Tosca

I was off somewhere when Tosca was simulcast and am feeling left out of the discussion.

People are raving about the San Francisco Salome (Zalomay), so I bought a ticket for Sunday.

Daughter

The San Francisco Opera presented the Natalie Dessay version of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment without Natalie. Diana Damrau who sang Marie maintained the high level of slapstick comedy established by Natalie. It is simply a very pleasing concept. I think I could support slapstick opera wherever it might appear.

Special kudos must go to Meredith Arwady as the The Marquise of Berkenfeld. This is already my fourth encounter with Ms. Arwady, who I first heard as Gaea in Daphne at Santa Fe. She bills herself as a contralto, that rarest of operatic birds, nowadays rarer than countertenors. She was the other contralto in Il Trittico earlier this season. She was also Pasqualita in the Met simulcast of Doctor Atomic. Her voice sounds like a pleasingly feminine foghorn, and her comic acting for Daughter was outstanding. She ad libbed a bit of "Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix" that left me wanting more.

Diana Damrau isn't French, but neither is anyone else in the cast, so there was a consistent mangling of French across the cast. Juan Diego Florez was adorable as Tonio and hit all 9 of his Cs.

My favorite bit in this production is when Marie in exile pulls out her souvenirs from the regimental days and produces a sprouted potato. Love it. Love the opera done this way.

Cell phones

Some places are quite rude about telling the audience to shut off their phones. In London they play a very loud recording of a phone ringing just before the performance starts. At the San Francisco Opera Gockley himself makes the announcement.

Politeness is just not working. The low key approach at Santa Fe resulted in the worst offense I have experienced. A very loud phone rang and rang with no attempt to stop it until voice mail kicked in. Bitch! Bitch loud and long! In this case I don't know if it could be heard on stage.

Second place goes to the Sacrificium concert in Munich: a phone rang in the middle of one of the arias. Cecilia reacted like she had been punched in the stomach and waited--certainly not calmly--until it had stopped before resuming. Her orchestra were completely with her all the way. She looked physically hurt.

You can't count on people to do the right thing. An audible announcement seems to work best. Or how about a large banner run across the stage that says, "shut off your damn phone."

I volunteer to perform this function. I'll come out in my plaid pants and say it in whatever language is required.

Genius

I turned on Genius in my iTunes and am currently enjoying the results. There's a piano mix, a Cecilia Bartoli mix, a jazz mix (yes, I have enough jazz for this), etc. It's sort of like random only better. It's like having your own radio station, only it plays things you actually like. Try it.

If you don't have iTunes, I can't explain where I got mine. It appeared magically in my desktop. I thought, well there it is. I should put something in it. This was while I was working and didn't need an iPod. Then one thing led to another, and I'm now fully Appled up. That alone is Genius.

Heidi Melton

I can only apologize for the quality of the sound, but it's still worth listening to. There are a lot of big dreams for this girl.

At Santa Fe they reported that "someone from the Adler Fellows in San Francisco" had substituted for Christine Brewer. I immediately said, that would be Heidi Melton. This impressed whoever it was. It could have been no one else.

Sacrificium Album

The idea of the castrati is that these unnatural beasts could perform impossible feats with their high voices. The best of them could do what mere mortals, and certainly mere women, could not. Others have recorded albums honoring castrati, such as Vivica Genaux - Arias for Farinelli and Andreas Scholl - Arias for Senesino, but none have actually tried to rival the castrati by seeming to achieve the truly impossible as Cecilia Bartoli is attempting with her album Sacrificium.

Cecilia seems to understand the goal of castrato singing which is to stun the audience into complete disbelief. This happens in “Cadrò, ma qual si mira” by Araia and ”Son qual nave” by Broschi. The breath control exceeds the humanly possible and the range is astounding.

I was wowed by Opera Proibita but didn’t really enjoy listening to it. That kind of beating the listener over the head is missing here. At this point in her career perhaps Cecilia is willing to show her natural sweetness, both emotionally and vocally.

The song about birds with flute accompaniment, “Usignolo sventurato” by Porpora, is very pleasing.

The sweetness of the original instrument orchestra pairs beautifully with the sweetness of the soloist’s performances. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to be this technically stunning and emotionally moving all at the same time. I like it very much.
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Aida in HD

Unfortunately for today's Aida simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera, I have tucked away a VHS tape of the original broadcast of this production when it was new in 1988. In those days James Levine conducted everything that made it onto TV and Placido Domingo played all the tenor roles.

And in those days Dolora Zajick sang Amneris. Zajick's voice now shows more intensity throughout its range. It was a joy to hear her today.


Johann Botha played it for beautiful legato while Placido was going for youthful enthusiasm. Contrary to popular trends, all the singers were thinner twenty years ago.


They weren't afraid of black face in those days--Aprile Millo is quite dark. Violetta Urmana was as white as I am. I liked her very much as a soprano, more than I had as a mezzo. Her voice is completely rebalanced for this new Fach.

I kept wishing they were broadcasting From the House of the Dead instead. Maybe I've done enough Aidas.
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Interview with Botha

During the broadcast of Aida, Renée Fleming was interviewing Johann Botha, and he quoted Verdi saying that he wanted bel canto singers for his operas. Renée replied, "It's like bel canto on steroids." Excellent.

Sehnsucht

It is hard to think that he could ever sing any better than he is right now. This is all so gorgeous.

The arias from Lohengrin, here in the album Sehnsucht and posted on YouTube, show Jonas Kaufmann singing sotto voce quite a lot of the time. This doesn't really give you an idea of his suitability as a Heldentenor, a Fach that sings big most of the time. Not to worry, he sings big very nicely. I can't wait to hear more.

There's just so much there when he sings. Such a beautiful, intelligent man.

Footnote: I notice the word "Sehnsucht" is missing from the US version. The album has no title.
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Mucha

In Munich there was an exhibition of works by Alphonse Maria Mucha [pronounced Mook-ha], a native of Moravia whose fame stems from a six year association advertising the performances of Sarah Bernhardt in Paris. The above poster of Gismonda, 1 January 1895, was the first in the series. I have long been an admirer.

Damaged murals from the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, also shown, were new for me. Art Nouveau was originally called Mucha Style. This should clarify his relationship to the style. In German speaking countries this is called Jugendstil.

The posters are bigger than I thought--more the size of a door than a window.