala in the near future, as they usually have in the past?
Last year they did not broadcast it – radio or TV.
I hope that changes.
nerva nelli you had me in stitches re: poploskaya!
Apparently Angela wanted to use the Tucker Gala as an opportunity to show off her Carmen in New York and sing the Habanera and the final duet with Kauffman. But, Angela being Angela, she set so many conditions and alienated so many people, including Kaufmann, that it all fell apart. She may be her own worst enemy but there is a huge list of others who would argue for the title. In the end, the Georgian mezzo wth the endlss R name sang the duet at the Tucker, unimaginitive and often flat but at least audibly and she had good hair. Kaufmann was wonderful – fine concert all around! As for Tuesday’s Adriana, rumors swirl that she is making everyone’s life miserable.
Hmm, I was unaware that Gheorghiu was planning to sing at the Tucker Gala, but a little birdie informed me that she has cancelled her appearance as Adriana tomorrow night with OONY. It would hardly surprise me, but I wonder if others have heard the same.
Adriana is on Guleghina’s repertory list; she sang with OONY last year…
One wonders…
More importantly, why on earth is Angela Meade singing Odabella’s entrance? Does she want to be the next Souliotis? There is no reason for singing a ballbuster like that so early in her career (yes, I know it’s just the aria, but that’s the worst part of the role). Is no one advising her?
A friend asked me about how Meade did, I felt it stretched her but not in a dangerous way. Is it really all that harder than the killer moments of “Norma”. On the other hand, Meade has a rather soft-grained timbre that it bright but not cutting or dark. So the kind of slancio and dramatic thrust that a Callas, Suliotis or Dimitrova could bring tot the table in Norma’s angrier moments is not really her meat.
Here is part of my write-up: “Meade sang the dramatic entrance aria and cabaletta “Allor che i forti corrono” very well. The sound was bright and rich and she has good attack. There were some very wide ranging fast runs where she lost a little precision. Meade used a lot of chest at the bottom which is unusual now and quite fun. I would call it a success. However, Meade’s voice is moving towards a juicy, agile spinto sound and E flats and E naturals are thinning out and she is unable to sustain them. She has to settle for having a great C, D flat and D natural and let the leggiero sopracuti above D go.
Kaufmann was the hero of the evening singing “Mamma quel vino é generoso” from Cavalleria, the Don Carlo duet with Terfel and then added the final scene of Carmen with Anita Rachvelishvili to make up for the cancellation of Marcello Giordani and Poplavskaya. Poplavskaya was to have sung “Robert, Toi que J’Aime” from Robert le Diable. Zajick was in great form with very brilliant almost soprano tone. Zeljko Lucic sang a fine “Eri Tu” from Ballo with great expansion in the phrasing. Surprise was a lovely “Vissi D’Arte” from Guleghina who actually sang legato with softer dynamics in an attractive accurate fashion. I saw that on the program and said “ho-hum” why bother? Turned out to be a highlight. Terfel also stole the show in Dulcamara’s spiel from “Elisir” using bottles of Bass ale and Guinness as props. Yonghoon Lee sang “O Souverain” from Le Cid and subbed for Giordani in the Cavalleria duet with Zajick. His voice is reliable but the quality is kind of artificially produced with a thick dark cover over the tone creating a monochromatic, shallow sound that is boring to me. I think he is trying to sound like some Italian spinto tenor. He looked gorgeous though with way black hair and a velvet jacket and high collared silk shirt.
Another point about Meade – she isn’t singing enough opera – staged or otherwise to any sustained damage to her voice. Meade scored a triumph as Norma at Caramoor. But is she wearing herself out singing all over the world? No, she did Act I in concert at Tanglewood and has sung excerpts in concerts.
Looking at her prospectus it seems that the Metropolitan Opera is the only house that is hiring her for staged opera. She has a concert Lucrezia Contarini in “I Due Foscari” in Berlin, I believe. Then there are some Verdi Requiems and various concert and orchestral works. Not only are the major international houses but also the regional houses seem to be not hiring her. Now Meade may have a bunch of debuts on the horizon that I don’t know about but the response to her successes has been very disappointing.
The other thing to remember is that Meade only made her professional stage debut on the Met stage about three years ago subbing for Radvanovsky in “Ernani”. She was about thirty at the time. Before that it was just AVA student showcases. So that voice is pretty underutilized for a soprano in her thirties who sings a very demanding repertoire impressively.
Rosalie Miller had me ready for Lady Macbeth at 20. I could sing Odabela *tomorrow*–it’s a question of color and tessitura.