Pretty perfect
“In a winter rich with splashy debuts, Friday’s performance of Le Comte Ory introduced a 27-year-old South African charmer who may well be the Met’s next big star. She’s Pretty Yende, and that first name fits her to a tee, what with her willowy figure, megawatt smile and—most of all—ravishing light soprano.” [New York Post]
“pretty in pink,” that’s a nice touch.
in other news, Nathan Gunn is a joke.
The mighty baritone-A tenor without high notes or a bass without low notes?
I used to date her cousin, Nice-Personality Yende.
Betsy, you crack me up!
… and the final number on the programme of her June recital at Wigmore Hall is …. Guess what? (Clue: it’s from West Side Story.)
“Tonight”…? “Gee, Officer Krupke”…?
Erm … Try again
By George, I’ve got it! SOMEWHERE!
I can tell you this, it’s not ‘America’.
Of course it’s not America, Sillyboo, she’s from South Africa!
Well, I’m glad that settles it, it’s SOMEWHERE.
Bingo!
Gawwwwd! Never saw Barbarella. Was it all that awful and who was the lady with the black eye? Kind of reminds me of that Uma Thurman/Tarantino thing from some years ago. The one wherein she gets buried first and then comes back for la vendetta with Daryl Hannah.
The career of Jane Fonda. Kind of a mind bogglin’ life arc. She did well in the Beethovenian play on the Diabelli Variations a couple years back, though, a nice surprise.
Thinking of ‘America’ always makes me happy. Just because I live in a world where Chita Rivera once duetted with Reri Grist eight times a week.
Camille, Barbarella is 60s-psychedelic-fabulous -- I mean, a fur-lined spaceship? The lady in black (the Wicked Queen) is Anita Pallenberg, dubbed, apparently, by Joan Greenwood. Fonda is extraordinary in that, beyond looking gorgeous, she seems totally sincere as Barbarella. (Am I right in thinking that she had to pass over Bonnie -- as in Bonnie & Clyde -- because her beau Vadim wanted her for the role?) The signature tune is just terrific. You can watch the whole movie on YouTube.
Besides, it was a great time in Jane Fonda’s life, she was then -like many others before (and after) her- in love with Roger Vadim, whom she had just snatched away from Catherine Deneuve, who in turn had grabbed him from Annette Stroyberg, who in turn had gotten him from Brigitte Bardot…Vadim eventually settled down for the last 10 years of his life with Marie-Christine Barrault.
Mind boggling indeed to think Fonda managed to steal Vadim from Deneuve!
Did he ever write his memoirs? What a movie THAT would make.
I bet Jane was more dangerous and exciting than Catherine, even if less classically beautiful (but, in my view, much more attractive).
Hi Camille, Vadim’s memoir is titled “D’une étoile à l’autre”. I haven’t read it, but my mother found it interesting.
Barbarella really is a camp delight. Jane Fonda is very good at playing a sexually curious innocent.
I once saw Barbarella on the big screen at the Castro Theater. It was the only time I have been in that theater when the women in the audience outnumbered the men. I guess Jane Fonda has quite a few lesbian fans.
Barbarella also inspired my favorite capsule movie review, courtesy of the East Bay Express, “Grounds for divorce.”
This is funny because I was just watching Vadim’s lesbian/vampire move, Blood and Roses.
I never thought Jane was that gorgeous. Deneuve is good when she has a good director. I find her a bit boring as an actress. Her best movie is the b&w one where she is mad, Repulsion. I was never a big fan of either--but I totally adore Delphine Seyrig.
I’ve only seen Delphine in Marienbad and Peau d’ane. Marienbad could make rather a good opera, don’t you think? I’d love to see her as a vampire in Daughters of Darkness ( Les Lèvres rouges )
You have to see Delphine in “Muriel” and and especially “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (1976) + Daughters of Darkness another lesbian/vampire movie. She made many movies.
A propos Barbarella we get to see quite a lot of John Philip Law in his guise as the blind angel in the film. He often illustrates the “blind” items.
John Phillip Law:
http://lotuswatcher.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/johnphilliplaw3.jpg
John Phillip Law was very pretty, but by today’s standards, he needs to go to a gym--just sayin’. LOL (not that I like oversized, muscled apes either). If I could post a picture, you would know what I prefer.
Clitissima! I became a big Delphine Seyrig fan after a huge showing of her films @ MoMA more than ten years ago. The Jeanne Dielmann was such a scary experience to me. Horrifying banality. I must have missed the Marienbad, though. I have missed it for the past fifty years, for crissake! Someday. She was a truly very impressive and interesting presence.
Why thanks, schatzgabber, much obliged, for the information on Vadim and what a PERFECT title to his autobio. No exaggeration!
Cammiest, we like Delphine and tarragon, what else is there in life?
xxoxoxoxooxoxxoo
Camille, you can watch the whole of Marienbad here. I think it probably needs a darkened arthouse cinema to make its full effect, but …
In the days of Barbarella, Fonda and Bardot looked like twins:
http://ef.img.v4.skyrock.net/1743/76661743/pics/3114915785_1_3_DmKnDKI4.jpg
http://0.tqn.com/d/modavintage/1/0/u/0/-/-/Pacco-Rabanne-4.jpg
Lovely and accomplished as Delphine Seyrig was, I found her celebrated voice completely insufferable.
My word. Will the wonders of YouTube never end?
This will save me from Teen Mom 2! Hurrah! Thank you so kindly.
Turning off all the lights and taking a long drag on my Gauloise….
I don’t know where this comment will show up in the thread but it is about 1960′s trippy sci-fi fantasies there are several that one needs to mention. John Phillip Law also shows up as the lead cat burglar in Mario Bava’s shagadelic “Danger: Diabolik”.
