Space cadet
Who’s that girl in the “Hot Voodoo” wig riding on a rocket? Why, none other than the lovely and talented Cecilia Bartoli, offering us a glimpse of her Cleopatra at the Salzburg Pfingstfestspiele, which is a German word for “Memorial Day.” She heads a glittering company including Andreas Scholl, Anne Sofie von Otter, Philippe Jaroussky, Christophe Dumaux and Jochen Kowalski in Giulio Cesare, to be telecast tomorrow afternoon starting at 2:42 PM EDT, and the cher public are invited both to watch the show in the embedded player after the link and to chat in La Casa della Cieca.
If the embedded player does not appear above, please go to the arte.tv website to view it.
Photo © Hans Jörg Michel
Well now this has been fun -- trying to get into La Casa has crashed my system twice. Guess I’ll have to go it alone.
A lot of us had trouble getting into chat and getting the stream to work but eventually we managed. A small band of chatters stayed to the end of the long show, unusually complete performance of the great work, a lot of arias normally omitted were included. Indifferent conducting really prevented the performance from achieving greatness except every now and then. Surprisingly not so good playing from the band also with truly wretched horns in very important patches. The production was one silly regie cliche after another, like a parody of every Sellars production you ever saw. Yawn, yawn. The audience vociferously booed at the production team’s curtain calls.
Some of us in the chat room did not like Scholl, I enjoyed him without being wowed. Bartoli was adored by the audience and delivered some magnificent singing without the mannerisms that she sometimes falls into, the “Per pieta” at the end of act two was magnificent.
A counter-tenor feast, we heard and saw Jochen Kowalski, who really did not have enough voice left for his aria, sexy Christophe Dumaux who sang well but for some reason was booed by sections of the audience after two of his arias and Philippe Jaroussky,who almost stole the show as Sesto. One of the great singers of today, quite sublime and looked cute at the beginning in white shorts and white socks and shoes -- but Phillipe, if you are going to keep appearing in operas where people take your shirt off you really need to start toning up a little! Getting sort of flabby there! The heavenly duet between Jaroussky and van Otter at the end of Act One made it a rewarding afternoon / early evening for me.
Viva il caro Sassone!
Oh, Grim, I can’t believe my joking about PJ doing a little stripping came true! Too bad I had to leave the very select group of The Effete before that happened. Did the horns continue to have mishaps?
I thought Philippe Jaroussky was okay, but not very appealing. The costuming did not help. I am glad I missed his taking his shirt off.
On the other hand, I wanted Christophe Dumaux to take EVERYTHING off! And I liked his singing as well.
Dumaux was wonderful in the part I saw, and, yes, much as I liked his fashion statement, removal would have been even better! Can’t believe people booed him. PJ is still my heartthrob but Dumaux is terrific, too.
“Revealing” video of Christophe Dumaux from Il Giasone
In fact, this production looks FABULOUS!
Christophe trills!
Hey Rory -- the horns were not good in any of the passages that required them, but the worst was the obbligato horn in Caesar’s “Va, tacito.”
“Va, tacito” was pretty dire, wasn’t it? I was hoping they made a full recovery, but I guess not. Wonder what Scholl was thinking? (I guess whatever is the German for WTF?!?!)
I think Jaroussky has a really unappealing nasality to his voice which would never be acceptable from any other kind of voice type. He is a good musician, and he does have impressive facility -- more so than the rather stolid (IMO) Scholl.
It was what Dumaux was required to do by the production team that wsa booed, not him.
I can’t wait until some mezzo (Bartoli?) decides to record all the roles in Giulio Cesare.
How did you get on with your assignment opera lover?
Yes, OL, how was the essay received? Keep us posted.
It went really well, thanks! My teacher was happy with my organization (thank you!!!!!!!), and thought that I chose a unique but relevant topic to write about. I may even consider continuing blogging, if I have the time
Thank you for your GREAT help!
Haha -- that could happen. I’m sure it would have been Bumbry’s chosen approach, had she had any interest in Handel. There is already a recording where everybody seems to be a mezzo, with Kozena as Cleopatra, which I think really spoils things for the listener -- if virtually everybody is going to sing in the treble stave and avoid any extremes of register, it’s nice to have a bright sparkly voiced Cleopatra, a true contralto Cornelia, some well contrasted mezzos for Cesare and Sesto and some well contrasted counter-tenors for Tolomeo and Nireno.
Careful what you wish for…
Just skimmed through the video of the new CESARE from Salzburg and it appears that La Bartoli is reinventing herself in a good way.
I finally finished this show. I think I almost hated it. It seemed that the performers were given adequate time and decent frames for their singing, but the over-the-top everything but the kitchen sink thrown in with what seemed to be utter randomness was Scheisse.