Opera News articles from November 2002

Opera News archives from November 2002

In goddesses we trust. (Viewpoint).(divas)(Editorial)
November 1, 2002... There's something rather subversive about the idea of a diva. She knows that she--not the role, the opera or the composer--is the story. Her acting (or lack of it), her vocal mannerisms, her powerful ego are part of a seditious pact with fans...

Opera watch.(Calendar)
November 1, 2002... 1. On Friday, November 22, Australian director BAZ LUHRMANN's production of LA BOHEME will begin previews at the Broadway Theatre in preparation for a December 8 opening and an open-ended Broadway nm. Based on Luhrmann's 1990 production for...

The metropolitan opera.(donations)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... One night in the early 1940's, opera fan and Met standee Victoria Hillebrand attended a performance at New York City Opera. A friend took her backstage to meet Dorothy Kirsten, who was at the beginning of her career and several years away from...

On the beat: diva stories: internet posting sets Sutherland fans buzzing; Norman reworks the room at Tanglewood; Alagna sinks on the high Cs.(Joan Sutherland, Jessye Norman, Roberto Alagna)
November 1, 2002... "You're an editor at OPERA NEWS?" someone asked me recently. "Gee, that must be fun." Well, maybe "fun" isn't the adjective I would normally use, but I have to admit that pairing up some of our favorite divas with our favorite authors has been...

Sound bites.(Celena Shafer)
November 1, 2002... Celena Shafer, makes her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut this month as Sweeney Todd's daughter Johanna, first sang that beleaguered heroine's ballad, "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," when she was a fourteen-year-old voice student. "I thought it was...

Divaspeak 101: nobody explains a diva better than herself. Can you guess which of the stars pictured wrote the quotes listed below? All were originally published in diva autobiographies.
November 1, 2002... 1. "The great action scene came when I had to milk a cow, singing at the same time, and I wondered if Von Sternberg had ever analyzed the difficulties of hitting high Bs and high Cs when trying to hit a milk pail, too." 2. "At first sight...

Life is a Cabballe! The magic of Monserrat.(Monserrat Cabballe)
November 1, 2002... In 1965, the bel canto revival was in full swing, with the opera public hungry for rarities by Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. The high priestess of the movement, Maria Callas, was no longer able to negotiate the vehicles that had won her great...

The price of nice: when compared to the divas of the Golden Age, are today's opera stars too lightweight? Steven Blier hungers for a little old-school temperament.
November 1, 2002... Eleven years ago, there was a hue and cry when OPERA NEWS published an interview with Cheryl Studer, Patricia Schuman and Dawn Upshaw, who were appearing in that month's Don Giovanni broadcast. Not only were Studer, Schuman and Upshaw quoted as...

The case of the disappearing diva: why did Anita Cerquetti, one of Italy's top dramatic sopranos in the 1950s, abandon opera before she was thirty? Stephen Hastings tries to solve the mystery.
November 1, 2002... "I suppose you want to know why I gave up my career," says Anita Cerquetti after about an hour's conversation in her apartment in the suburbs of Rome. She is right, of course, for this dramatic soprano's legendary status owes much to her sudden...

Who you callin' "prima donna"? Has a glamorous job description turned into a dirty name? William V. Madison asked a number of leading ladies how they feel.(Interview)
November 1, 2002... Over the past few decades, the term "prima donna" seems to have been transformed from an entirely positive description to one with frequently negative connotations--as in "prima donna behavior"--both in and out of the opera house. This raises...

Fever pitch: through the years, astonishing range of roles--and endowed them with her own brand of ferocious intensity.(Tatiana Troyanos)
November 1, 2002... Sizzling, electric stage presences bring out the best in opera. All too often these days, that fusion of chemistry and combustibility seems to be in short supply. But if you were a regular Met attendee during Tatiana Troyanos's seventeen-year...

Stella for star: the rocky path of 1950s and '60s diva Antonietta Stella.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... Saturday Review critic Irving Kolodin once declared that "only a scattering" of fine sopranos "can be eligible for the rank of prima donna. Many claim it, fewer merit it, one or two earn it." The mid-twentieth century, a period rife with...

