Opera Chic

Sergei Polunin Speaks

Former Royal Ballet etoile Sergei Polunin spoke to the press about his sudden departure from the London ballet company last week.

"It's a confusing time at the moment, I have made a big decision and the next one will be important so I don't want to rush it. [...] For the moment I'm concentrating on ballet and on rehearsing. I need a few days alone to think about what I'm doing as I haven't decided yet."

The meltdown came after a period that outlined a break-up, crappy tattoos and tweets about late-night clubbing and scoring heroin. We're pulling for Polunin.

In Memory of Six Million: Italy's Classical Music Scene Bears Witness

Today marks the international Holocaust day of remembrance. Italy's opera houses and symphony orchestras to memorialize the man-made trauma by organizing special concerts over the weekend.

You can read it here for Opera Chic's latest piece for Grazia.it's Stasera Esco.

Chinese Conductor Long Yu, Kung Fu Fighting

The day before his Tuesday evening concert to celebrate the Chinese New Year with Lang(x2) and the NYPhil, Shanghai-born conductor Long Yu sucker-punched a ruffian on Columbus Avenue.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Mr. Yu, 48, said he was walking with a friend after dinner on Columbus at about 70th Street around 10:30 p.m. on Monday when a man approached and asked for a cigarette. Mr. Yu said he did not want to be bothered and waved him off. The man suddenly swung a fist and struck him in the eye, Mr. Yu said, and started to run. The conductor said he chased the man, grabbed him and swung back.

Year of the Dragon, indeed.

 

Tough Year Ahead for Teatro alla Scala

Colleen Barry at the AP reports from the press conference that Lissner MC'd at Teatro alla Scala yesterday morning, where he stated that 2012 will be a tough year. Despite an increase in attendance, La Scala expects a dip in public and private funding this year while running on a budget of 110 million euro. Milan's opera house has been finishing mainly in the black since Lissner's been GM since 2005.

Nice to see the stats on Ed Gardner's insanely-excellent Death in Venice from last March:

The Milan opera house hit its all-time record box office for a single performance: euro281,154 ($365,584) for "Death in Venice" on March 19, [2011]. The nightly box office usually runs around euro250,000, depending on the performance.

Maybe it's Gardner's ~RPattz Effect~ that brought the Twilight fans to La Scala. 

Salonen Out, Harding & Letonja In for Four Filarmonica della Scala Concerts

Our biggest get well wishes to Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen at the news that the Finnish conductor has cancelled four Milan performances with Filarmonica della Scala in February for health reasons. 

Marko Letonja (who excelled in Les contes d'Hoffmann that we wrote about here) jumps into Salonen's appointments from February 11-13 with Filarmonica in a concert of Bartók, Luca Lombardi (the world premiere of a new composition commissioned by La Scala to mark the 150 years of Italian Unification), Debussy and Skrjabin.

Daniel Harding will conduct the concert on February 6 with Filarmonica that substitutes violinist Leila Josefowicz with pianist Lars Vogt and a small change-up of the program (Brahms' Concerto no. 1).

 


 

La Mer de Pianos

La Mer de Pianos from Films & Things on Vimeo.

Margaret Truman, 1953 Rigoletto

Daughter of Harry does her thang [via]

Opera Chic & Grazia.it: Les contes d'Hoffmann at La Scala Reviewed

Orgies & deus ex machina -- it's Robert Carsen as we know and love him. Canada's l'enfant terrible reissued his y2k Les Contes d'Hoffmann from Opéra national de Paris for Milan's Teatro alla Scala. Offenbach's fantasy premiered on Sunday night to nice success, embraced equally by Marko Letonja's Mozartean conducting of a soundtrack that's often too bombastic. Bravi all around, which you can read about, in Italian, on Opera Chic's Stasera Esco column for Grazia.it. 

Opera Chic and Corriere Della Sera's Style Magazine: Esa-Pekka Salonen is "Essentially Elegant"

Why do we rock the new new with Corriere della Sera's lux fashion supplement Style Magazine? It's got the Made-in-Italy edge on the NYTimes' T Magazine and it's less Mr. Peanut (spats, top hat & monocle) than the FT's How To Spend It. That.

And also: OC contributed to its January/February 2012 edition. Much appresh to the classical world's most desirable free agent Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose streamlined & pragmatic style in wardrobe, furniture and workspaces is admired by the city that created understated-elegance. (Answer: Milan).

In case you missed it, OC previously contributed in September 2011 for profiles with Juan Diego Florez and Jonas Kaufmann, again with columnist Pier Andrea Canei whose Internazionale "Playlist" column is so painfully hipster that we're just gonna call him ~DJ P.A.C. Man~ from now on. 

Ish Opera Singers Say

In the spirit of recent youtube sensation, "ish white girls say to black girls", American mezzo soprano Jennifer Rivera (with American tenor Will Ferguson and opera's king of cool Michael Rice) made opera singers all sorts of cool with their own take on the meme. We've been there:musical tables & chairs at restaurants, stolen scarves and enough Rx stashes to bury a horse. We <3 our singers.

