Opera News articles from November 2004

Opera News archives from November 2004

The Metropolitan Opera.(Save the Met Broadcast)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Dear Metropolitan Opera friends, Many friends have expressed deep concern about what is being done to continue our Saturday afternoon broadcasts, following the 64-year corporate sponsorship of Chevron Texaco. If you are one of the 11...

The sound of gorgeous.(Viewpoint)(Kiri Te Kanawa)
November 1, 2004... For sheer heart-stopping beauty, no voice in the past twenty-five years has matched that of Kiri Te Kanawa. Ever since her international stardom began, doting the 1970s, critics all over the world have exhausted their lists of synonyms for...

Opera Watch.(Calendar)
November 1, 2004... 1. PATRICIA RACETTE, currently at Houston Grand Opera for the title role in Madama Butterfly (Nov. 2, 5, 7), takes on Janacek's Jenufa for Dallas Opera later this month (Nov. 19, 21, 23, 27). She will be at the Met this season for Antonia in...

In the cultural Dark Age we're stumbling through, it's rare for any publisher to take a chance on a book about opera.(On the Beat)(The Inner Voice)
November 1, 2004... In the cultural Dark Age we're stumbling through, it's rare for any publisher to take a chance on a book about opera. But Viking-Penguin has taken a bold step with an unusual memoir by RENEE FLEMING. It's called The Inner Voice, and it's not an...

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking my first ocean voyage, aboard Radisson's elegant Seven Seas Navigator.(On the Beat)(Lauren Flanigan)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Recently, I had the pleasure of taking my first ocean voyage, aboard Radisson's elegant Seven Seas Navigator. The ship traveled up the East Coast to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, then crossed over to Greenland and Iceland. Since one of the...

Joan Sutherland is among the 2004 Kennedy center honorees.... jewels from Maria Callas's personal collection will be auctioned off at Sotheby's Geneva on November 17.(On the Beat)
November 1, 2004... JOAN SUTHERLAND is among the 2004 Kennedy Center honorees.... Jewels from MARIA CALLAS's personal collection will be auctioned off at Sotheby's Geneva on November 17. Highlights of the collection include a 11.7-karat marquise-cut diamond ring...

The price is wrong.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Jordan Schaps's article, "The Price of Perfection" [July 2004], was quite interesting--and wrong. A factor of six was used to convert historic prices to today's. Slightly more attention to accuracy would have required a simple search on the web...

Flop or success in Bologna?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... We found Silvia Luraghi's "Letter from Italy" [Sept.] to be an informative, hard-hitting article on opera theater problems in Italy today. However, we question the veracity of prior points in her article when we find a rash sentence in the...

Corrections.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2004... Henry Street Chamber Opera's 2001 staging of II Sogno di Scipione was not the American premiere ["Sound Bite," Sept.]. A full concert version was presented at Manhattan's Mostly Mozart, with Renee Fleming, in 1992. John McCormack did not give...

Sound bites.(Kelly Kaduce)
November 1, 2004... Kelly Kaduce isn't scared of Puccini. The thirty-year-old Minnesota native, who stunned Opera Theatre of Saint Louis audiences with her passionate Sister Angelica this past summer, and whose Mimi headed the Los Angeles cast of Baz Luhrmann's La...

Reunion: Julia Migenes.(Interview)(Biography)
November 1, 2004... In the fall of 1984, opera seemed poised to welcome its next female superstar. Julia Migenes-Johnson, as she was known at the time, was burning up movie screens worldwide as a highly sensual Carmen, opposite Placido Domingo, in what many...

The good life: at sixty, Kiri Te Kanawa is enjoying her place out of the sun. Barry Singer catches up with the soprano, who makes her Los Angeles Opera debut this month in Samuel Barber's Vanessa.(Interview)(Cover Story)(Biography)
November 1, 2004... The electricity went out last summer at Kiri Te Kanawa's place, deep in the East Sussex countryside. "I didn't have water, either," she proclaims with something of a backwoodsman's noblesse oblige. "The house is very near farmland. There are...

The people's diva: for nearly two decades, Renata Tebaldi was unquestionably the most beloved soprano at the Metropolitan Opera. But Tebaldi's reign at the company was far from untroubled.(Interview)
November 1, 2004... On January 31, 1955, a love affair began between Renata Tebaldi and the Metropolitan Opera public, the like of which has not been seen before or since. Certainly, there had been divas who were loved, even worshiped, at the house. When Tebaldi...

Whatever happened to Demented? Twenty years ago, Ethan Mordden redefined the landscape of opera stardom with his book, Demented: the World of the Opera Diva. Today, Mordden contends that talents who live dangerously are in short supply.
November 1, 2004... Fanco Corelli may have been the greatest tenor of his day, yet he appealed to America's own Richard Tucker for advice on singing "O dolci mani," the tenor's little solo in the big duet from Tosca's Act III. What was Tucker's secret? Breath...