Brunnhilde at rest: in the '60s and '70s, no one embodied the prima donna role quite so fully as Birgit Nilsson. She was a hell of a lot fun too--and still is. William R. Braun catches up with the soprano.(Interview)
November 1, 2002... OPERA NEWS: You were at Bayreuth, I believe, between 1954 and 1970. How has the festival changed since then? BIRGIT NILSSON: It's of course a sad story, because singers are starting out at Bayreuth nowadays. Earlier, you had to be very much...

The Metropolitan Opera Guild Annual report.
November 1, 2002... Since my report to you last year, everyone's world has changed dramatically in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11. Because New York was trapped in the unfolding events, the shock and turmoil were felt more keenly. All of this has...

Picker: Therese Raquin.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Fulgoni, Soviero, Woods; Bernstein, Gietz, Kazaras, Andrasy; Dallas Opera Orchestra, Jenkins. English text and translations. Chandos, CHAN 9659 (2) As composer Tobias Picker writes, Emile Zola's novel Therese Raquin "exudes `opera' from...

Verdi: Il Trovatore.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Gheorghiu, Diadkova; Alagna, Hampson, D'Arcangelo; London Voices, London Symphony Orchestra, Pappano. Texts and translations. EMI 57360 Two generations ago, EMI built a substantial opera catalogue on the axis of Maria Callas, Giuseppe...

Rossini: Semiramide.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Gruberova, Manca di Nissa, Le Corre; Florez, D'Arcangelo, Konstantinov, Roes, Jankowitsch; Wiener Konzertchor, Radio Symphonieorchester Wien, Panni. 1998. Text and translations. Nightingale Classics NC 207013-2 (3) (Koch, dist.) Led by...

Tchaikovsky: The Queen Of Spades (Great Scenes).(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Prokina, Obraztsova, Domashenko; Larin, Hvorostovsky, Gerello; Philharmonia of Russia, Orbelian. Texts and translations. Delos DE 328 The opera highlights album was a staple of the 1950s and '60s. Not to be confused with excerpts from...

Fioravanti: I Virtuosi Ambulanti.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] P. Cigna, M. Pace; Calamai, Petroni, Gaias, Spinelli, Sannai, Lambroni; Orchestra Sinfonica di Sassari, Tigani. Text and translation. Bongiovanni GB 2280/81-2 (Qualiton, dist.) A respected rival of Paisiello and Cimarosa in Naples,...

Jommelli: Don Trastullo.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Invernizzi; Totaro, Naviglio; Cappella de' Turchini, Florio. Text and translation. Opus 111 OP 30280 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.) Best known for his opere serie, the Neapolitan composer Niccolo Jommelli (1714-74), during his galley years,...

Boulez: Pli Selon Pli.(Pierre Boulez)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Schafer; Ensemble Intercontemporain, Boulez. Text and translation. DG 471 344 Pierre Boulez began work on Pli Selon Pli (Pleat by Pleat), for soprano and orchestra, in 1957, and had produced a fully realized version three years later....

Samuel Ramey. A Date With the Devil.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Arias by Berlioz, Boito, Gounod, Meyerbeer and Stravinsky. Munchner Rundfunk Orchester, Rudel. Texts and translations. Naxos 8.555355 Some picketing by fundamentalist Christians aside, Samuel Ramey's A Date with the Devil orchestral...

Catherine Malfitano. Blue Moon Cat Live at Joe's Pub.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... []Songs by Weill Arlen, Rodgers, Gershwin, Bolcom, Warren et al. Thalken, piano. No texts. VAIA 1203 Catherine Malfitano's musical passion and communicative abilities are obvious on this CD, recorded live from concerts at Joe's Pub in...

Enrico Caruso. Italian Songs.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Songs by di Capua, de Curtis, Pennino, Tosti, Nutile, Gastaldon, Cardillo, Donaudy, de Crescenzo, Cottrau et al. No texts. Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rabi. RCA Victor 82569 As Mel Brooks would say, "It's good to be king." Enrico...

November on-line edition of opera news.
November 1, 2002... Cantatas by Haydn and Rimsky-Korsakov; Craft conducts Gurrelieder; a pair of releases featuring Paul Hillier; Richafort's Requiem; new recordings of Cimarosa, De Falla, Granados and Vivaldi works; vintage performances from Tebaldi. ...

Salzburg. (International).(Salzburg Festival)(Don Giovanni, Der Konig Kandaules, Turandot)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... Opera is more important than politics in Austria, and the Salzburg Festival is no exception. The end of Gerard Mortier's ten-year reign may not have been quite the equivalent of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but in Salzburg it was perceived as a...

