Gossip

I recently started a Google Alert for items in German about my big three singers.  I foolishly did not remember that Germany (actually Austria in this case) is the gossip capitol of the world.  Major gossip.  Sigh.

Here is the short version.  In Vienna was an event called the Life Ball.  Erwin Schrott attended as part of the show, doing his tango act.  Anna Netrebko is Russian and doesn't know from tango.  She performed the night before for the aids benefit.  Anna attended the Life Ball alone as part of the audience and in order to show off 7m Euros of Chopard jewelry.  There's a party and Anna is a party girl.  Besides, my guess is that Chopard pays her to go.  Here is Anna being interviewed on the magenta carpet.




Here are photos from the ball, including one of Anna and Erwin together.



I have also seen a film of Anna dancing in the outfit shown right while Adam Lambert performs. 

So here is the gossip magazine style article.  It basically says they are over.  My sense of it is that it's something made out of nothing. 

Here is another article saying they are together.  I don't know.  You tell me.

I wouldn't be famous for all the money in the world.

P.S.  Here is more, a bit more sensible.

Poeme D'Un Jour

My copy arrived today.  The whole thing is in French and Spanish, and all of it is gorgeous.

Ailyn Pérez is a lyric soprano with a range of colors at her disposal.  In her 40s she will probably become more of a spinto, but for now she is firmly in the lyric Fach.  She probably most closely resembles Victoria de los Angeles who sang a little Wagner for no reason that anyone can recall.  Ailyn is already slightly heavier, slightly darker than Victoria.

They also share the gift for French and Spanish repertoire.  Ailyn uses her colors to great effect in this very stylish album.
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Preparation for The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene by Piero della Francesca

In June the San Francisco Opera will premiere Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.  The opera is sponsoring introductory lectures all over the Bay Area in preparation for this event.

Some of us think that explaining the opera and filling in the background of the action is the job of the production.  If I get to the end of the opera and still have no idea what happened, the production has failed.  My feeling is that some of the new productions are doing an excellent job.  Nevertheless, a little background is necessary.

I have in my house a copy of the book The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle by Karen L. King.  The Gospel of Mary that it discusses was discovered in Cairo in 1896.  Since the first discovery in Coptic, three other fragments in Greek have been discovered in other parts of Egypt.  It is presumed that the presence of so many fragments means the book was in wide circulation in ancient times.

Mary Magdalene was mentioned several times by name in the gospels, generally as part of descriptions of the crucifixion and resurrection.  She is the person who first encountered the resurrected Jesus.

Different branches of Christianity have different interpretations of Mary.  For Roman Catholics she is a reformed prostitute.  In the eastern churches this was never the case.  Some called her "the apostles' apostle."  For Dan Brown and others she was Jesus' wife, the mother of his child.

In her gospel she is clearly a leader.  Her advice is sought and accepted by some, rejected by others.

There is so much speculation about possible roles for Mary in the early church that ones head spins.  The western church followed Paul's lead and rejected any possible leadership role for women, including Mary.

I have absolutely no idea what Mark Adamo is doing with this.  As is usual with me, I prefer to be surprised.  However, there are rumors of love duets with Jesus.  I think I would go just to find out.

Things to watch

Here is the complete Schubert's Winterreise with Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch.



The recording will be better, but this is pretty amazing.

Norma Fascination

I confess I have been following Cecilia Bartoli's foray into Bellini's Norma like a deer caught in the headlights.  Even the very idea of it is fascinating.

I read everything in the English and German press, the vast majority positive, about both the new recording and the performances in Salzburg.

We know that Cecilia is self-identified with the greatest of all divas--Maria Malibran, a woman whose legend was amplified out of all human proportion by her early death.

She also carries another less positive obsession with another transcendent diva--Maria Callas.  In Cecilia's native Italy time seems to have stopped with Callas.  The style of performance most represented by Callas is the only one the average opera-devoted Italian cares to hear.  Cecilia's countrymen are to this day completely fascinated with Callas and care not at all for her.  When Cecilia sings at La Scala, they boo.

Both of Cecilia's obsession divas scored triumphs in the role of Norma.  Callas was particularly known for her portrayal, recording it 5 times.  I am personally astounded that La Bartoli would take this on, but should I be?  It begins to seem inevitable.

Cecilia Bartoli is an awesome individual.  (If there were any way to invest in her, I would.  Could she please incorporate herself.)  You only imagined that she doesn't have the right voice for Norma.  She bends reality to her will.  This performance must be considered an historic event.  I can't stop watching.  And listening.

Appendix:

New York Times

Salzburg Times

Limelight

The Jerusalem Post

Euronews The new/old Norma

Salzburg News

I will make every effort to stop reading like a Cecilia Bartoli fanzine now that the Whitsun Festival is over. Cecilia's contract has been renewed until 2016, because she has been wildly successful. A quote from the Salzburg Times:

The Whitsun Festival in Salzburg has set a new record of visitors and revenue. Cecilia Bartoli, a popular soloist and the artistic director of the festival, was particularly popular.