Another suggestion is Monica Vitti in “Modesty Blaise”.
I think Manou had a bit part in this movie…
I knew the fishnet stockings would give me away…
“In a winter rich with splashy debuts, Friday’s performance of “Le Comte Ory” introduced a 27-year-old South African charmer who may well be the Met’s next big star.”
Surely in historical terms this will be remembered as “The Season of David Soar”…
From the very limited experience of hearing her on youtube (there is a snippet of her debut among other things) she sounds like a real find. The voice seems rich, and the performance came across with a sense of spontaneity that I hope was matched by her physical acting. Also sounds like a voice that could grow very nicely into the more lyrical parts like Juliette, Antonia, Lauretta, Manon or Pamina. She is pretty young, and it will be nice to see how she is going to develop within the next 5-10 years.
Plus I always find it especially satisfying when someone has success who comes from a country which is not traditionally associated with opera. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her to get started and even to come to the conclusion that she wants to become an opera singer. The hurdles are so much bigger than if you come from America or a country in Europe.
No, it isn’t traditionally associated with opera. But it still produced Mimi Coertse, Emma Renzi, Marita Napier, Carla Pohl, Wickus Slabbert, Johan Botha, Michelle Breedt, Amanda Echalaz, Elza van den Heever, and Deon van der Walt.
And Colin Lee!
And spinto Joyce Barker … and now — young singers on the international scene — Jacques Imbrailo, Pumeza Matshikiza (a very beautiful voice, compared by John Steane to Rosa Ponselle!), Vuyani Mlinde, Njabulo Madlala and (at AVA) Musa Ngqungwana.
Oh yes, and another good baritone, Dawid Kimberg, who was on the young artists’ programme at Covent Garden.
I heard Musa Ngqungwana sing a good Zaretsky in EUGENE ONEGIN at AVA the other day; he is alternating that with Gremin, in which I bet he’ll be very good indeed.
Ngqungwana has a very impressive voice (still a little rough round the edges when I heard him) and presence. It will be interesting to see how he develops.
Haha -- I wanted to post something by Jyce Barker her and got distracted. I agree about Pumeza -- met her once -- gorgeous voice and personality. httv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzAmWrF-3o
Indeed, a very beautiful voice!
So impressed was I that this had to be posted, from a promotion for a new production of Zaïde, an interesting work:
If she would sing with a bit more of a horizontal line in ascending phrases it would be well nigh perfection. Looking forward to hearing more from this gracious and lovely creature. Zaïde is an lovely work, well worth hearing. May she know a great success.
“horizontal lines in ascending phrases” are geometrically very hard to achieve.
Horizontal lines in ascending phrases makes sense to me -- she needs a whole lot more consistency in the breath.
Haven’t heard Matshikiza in a couple of years probably, but she always struck me as very splurgey in terms of technique -- a good voice slightly obfuscated by a lot of manufactured resonance, and very uneven.
Plus Frederick and Evelyn Dalberg, Kobie van Rensbourg, Christopher Ainslie, Lawrence Folley, Elizabeth Connell, Christian de Plessis, Jacques Imbrailo, Sally Silver, Wendy Fine, Elza van den Heever…
However, it might be noted (might it not?) that unlike Pretty Yende all of these South African singers were/are of Caucasian descent. Even with political changes in South Africa, she has perforce had a different kind of journey to the operatic stage. There are other “African” South African singers out there working, but Ms. Yende has achieved the most renown thus far.
Fikile Mvinjelwa sang Nelusko in Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine with Opera Orchestra and has been on the MET roster for several years (as a cover artist, no doubt) and Vuyani Mlinde sang Raphael in Haydn’s The Creation with John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestra Revolutionnaire et Romantique at Carnegie Hall in late 2009 and is on the new Opera Rara recording of Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira.
Frederick Dalberg was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, then moved to South Africa as a 12 year old. Don’t get The Vicar going!
Well, in re Papa Dalberg, that gets into the question of, were Fremstad and Varnay “Swedish” singers or “American” singers. Were Callas and Pagliughi “American” singers or, respectively, Greek and Italian?
The Vicar would doubtless claim George London as a “Canadian” (“Commonwealth”!) singer though he was born to US nationals briefly resident in Canada, and then grew up in Southern California…
Krunoslav -- I have to agree with your point. I can recall no less than Dame Gywneth, when described as a British soprano, glowered at a poor interviewer and said “I’m Welsh!”. We could also cite Norman Bailey; his accent, even when singing in English, was painfully tinged with a strong South African accent.
Grim: was that really Dame G’s reaction to being called ‘British’? Sounds more like the reaction a Welsh person would have to being called ‘English’.
Baritone Luthando Qave who is in the Lindemann program is another South African opera singer who is not caucasian.
Takes a village
Yandiswa Makade-Mayeke
Visit to Isreal
My thoughts exactly, ArmjerJ -- if Dame Gwyneth wants to be all Welsh nationalist about it, then fair enough, but it isn’t wrong to call her British (like calling her English would be).
Let’s not forget the talented Jacques Snyman.
Or Rina Hugo:
Seriously???!!! Take off your clothes, sing falsetto and call yourself a classical singer??Well, I don’t know where Mr. Snyman is going with this gimmick (actually I don’t care) but I’m sure it will make good media fodder. Also, it shows you can put anything on YOU TUBE.
“Friday’s performance of Le Comte Ory…”
Wasn’t it Thursday?
In South Africa it was Friday
Very happy she did well. Lovely singer, and person. Magnificent voice.
WTF. She sang with Bocelli?
erm.
“In a winter rich with splashy debuts…”
Depends on your idea of splashy I suppose.