Vivat Regina! From the beginning of her career, Regina Resnik demonstrated the keen theatricality and eloquent musicianship that remained her trademarks for fifty years. The mezzo talks to Stephen Hastings about her early days at the Met.(Interview)(Biography)
November 1, 2004... On December 6, 1944, twenty-two-year-old Regina Resnik made a daring Metropolitan Opera debut, replacing Zinka Milanov in one of her greatest roles (Leonora in Il Trovatore); the young soprano went on to sing Santuzza, Aida and a Sunday Night...

French pearl: a renowned Lakme and interpreter of melodie, Mady Mesple dazzled audiences with her charm--and her spectacular coloratura.(Biography)
November 1, 2004... You need only listen to her complete Lakme, recorded in her prime, in 1971, to know that Mady Mesple, reigning coloratura of the Paris Opera at the time, was the real thing. The fresh, pearly timbre was allied to a technique of unusual fluency...

High heat: it's Alexandrina Pendatchanska's normal temperature.(Biography)
November 1, 2004... Alexandrina Pendatchanska is making pasta. At first, it's hard to reconcile the small, blue-jeaned young woman in the kitchen, preparing dinner for a cheerful cohort of fellow Bulgarians, with the fiery soprano I have just seen tear up the New...

Zinka takes off: in 1937, Zinka Milanov was all but unknown in New York. Her biographer, Bruce Burroughs, revisits the tension-filled months leading up to her Met debut.(Biography)
November 1, 2004... On the second Tuesday afternoon in June 1937, Edward Johnson, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, labored up four flights of stairs to a tiny practice room just under the roof of the Neues Deutsches Theater, larger of Prague's two opera...

Queen of Harts: on the eve of an Avery Fisher Hall gala tribute to her and to her late husband, Moss Hart, Kitty Carlisle Hart--singer, actress, arts advocate and erstwhile Metropolitan Opera Prince Orlofsky--reminisces with Rebecca Paller.(Interview)
November 1, 2004... Kitty Carlisle Hart has spent her entire life in the entertainment business and has known practically everyone who was anyone in the arts, politics and society. She played opposite Bing Crosby and the Marx Brothers in the movies, gaining cult...

Santa Fe.(North America)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... The most mainstream of the offerings in the 2004 Santa Fe season was Don Giovanni (seen August 14), presented in a new production that marked the first appearance of Alan Gilbert on the podium since he was appointed music director at Santa Fe....

Cooperstown, NY.(North America)(Glimmerglass Festival)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Replacing a proposed new opera by Stephen Hartke, who didn't have it ready in time for the 2004 season, the Glimmerglass Festival mounted the U.S. professional premiere of Richard Rodney Bennett's The Mines of Sulphur (seen Aug. 13). Introduced...

Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.(North America)(Bard Festival)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... This year's Bard Festival investigated "Shostakovich and his World"; the composer's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk has become a fairly regular opera-house guest, so it was salutary in see his other main sung stage works, the Gogol-based The Nose...

Ravinia.(North America)(Sunday in the Park with George)(Theater Review)
November 1, 2004... Sunday in the Park with George may be the most psychologically perceptive creation Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine have given us. Sunday was created for Broadway, where it opened in 1984. But on a basic level, any opera-lover can readily...

Salzburg.(International)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Just arrived, already on his way out--Peter Ruzicka, the new artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, has thrown in the towel. When Salzburg's mayor and other local worthies accused him of spending too much time with the other festival he is...

Bregenz.(International)(Der Kuhhandel)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... It might as well have been a world premiere: Weill's Der Kuhhandel has finally been given a production with an extraordinary cast, orchestra and creative ream, rife with topical humor, at a comfortable length. The opera's 1935 London...

Pesaro.(International)(Rossini Opera Festival)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... The least interesting production at this year's Rossini Opera Festival was the inaugural Tancredi (seen on August 6). Pier Luigi Pizzi's gracefully symmetrical and emotionally cogent 1999 staging was transferred from the Teatro Rossini to the...

November online edition of Opera News.
November 1, 2004... NORTH AMERICA: Festival reports from Manhattan's Mostly Mozart; a Shakespearean season in New Hampshire from Opera North; the Buffalo Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. INTERNATIONAL: Festival report from Edinburgh; Cavalli's Eliogabalo at...

Spiritual rapture: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson delivers a Handel program with steady, unblemished sound, burrowing deeply into the essence of the music.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Lorraine Hunt Lieberson * "HANDEL ARIAS" from Theodora and Serse; Cantata--La Lucrezia. With Stubbs (lute), Carral (cello), Tindemans (viola da gamba), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bicket. Texts and translations. Avie AV0030 ...

Dove: Flight.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... DOVE: Flight * McFadden, Plazas, Willis, Taylor, Mason; Robson, Coxon, Magee, Page, Van Allan; Glyndebourne Festival Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Parry. Text. Chandos CHAN 10197(2) Flight, Jonathan Dove's lively opera set in an...

Britten: Peter Grimes.(Sound Recording Review)
November 1, 2004... BRITTEN: Peter Grimes * Watson; Winslade, Michaels-Moore; London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Davis. LSO Live LSO054 (3) Peter Grimes joins Britten operas The Turn of the Screw and Billy Budd with five commercial audio recordings, of...