13,450 visitors from 43 countries attended the concerts and performances in Salzburg and bought tickets for 1.3 million Euros. The contract with the artistic director for the Whitsun Festival, Cecilia Bartoli, has been extended until 2016.

“I am very happy to be able to bring music and pleasure to Salzburg until 2016”, Ms Bartoli said. She has been artistic director as well as soloist of opera and concert in the four-day festival.

“I look forward to carry out many ideas at the Whitsun Festival, of which I have dreamt of for years. I am very thankful that such a huge and interested audience is so enthusiastic about us being adventurous”, Ms Bartoli said.

In 2012 the attendance was  10,520, and in 2011, before Cecilia took over, it was 7,600.  Next year it will be June 5 to 9, and will celebrate Rossini, including Otello and La Cenerentola.  Cecilia sang Otello just last year, but I don't think she's done Cenerentola for quite a while, or at least since I began blogging.  I don't know when the tickets go on sale.

Falstaff in Portland

I am in Portland, Oregon, for reasons unrelated to opera and was asked out of the blue if I would like to go to see Falstaff at the Portland Opera.  This is the Verdi year, so everyone has chosen to do Falstaff, including the San Francisco Opera and the Metropolitan Opera live in HD next fall.

The only familiar name in the cast was Susannah Biller as Nanetta.  She spent the entire opera smooching with Nicholas Phan as Fenton, pausing briefly to sing a very nice aria toward the end.  She is progressing nicely in her career.

There were some pleasant features to the production. Falstaff, sung by Eduardo Chama, was played with more dignity than is usually the case.  When women smile at him in the street, he imagines them to desire him passionately.  The joke is that he is hugely fat.  At one spot he kneels on the floor before Alice and cannot get back up.  My favorite part of the production was the two story window in the Ford's house.  The servants carry Falstaff in the laundry hamper up to the second floor.  Then when they toss him out the window, you can see him descend into the Thames.

I have known people who love only Falstaff of all Verdi's operas, but I am not one of them.  I prefer more arias, even in comedy.  Nevertheless, the performance was enjoyable.

Gatsby Movie

I was constantly distracted throughout Luhrmann's movie The Great Gatsby by the almost silent character golfer Jordan Baker, played by Elizabeth Debicki. She dresses the set so amazingly one hardly remembers one is supposed to be fascinated with Daisy.



In the movie everything is explained, something that was not true of the opera I reviewed here.  The story is about old money vs new money.  Gatsby imagines it's just about money, that if he has it, he has Daisy.  My house is as big as yours, and I have glitter and celebrities.  I think he realizes he isn't going to win before he sacrifices all for Daisy.

The only controversy that surrounds the film concerns the soundtrack.  He chose a rapper, Jay-Z, to provide music instead of traditional jazz.  I noticed a bit of Rapsody in Blue, but that was it.  In the opera they distinguished sharply between ambient music, music that is supposed to exist in the period, and background music.  I stopped caring when it served only as standard movie music.  I guess it bothers you only if you know.  It is not possible to not know once you know.

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Don Carlo at ROH

The reviews are in and everyone loves Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Royal Opera in London.

Here's the review in the Telegraph.

And here is the rave from Opera Today.

Here we have the Independent.

Here is the Daily Mail.

 My posting of Anja singing Elisabetta coincided with the final dress rehearsal.  Curious.

Ranking the Simulcasts 2012-13

Every year I rank that year's simulcasts from the Metropolitan Opera, but this year I seem to be having some difficulty.  Nothing completely thrilled and nothing completely failed either.

The new operas for me are an amusing collection:  The Tempest, Maria Stuarda and Parsifal.  Since seeing The Tempest, I have seen and read quite a bit about the Shakespeare play, a work entirely from the playwright's imagination and his last work.  In spite of this the opera text was not by Shakespeare, a flaw surely.

A friend prefers Maria Stuarda with Maria as the soprano and Elizabeth as the mezzo.  I know that Joyce DiDonato, our Maria, has sung Elizabeth, but I have no basis for comparison.

Really only the end of Parsifal was new, since in the past I always left before that.  It was musically quite wonderful and a great pleasure.

The Met is gradually drifting into the mainstream of 21st century opera productions, though if I loved something, it was probably for the singing.  Looking back at the list, my favorites would have to be Matthew Polenzani in Elixir of Love, Elīna Garanča in Clemenza di Tito and everyone in Ballo in Maschera.  Ballo has to get the top ranking for that rarest of all operatic events--great Verdi.

Bad.  I can't get excited about Botha no matter what he sings.   Also, I love opera seria and don't care to see it turned into a joke as I felt Giulio Cesare was.  This production is very popular on Amazon.

Perhaps I'm becoming jaded.