Glyndebourne. (International).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... Three new productions at the 2002 Glyndebourne Festival presented one of the world's most familiar operas alongside two rarities. Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide (May 19) came first, staged by German director Christof Loy, making his British debut,...

Pesaro. (International).(Rossini Opera Festival)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... Unusually, the three fully-staged operas presented at this year's Rossini Opera Festival were all comic, including his two earliest attempts at a full-length dramma giocose. L'Equivoco Stravagante (1811) and La Pietra del Paragone (1812). The...

Orange. (International).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... The appearance of opera's golden couple in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette confounded the skeptics who doubted that Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu would even show up, much less offer persuasive performances--but the evening (July 27) at the...

Vienna. (International).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... Massenet's Don Quichotte, written for Feodor Chaliapin in 1910, two years before the composer's death, is pretty much a one-tune opera--but a glorious tune it is: the Dons serenade, "Quand apparaissent les etoiles." Though burdened with a weak...

Munich. (International).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... The unexpected death of Herbert Wernicke, engaged to stage and design Wagner's entire Ring cycle, put the Bavarian State Opera in a pickle. Wernicke died shortly after February's Das Rheingold, leaving only complete set designs and staging...

Montpellier. (International).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... The Festival de Radio France et Montpellier and its adventurous director, Rene Koering, have the knack of discovering forgotten masterpieces in the backwaters of musical history. This year's festival opened with Zoltan Kodaly's Hary Janos (seen...

Santa Fe. (North America).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... Reports from abroad--from Salzburg in 2000 and from the Chatelet in Paris a year later--did not exaggerate in the matter of Kaija Saariaho and her first-ever opera L'Amour de Loin. Extraordinary in its beauty, its emotional breadth and best of...

Highland Park, IL. (Concerts And Recitals).(Opera Review)
November 1, 2002... This past summer's Ravinia Festival (attended August 3-10) featured a Rachmaninoff retrospective and the many aspects of vocal performance, from master-class instruction to opera. (Vocal performance during the other twelve weeks of North...

New York City. (Concerts And Recitals).(Concert Review)
November 1, 2002... When the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra went on strike last summer, Lincoln Center management cancelled twenty-one of thirty-one performances. What remained were performances by guest artists, primarily of works by composers other than...

Letter from Cincinnati.
November 1, 2002... Cincinnati has a stately sense of decorum--on the surface at least. But the sprawling town on the north bank of the Ohio River, long known for its conservative politics, today continues to reel from the events of April 2001, when the police...

NPR World of Opera presents Houston Grand Opera.(Calendar)
November 1, 2002... Broadcast will be aired on NPR stations on Saturdays at 1:30 P.M. (ET) (check local listings). Houston Grand Opera's radio broadcasts on NPR are made possible by a grant from The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation. BROADCAST OF NOVEMBER...

L'Italiano con l'Opera: Lingua, Cultura e Conversazione.(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... by Daniela Noe and Frances A. Boyd Yale University Press, 322 pp. $35 Commendably, the authors and publisher of L'Italiano con l'Opera have written a textbook that boldly bucks the tendency to "dumb down." Intended to supplement second- to...

Claudio Abbado: Lux Aeterna.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... [] Verdi Requiem in rehearsal. Caballe, Gasdia, Valentini-Terrani; Dvorsky, Merritt, Ramey; Chorus and Orchestra of La Scala, 1985. Subtitled (English, French, Castillian). Notes; no text or translation. Arthaus Musik DVD 101 125 (Naxos,...

On TV.(Calendar)
November 1, 2002... Wednesday, November 6, at 8 P.M., marks the debut of Opera New York, a new weekly series of full-length opera broadcasts hosted by OPERA NEWS executive editor F. Paul Driscoll, on the New York-based television channel WNYE (TV 25).

Dateline.(Calendar)
November 1, 2002... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000; www.metopera.org) Nov. 1 Aida (Verdi). Crider, Mishura; Margison, Agache, Burchuladze, Aceto; M. Armiliato, Frisell/Pappas, Quarama/Saligeri Nov. 2m Carmen (Bizet). Graves, M....

Stalking the wild diva. (Coda).
November 1, 2002... Today, most of the divas have departed who could, through craft and charisma, transport their audiences to heaven--which is where all goddesses dwell, after all. There are plenty of fine singers at work now, many of them admirable artists. But...