A soprano, a tenor and a rabbi walk into a psychiatrist’s office…
Renée Fleming, “who’s been known to kid her diva image, along with her art form” has announced plans to join Chicago’s most celebrated comedy troupe for a musical revue titled “The Second City Guide to the Opera.” After the jump, a exclusive preview of one of Fleming’s wacky skits.
Totie Fields is not just one of opera’s most celebrated sopranos, but perhaps its most convincing actress. A consummate artist, her one and only role when she stands in the spotlight is to breathe so much life into the opera’s main character that audiences lose themselves in her unforgettable performances. That is the passion of Totie Fields.
Totie Fields’ breasts are not just one of operas most celebrated soprano chests, but perhaps its most convincing actresses. Consummate artists, there one and only role when they stand in the spotlight is to breathe SO MUCH life into the opera’s main character that the audiences lose themselves in their unforgettable performances. Such is the passion of Totie Fields’ breasts.
Yeah, Renee can’t possibly be as clever and funny as these classics!
I’m glad that she doesn’t take herself too seriously, but is Fleming ever (intentionally) funny? I haven’t seen any evidence of it. I suppose she could do her “I could have danced all night”…
I still haven’t been blessed with the opportunity to hear that track. Won’t someone post it…..
Sounds like a great idea and if it’s well-written could be a great HBO special.
I don’t know about that. When was the last time you saw a genuinely funny ‘don’t be afraid of opera’ style presentation? (we’re not all fat and wear horns, hyuk hyuk!)
Second City are funny. Fleming is game. This could work.
“Fleming is game.”
…and Parterre will go a’hunting!
Let’s see Renay top this
That has to be the longest, most roundabout trip to the San Francisco Opera House ever.
Women playing women onstage. Laxative-spiked dim sum. Comedy gold.
Batty -- no GPS in 1978.
Ian:
Remember ANNA RUSSELL…??
(…I thought she was HILARIOUS… and SPOT ON…! )
…and dead.
Russell’s humour involves a certain level of base knowledge that doesn’t exist in the average general audience of 2012 (can you even begin to imagine a situation similar to Dudley Moore parodying Britten where Kimmel parodies John Adams on Leno? The closest I can think of is South Park’s parody of Glass “How like a turtle, the sun looks”). Her brilliant parody of national styles or the Ring depends on the audience having at least a vague knowledge of what she’s parodying.
Russell is funny, in 2012, to opera fans who enjoy the gentle mocking.
You want to see something funny? Watch the beginning of Act 2 of Thaïs in fast forward. Wait till Renee starts flapping her arms. Doesn’t she look just like the mechanical owl in Clash of the Titans?
As the old saying goes:
“Thaïs is easy, comedy is hard.”
I don’t think I can live in Chicago much longer.
The nausea is beginning to set in.
But she is ALREADY funny…Ever hear her “Under the rainbow or “I could have scoopedl all night?”
You guys are SO mean. If Renée was reading this somewhere right now she would probably start to cry. Then I’d start laughing even harder.
At last, I have a son!
The unforutnate thing is that, if the audience isn’t growing, it won’t be just Anna Russell who’s dead, soon enough. Arguing that “the audience isn’t smart enough” doesn’t do any good -- obviously NOTHING appeals to the entire world…some will get it, some won’t, some may laugh at something that wasn’t intended. The point, I imagine, is to get the Lyric name in front of an expanding audience…Second City is a Chicago institution, just like Lyric…it’s worth a try, especially since they have someone (Fleming) who’s willing to do it. If you don’t think you’ll like it, don’t go…I’m sure your single ticket won’t be the difference between red and black next season.
THANKS FER THAT, Figaroindy….!
I wonder how many folks that were in Russell’s LIVE audiences ( and were laughing hysterically) were actually dedicated and knowledable Opera fanratics, to begin with ( perhaps the majority, granted… but GOOD parody SHOULD transcend having complete knowledge of ALL the ins and outs of the subject matter involved)
The bottom line--it seems to ME , i is that those “nay-sayers who have negatively commented on this are those who ALWAYS are ranting against ANYTHING that Fleming does--( in an irrational fashion, I might add…)
Are Parterrians unaware of Renee’s several appearances as the opera diva “Renata Flambe” on Prairie Home Companion? The studio audiences always seem to get a kick out of these gentle spoofs and Renee is pretty good at delivering a punch line in a scripted setting anyway. So it’s not like she hasn’t done something like this before.
They’re not unaware.
It just happened to slip all their minds because she was successful at it.
Indeed. Virtually everything Fleming does successfully slips a lot of minds here -- and it’s the majority of what she does.
I think this idea has the potential to be either a “good try” or a huge success. Someone has to do something to try to insert opera back into popular culture. I bet any number of opera stars of the 50s, 60s and 70s would have done something like this if given a chance -- they certainly tried to represent opera in other parts of “society” -- and often were successful. It’s only in the last 20 years or so, it seems, that opera has apparently become too good to mix with “outsiders.”
I’ve seen interviews where Fleming is very funny -- she has a quirky, dry wit but is also very self-conscious, I think. Her most recent Renata Flambe on PHC, though, was great -- Garrison Keillor obviously likes her since he keeps asking her back.
“Renee is pretty good at delivering a punch line in a scripted setting anyway…”
…as anyone who has heard her utter, “E *tardi*!” well knows…
With her cross-over experience, she could easily do something like this?
Is that from the new production of Die Frau ohne Flemming?