Leonard Slatkin explains to the Detroit Free Press that everything was going great guns with the Met Traviata rehearsals until he played stage director, telling Alfredo (James Valenti) to take visual focus in the final seconds of the opera. Read more »
“Maestro Placido Domingo took to the stage in Qatar for the second time on Thursday night, when he was joined by the ‘Antologia de la Zarzuela’, with whom he gave an amazing performance of traditional Spanish music at the Pearl-Qatar.” [Gulf Times]
Before the Los Angeles Ring cycle has even begun, two of the leading singers have thrown director Achim Freyer under the bus. Particular non-collegial is leather-larynxed heldentenor John Treleaven, who blames his crappy singing on the production, but the mot du jour is: “Domingo was out of town and unavailable to answer questions.” [Los Angeles Times] Read more »
La Cieca (not pictured) invites you, her group mind, to help her sort out the following conundrum.
“A Zeffirelli, dopo le polemiche della vigilia che lo hanno opposto al soprano Daniela Dessì, da lui ritenuta non giusta per il ruolo di Violetta in questa Traviata, qualche dissenso misto agli applausi al momento di comparire in proscenio assieme a Gelmetti.” [Il Messaggero]
Have you heard the most recent update on the Franco Zeffirelli outburst earlier this week at the Rome Opera? In describing the apocryphal production of Traviata at Hamburg or wherever it was supposed to be (the one with the bidet, remember?) the legendary Romeo and Juliet director also said he saw upon the stage “”transessuali e froci.” “Froci,” as perhaps you know, means “fags.” This last slur was not reported in the Corriere della Sera.
“I knew Hofmannsthal… he in fact begged me not to go and see it… telling me he was ashamed of it!”
Everything I need to know about Bizet I learned at a Judy Chicago exhibit in 1996. Brutality against women is pervasive, and society is culpable by permitting it. Such grievances were aired at the expense of the composer’s chef d’oeuvre Carmen yesterday at La Scala’s Gala opening, viewed dal vivo at Symphony Space on 95th and Broadway.
Cher Public