Opera News articles from November 2003

Opera News archives from November 2003

The return of the divas.(Viewpoint)
November 1, 2003... What was your first diva experience? My first real encounter with the species was when I was fifteen years old. The opera was Tosca, the diva Renata Tebaldi. Nothing I had seen on The Bell Telephone Hour or The Ed Sullivan Show had prepared me...

1. Ekaterina Semenchuk, who wowed New Yorkers as the page in Kitezh and as Olga in Eugene Onegin during the Kirov Opera's Met engagement this past summer.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 1. EKATERINA SEMENCHUK, who wowed New Yorkers as the Page in Kitezh and as Olga in Eugene Onegin during the KIROV OPERA's Met engagement this past summer, repeats the Tchaikovsky in Berlin this month, when the Festwochen Berliner Festspiele...

2. The Metropolitan Opera is marking the centennial of the company debut of Enrico Caruso with an exhibit of photographs, costumes and artwork, including a self-portrait in terracotta by the tenor and several Caruso-drawn caricatures.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... 2. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA is marking the centennial of the company debut of ENRICO CARUSO with an exhibit of photographs, costumes and artwork, including a self-portrait in terracotta by the tenor and several Caruso-drawn caricatures. Materials...

3. Hugh Jackman, currently starring on Broadway in The Boy from Oz, will be Curly in Oklahoma!(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 3. HUGH JACKMAN, currently starring on Broadway in THE BOY FROM OZ, will be Curly in OKLAHOMA! when Thirteen/WNET New York's Great Performances presents the Royal National Theatre production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical on Saturday,...

On Tuesday, November 25, Teatro Grattacielo will present Mascagni's Guglielmo Ratcliff in concert at New York's Alice Tully Hall, conducted by Alfredo Silipigni.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... On Tuesday, November 25, TEATRO GRATTACIELO will present Mascagni's GUGLIELMO RATCLIFF in concert at New York's Alice Tully Hall, conducted by Alfredo Silipigni. For tickets and information, call Centercharge at 212-721-6500.

Jean Cocteau Repertory is celebrating thirty years at Manhattan's Bouwerie Lane Theatre with a new production of Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, given in Marc Blitzstein's 1953 English adaptation.(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 4. JEAN COCTEAU REPERTORY is celebrating thirty years at Manhattan's Bouwerie Lane Theatre with a new production of Kurt Weill's THE THREEPENNY OPERA, given in Marc Blitzstein's 1953 English adaptation. Threepenny rotates in repertory with...

On May 25 at Carnegie Hall, The Collegiate Chorale, conducted by music director Robert Bass, will present "Crown Imperial: Music and the Movies".(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 5. On May 25 at Carnegie Hall, THE COLLEGIATE CHORALE, conducted by music director ROBERT BASS, will present "Crown Imperial: Music and the Movies," a program featuring Prokofiev's music for Sergei Eisenstein's film IVAN THE TERRIBLE, as well...

Dayton Opera opens its first full season at the new Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center with La Boheme (Nov. 1, 7, 9).(Opera Watch)(Brief Article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... 6. DAYTON OPERA opens its first full season at the new BENJAMIN AND MARIAN SCHUSTER PERFORMING ARTS CENTER with La Boheme (Nov. 1, 7, 9). The Dayton season concludes in April, with the company's second annual DAYTON OPERA STAR GALA, which this...

"In our times, the image of the diva is in decline," Barbara Frittoli told me in an interview for Opera published earlier this year.(On The Beat--about diva Aprile Millo)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... "In our times, the image of the diva is in decline," BARBARA FRITTOLI told me in an interview for Opera published earlier this year. "You can't speak about divas today. No way." The breed hasn't died off entirely, however: there's still APRILE...

I know what you're thinking: what is Joan Morris doing in an issue dedicated to divas?(On The Beat--interview with Joan Morris and William Bolcom)(Interview)
November 1, 2003... I know what you're thinking: what is JOAN MORRIS doing in an issue dedicated to divas? Certainly Morris is anything but; she is something much rarer--a real artist. Recently, Morris and her husband, the eminent composer WILLIAM BOLCOM, flew...

Early next year, Baskerville Press will publish an updated version of Marilyn Horne's 1983 memoir, My Life, coauthored with Jane Scovell.(On The Beat)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Early next year, Baskerville Press will publish an updated version of MARILYN HORNE's 1983 memoir, My Life, coauthored with JANE SCOVELL. The update, which includes a CD and complete discography, deals with Horne's waning vocal powers, her work...