Britten: Billy Budd.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... BRITTEN: Billy Budd * Shicoff, Skovhus, Halfvarson; Vienna State Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Runnicles. No libretto. Orfeo C 602 033 D (3) (Qualiton, dist.) It wasn't so long ago that we were still waiting for first recordings of some...

Straus: Die Perlen der Cleopatra.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... STRAUS: Die Perlen der Cleopatra * Fadayomi, Peyerl, Mihanovic; Mendrok, Zabanoff, Vogel, Meyer, Johanssen; Franz-Lehar Orchestra and Chorus (Bad Ischl Operetta Festival), Mogg. No libretto. CPO 777 022-2 (Naxos, dist.) Oscar Straus had...

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro [] Breedt, Mescheriakova, Sima, Safar; Skovhus, Girolami, Monarcha; Nicolaus Esterhazy Sinfonia, Hungarian National Chorus, Halasz. No text or translation. Naxos 8.660102-04 The Count Almaviva of Bo...

Renee Fleming. .(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Renee Fleming [] "HANDEL" Arias. Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Bicket. Texts and translations. Decca B0003160 Soprano Renee Fleming presents her credentials as a Handel singer in a new CD of arias drawn from the composer's Italian...

Nathalie Stutzmann.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Nathalie Stutzmann [] "SCHUBERT: WINTERREISE" Stutzmann; Sodergren, piano. Texts and translations. Calliope 9339 With its distinctly masculine point of view, Winterreise has been largely the precinct of male singers, but Nathalie Stutzmann...

Marina Mescheriakova.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Marina Mescheriakova [] "SOPRANO ARIAS" by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Bellini, Donizetti, Spontini. Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra and Slovak Philharmonic Chorus, Halasz. Texts and translations. Naxos 8.557109 The discography of...

Barry Banks.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Barry Banks [] "SINGS BEL CANTO ARIAS" (Opera in English) Arias by Rossini, Donizetti, Mozart, Mascagni, Stravinsky. London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Parry English texts. Chandos 3112 Chandos continues its "Opera in...

Maria Bayo.(Brief Article)(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Maria Bayo [] "ARIAS DE ZARZUELA BARROCA" Works by Nebra, Martin y Soler, Boccherini, Hita. Les Talens Lyriques, Rousset. Texts and translations. Naive Astree E8885 Spanish soprano Maria Bayo, wellknown for her commitment to her native...

Lisa Della Casa.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... Lisa Della Casa [] Lieder of Brahms, Schubert, Richard Strauss, Wolf, Schumann (Frauenliebe und -Leben). Hudez, Peschko, piano. Notes, texts, translations. Testament SBT 1341 Lisa Della Casa was exquisite, vocally and physically too. Born...

November online edition of Opera News.
November 1, 2004... New recordings of works by Argento, Lehar and Rossini; an O'Neill recital; Caldwell conducts Fidelio; tributes to Joan Sutherland and Marcella Reale; an Yvain operetta revisited.

Puccini: La Fanciulla del West.(Opera Review)
November 1, 2004... PUCCINI: La Fanciulla del West [] Zampieri, Verri; Domingo, Bertocchi, Pons, Salvadori, Spagnoli, Chingari, Roni, Giombi; Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala, Maazel. Opus Arte DVD OA LS300 4D (Naxos, dist.), 144 rains., subtitled ...

Obituaries.(Obituary)
November 1, 2004... GERARD SOUZAY, Angers, France, December 8, 1918--Cap d'Antibes, August 17, 2004. An aristocratic, stylish recitalist, especially admired for his performances of French melodies and chansons, as well as the lieder of Schubert and Schumann,...

The Inner Voice: the Making of a Singer.(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Renee Fleming Viking, 220 pp. $24.95 From Johnson's Kids to Lemonade Opera: The American Classical Singer Comes of Age by Victoria Etnier Villamil Northeastern University Press, 336 pp. $40 ...

A Passion for Opera: Learning to Love It: The Greatest Masters, Their Greatest Music.(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... A Passion for Opera Learning to Love it: The Greatest Masters. Their Greatest Music by Peter Fox Smith Trafalgar Square Publishing, 720 pp. $24.95 There is no doubting Peter Fox Smith's passion for his subject, but unbridled enthusiasm can...

Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera.(Book Review)
November 1, 2004... Mimomania: Music and Gesture in Nineteenth-Century Opera by Mary Ann Smart University of California Press, 245 pp. $45 Mary Ann Smart's thoughtful, thought-provoking study of certain aspects of gestural music, i.e., music that mimics...

November online edition of Opera News.
November 1, 2004... American opera singers on record

Dateline.(Calendar)
November 1, 2004... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 212-362-6000; www.metopera.org) Nov. 1 La Boheme (Puccini). Swenson, Arteta; Alvarez, Mattei, Nikitin; Oren, Zeffirelli, Zeffirelli/Hall Nov. 2 Aida (Verdi). Cedolins, Zajick;...

Follow that star!(Coda)(opera fans)
November 1, 2004... What separates the opera nut from the diva devotee? At first, there would seem to be little difference. Both are enthusiastic and opinionated fans, defensive about their favorites and impatient with opera skeptics. Usually, the opera nut is to...