Sound bites.(brief intro to soprano Maria Zifchak)
November 1, 2003... Maria Zifchak is probably the only young soprano who can claim "Nobles seigneurs, salut!" from Les Huguenots as her signature aria. It was urged on her by Tito Capobianco when she was an apprentice at the Pittsburgh Opera Center. "It's a showy...

Northern star: Jenufa, Fidelio and now Salome--the brilliant Finnish soprano Karita Mattila has a taste for some of opera's gutsiest heroines.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... Karita Mattila and I are in the Theatre du Chatelet's sparsely furnished star dressing room, the Finnish soprano's base of operations for her Paris run as Jenufa. Last night, Mattila brought Janacek's unhappy village girl to life, delivering a...

Diva-lution: how did an opera term get co-opted by popular culture?
November 1, 2003... Should the word "diva" be retired, as an overused moniker that is now essentially meaningless? The search engine Google, for example, lists more than two million internet sites for diva. Trawling through even a fraction reveals that the word...

Wild thing: Anna Netrebko has always fought being pigeonholed in Russian repertory. This month she takes on the kind of role she loves: Lucia di Lammermoor, at Los Angeles Opera.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... Although she's enjoyed a fruitful relationship with San Francisco Opera for years, many Americans first encountered Anna Netrebko in February 2002, when the raven-haired Russian soprano made her Met debut as Natasha in Prokofiev's War and...

Mama's talkin' loud: for decades, Ethel Merman was Broadway's ideal brassy-voiced tough girl. In 1959, she found the most challenging role of her career: the monstrous stage-mother Rose in Gypsy.
November 1, 2003... During the 1930s and '40s, a number of actresses were touted as the Queen of Hollywood, but Broadway's crown belonged indisputably to Ethel Merman. In 1930, she made her stage debut as the second female lead in George Gershwin's Girl Crazy, and...

Total abandon: the high-octane art of Maria Guleghina.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... Maria Guleghina is speaking in don't-mess-with-me Russian--but not to me, on the other end of the phone. She must have been saying something along the lines of "Settle down! I've got to do this interview!" for she returns to flexible English to...

The great Galina: prima donna assoluta at the Bolshoi Theater for two decades, Galina Vishnevskaya had a life as dramatic and turbulent as that of the heroines she sang.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... There is a movie about Maria Callas, because her life played out like one. There is an opera about Galina Vishnevskaya, Marcel Landowski's Galina, because the great Russian sopranos life has spanned all the grandeur, passion, turbulence,...

Pirate Queen: Leyla Gencer's legacy as a formidable singing actress is undiminished--without the aid of a single commercial recording.(Interview)
November 1, 2003... For many, Leyla Gencer is the undisputed Donizetti soprano of the two decades from the 1960s to the '80s, yet the vast majority of those who hold her in such high esteem never actually managed--for reasons geographical or chronological--to see...

Diva Manquee: Peter G. Davis remembers the magic of "prima-tive donna" Eleanor Steber.
November 1, 2003... America has produced its fair share of opera divas over the past 200 years, and Eleanor Steber belongs in their number. She was the leading lyric soprano of her generation, and, during her heyday in the 1940s and '50s, her career was an...

The real deal: Anna Netrebko's new CD is a triumphantly Fach-defying mix of chestnuts and rarities.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... OPERA NEWS Editor's Choice: Anna Netrebko "OPERA ARIAS" by Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, Massenet, Gounod, Berlioz, Dvorak, Puccini. Vienna Philharmonic, Noseda. Texts and translations. Deutsche Grammophon CD 474 240-2 At first I...

A. Scarlatti: Griselda.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... [] Roschmann, Cangemi, Fink, Tro Santafe; Zasso, van Rensburg; Akademie fur alte Musik Berlin, Jacobs. Libretto and translations. Harmonia Mundi HMC 901805.07 (3) Boccaccio's Decameron provided librettist Apostolo Zeno with his inspiration...

Vivaldi: La Verita in Cimento.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... [] Bertagnolli, Laurens, Mingardo, Stutzmann; Jaroussky, Rolfe Johnson; Ensemble Matheus, Spinosi. Notes, texts and translations. Opus 111 OP 30365 (Naxos, dist.) Stravinsky's famous remark that Vivaldi didn't write 300 concertos--he wrote...

Barbara Bonney "Im Chambre Separee: the Operetta album".(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Arias by Benatzky, Dostal, Heuberger, Kunneke, Lehar, Millocker, Sieczynski, Stolz, Johann Strauss, Zeller. Schneider, piano. Texts and translations. London/Decca B0000474 Think of it as Kaffee with low-cal Schlag. In this collection of...

Ewa Podles and Garrick Ohlsson "Live".(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... [] "LIVE" Songs by Chopin, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff. Texts and translations. Dux 0405 Who better than the incomparable Ewa Podles to present a recital of Slavic art-songs? A concert recorded live in Warsaw, on December 8, 2002, with...

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson "Bach Cantatas BWV 82 and 199".(original-cast album of weird one-woman show staged in 2000 by Peter Sellars)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, Smith. Notes, texts and translations. Nonesuch 79692 Consider this the original-cast album. It is, after all, a sonic memento of a weird one-woman show staged in 2000 by Peter Sellars. Reinterpreting two of...

Sandrine Piau "Debussy Melodies".(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Van Immerseel, piano. Texts and translations. Naive V 4932 (Naxos, dist.) This lovely recording will bring flesh insights to those familiar with this repertoire--and a thirst for more to those unfamiliar with it. Organized chronologically,...

Magdalena Kozena "French Arias".(includes music by Auber, Gounod, Massenet, Berlioz, Ravel, Thomas, Boieldieu, Offenbach, Bizet, Verdi)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... By Auber, Gounod, Massenet, Berlioz, Ravel, Thomas, Boieldieu, Offenbach, Bizet, Verdi. Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Choeur des Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski. Texts and translations. Deutsche Grammophon 474 214-2 Magdalena Kozena--the Czech...

Vivica Genaux "Bel Canto Arias".(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Arias by Donizetti and Rossini. Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Nelson. Texts and translations. Virgin Classics 45615 In his booklet note, Michel Parouty calls this collection a "gallery of portraits devoted to a voice distinguished... by...

David Daniels and Craig Ogden "A Quiet Thing".(the CD contains songs by Bernstein, Dowland, Bellini, et al)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Songs by Bernstein, Dowland, Bellini, et al. Texts and translations. Virgin Classics 45601 Opera-based countertenors can't be blamed for wanting to get on the crossover bandwagon, and David Daniels fares about as well as most of his...

Philippe Jaroussky "Ferrari".(the new CD Selections from Musiche Varie, the music of composer Benedetto Ferrari)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Selections from Musiche Varie. Jaroussky; Ensemble Artaserse. Texts and translations. Ambroisie AMB 9932 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.) Composer Benedetto Ferrari, who lived through most of the seventeenth century, was also a theorbo player and...

Jennie Tourel "The Art of Jennie Tourel: Live Recital At Alice Tully Hall".(review of the VAI Audio CD and the Pearl CD "Jennie Tourel Sings Ravel, Berlioz, Offenbach")(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... Songs by Stradella, Beethoven, Liszt, Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, et al. Levine, piano. With bonus arias by Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky, Rossini, Monteux, cond. 1969 conversation with John Ardoin. No texts, English translations only of recital...

Regina Resnik "Dramatic Scenes & Arias".(the CD contains works by Bizet, Saint-Saens, Verdi, J. Strauss, Lehar, Wright, Forrest, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, R. Strauss)(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2003... By Bizet, Saint-Saens, Verdi, J. Strauss, Lehar, Wright, Forrest, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, R. Strauss. Various orchestras, Downes, Schippers, Solti, Bonynge, Karajan, Mantovani. No texts or translations. Decca 475 017/018 (2) The best years of...

November online edition of Opera News.(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... New recordings of Berg's Lyric Suite, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Rutter's Requiem; historic performances of three operas by Arthur Sullivan, I Quattro Rusteghi by Wolf-Ferrari and Schreker's Die Gezeichneten. Anna Moffo in RAI film of...

Verdi: Aida.(a review of the DVD )(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... [] Gencer, Cossotto; Bergonzi, Colzani, Giaiotti, Pugliese; Orch. & Ch. of the Arena di Verona, Capuana. August 1966. Hardy Classic DVD HCD 4010 (VAI, dist.), black & white, subtitled, 160 mins. This may be a DVD, but the performance is...

Strauss: Capriccio.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... [] Te Kanawa, Troyanos; Kuebler, Hagegard, Keenlyside, Braun; San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Runnicles. Kultur DVD D2900, 155 mins., subtitled Dialogue-heavy, no action, no plot--Richard Strauss's Capriccio was an experiment that shouldn't...

Obituaries.(Obituary)
November 1, 2003... SUSAN CHILCOTT, Bristol U.K., July 8, 1963--Timsburry, U.K., September 4, 2003 One of the most graceful and intelligent singing actors of her generation, Chilcott made her professional debut at Scottish Opera in 1991 and subsequently...

From around the world: Santa Fe.(North America--five operas reviewed: La Belle Helene, Kata, Cosi Fan Tutte, Intermezzo, Madame Mao)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... It was probably unintentional, but the operas at the Santa Fe Festival last summer shared the same theme--infidelity, and not just casual infidelity but infidelity as the central occasion and the cause of the action's catastrophe. Infidelity...

From around the world: Cooperstown, NY.(North America--Don Giovanni, director Francisco Negrin, designer Carol Bailey)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... "Concept" productions, though by now an old-fashioned idea themselves, were the rule at this summer's Glimmerglass Opera in its twenty-ninth season. A dour take on Don Giovanni by director Francisco Negrin and designer Carol Bailey (seen Aug....

From around the world: Lenox, MA.(North America--two tempestuous one-act operas commissioned by Boston Symphony Orchestra )(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... It was an appropriately dark and stormy August night in the Berkshires for the second performance of two tempestuous one-act operas commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the Tanglewood Music Center. Not since Serge Koussevitzky...

From around the world: Seattle.(North America--Wagner's Parsifal)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... Wagner called his final opera, Parsifal, "ein Buhnenweihfestspiel" (roughly translated as a consecrating stage work), which is, perhaps, one reason Seattle Opera's general director, Speight Jenkins, chose Parsifal as the work with which to...

From around the world: New York City.(North America--Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... For the first fully staged opera in its thirty-seven-year history, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival made a judicious choice. Though Mozart's early Il Re Pastore seemed an unlikely work for the occasion--the silly little opera seria,...

From around the world: Salzburg.(International--what is new artisitic director Peter Ruzicka up to? a few reviews)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... When Peter Ruzicka became artistic director of the Salzburg Festival last year, most regulars greeted him with a sigh of relief. They had suffered during the ten-year reign of his predecessor, Gerard Mortier, who had tortured them with...

From around the world: Bayreuth.(International--Beyreuth Festival opens with Der Fliegende Hollander)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... The Bayreuth Festival opened this year with Claus Guth's fascinating new production of Der Fliegende Hollander (seen Aug. 16). A young Senta (portrayed magnificently by an unnamed child), costumed in a blue pinafore, appeared through much of...

From around the world: Bregenz.(International--West side Story performed at the Bregenz Festival's Floating Stage)(Theater Review)
November 1, 2003... The Bregenz Festival's Floating Stage rests on Lake Constance and plays to a 7,000-seat ampitheater. Creating a viable production for this venue requires a magical juggling of spectacular scenic elements and a huge cast (often more than one...

From around the world: Pesaro.(International--Rossini Opera Festival )(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... This year's Rossini Opera Festival focused on two of the composer's greatest works--Semiramide and Le Comte Ory--in new productions that revealed little understanding of their theatrical potential (the directors were roundly booed on the...

From around the world: Dresden.(International--Wagner's Ring cycle)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... The destruction of Dresden's Semperoper by Allied bombing, just months before the end of World War II, ended a Wagner tradition that began in 1842, when the composer conducted the world premiere of Rienzi here. After the war, the company...

From around the world: Highland Park, IL.(Concerts And Recitals)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2003... On August 23, Ravinia continued its exploration of the Stephen Sondheim canon with a semistaged Passion, Sondheim's moody adaptation of Ettore Scola's primally disturbing film Passione d'Amore. Few compositions divide opinion so irascibly--some...

Dateline.(scheds for various opera houses around the world)(Calendar)
November 1, 2003... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000; www.matopera.org) Nov. 1m La Traviata (Verdi). Fleming; Villazon, Caproni; Nadler, Zeffirelli/Feldman, Zeffirelli/Gaetani Nov. 1 Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini). Mentzer;...

Prima donnas? What prima donnas?(Coda)
November 1, 2003... At the Metropolitan Opera, in the early 1960s, when I served as Rudolf Bing's private secretary for a time, there were a lot of great sopranos--but not so many prima donnas. The most temperamental one of that era was Maria Callas. Her legendary...