 

Radio Rai 3 Live Streaming from La Scala's Les Contes La Prima

Get your Les contes c'est chic freak on. You can stream tonight's la prima of Jacques Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann live from Teatro alla Scala on Radio3.

Opening tonight, Les contes is in Robert Carsen's Opéra National de Paris production. Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas stars as Hoffmann, Nicklausse is Ekaterina Gubanova, Olympia is Rachele Gilmore, Antonia is Genia Kühmeier, Giulietta is Veronica Simeoni and Dapertutto is Ildar Abdrazakov. Conducting is Marko Letonja.

Go here and click on that black and blue "RADIO3 LIVE" button at the top of the page.

It's Hard Work Being Roberto Bolle

That's the title ("Essere Bolle e' un Lavoro Duro") in Corriere della Sera's Io Donna la Repubblica's D Magazine January 14 edition that shares a small interview with the Italian ballerino, principal dancer at both Milan's Teatro alla Scala and New York City's American Ballet Theatre. The 36-year-old Adonis is preparing for Excelsior (also the name of one of our favorite luxury department stores in Milan where we were coincidentally having a coffee with friends when the Italian gawd himself was upstairs in a dressing room trying on a thong -- photo below, life is so unfair for us mere mortals) which opens at Teatro alla Scala on January 20 and frankly kind of gives us a Springtime for Hitler finale vibe, no joke.  

So does it bother him when people objectify his hawt body?

"No, I'm conscious that the physical body has its own importance. A statuesque body has helped me in dance and has helped open me up to a more varied public. I'm sorry that some people, when they see something beautiful, whether it be a ballerina or an actor, don't understand that there's work behind it, a kind of personality."

And how exactly does he keep that magnificent shape (aside from healthy eating and dancing like seven hours a day?)

"Yoga, pilates, swim, training -- but I don't refuse once in a while some chocolate."

Jenny From the Block on NYCO on the Chopping Block

This whole New York City Opera demise thing is just so lame. So how about the perspective from a singer who did her time at the New York City Opera while it was thriving? American mezzo Jennifer Rivera, who keeps a blog, wrote an insightful post about the whole situation.

Cello Soul, Tiger Feet: Johannes Moser's Onitsuka Tiger Asics

Like L.(ang) L.(ang) Cool J with his classic Adidas Gazelles, Johannes Moser rocks a pair of old school Onitsuka Tiger Asics on the cover of his new solo CD that drops at the end of the month. 

The German-Canadian cellist's new CD is of contrary cello concertos, both composed for Rostropovich -- Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 and Britten's Cello Symphony with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. It's a follow-up of a May 2011 solo CD of Martinů, Hindemith and Honegger.

We like his deconstructed street-style vibe. And he loves Terry Gilliam. So that's pretty cool.

(above and below credit Manfred Esser/hänsslerCLASSIC)

Verdi & Pavarotti Catwalk Concerto for Dolce & Gabbana Men's Fashion Week

So it's Men's Fashion Week in Milan, apparent by the insane dinner parties (Alberta Ferretti's last night at Giacomo Bistrot) and the sulky, pale male models that crowd our cobblestone streets and don't eat in our delicious restaurants.

The runway shows kicked-off this morning with Corneliani, Zegna and Costume National, and after the lunch break, Dolce & Gabbana showed their Men's fall-winter 2012/12 collection at their Viale Piave labyrinth.

Dolce & Gabbana aren't shy about their love of opera, and they've paid homage to Italy's great opera composers in the past -- the 20th celebration of their men's collection last year at Palazzo Marino blasted Verdi hits and their Women's 2009 spring-summer lline incorporated Teatro la Fenice playbills and Maria Callas' face into its collection. (OC didn't miss the blow-out, either). Off the catwalk and away from backstage, we used to bump into them at Teatro alla Scala's Sant'Ambrogio opening night, too (but sadly we haven't seen them since 2008).

But earlier this afternoon, their fall-winter 2012/13 Men's collection catwalked to the sounds of an all-Verdi playist. As fashion editors, buyers, journalists and well-dressed guests took their seats, waiters in white tie lined the runway with trays of champagne flutes (seen above from the D&G twitter). The intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana played and the show began.

Male models took the catwalk to Pavarotti singing La donna è mobile and Di quella pira and finished with Libiamo from Verdi’s La Traviata. Here’s a short video clip thanks to a front row GQ-er.

 

Rogue Saint Bartoli on Salzburg Whitsun 2012 and La Scala for 2013-14

 

Opera's patron saint of rogues, Cecilia Bartoli, remind us that rules don't really exist. The Italian mezzo is all about transformation -- although with coffer-busting record deals, she's got the funds and clout (and five Grammys under her belt) to pick and choose. She spoke in today's La Repubblica and shared details about what's going down in the first half of 2012. And as with all things Ceci, it's awesome.

May 25-28 will debut her artistic directorship at the Salzburg Whitsun festival, which she's packed with an all-Cleopatra program. What's that all about?

"I honor the assignment. Up until now it's been touched by great maestri like Karajan, Solti and Muti. To ask the advice from me is a trial of renovating the festival, and I had decided to focus more on the figure of Cleopatra."

And why Cleopatra?

"For her inexhaustible charm, and her ability to stimulate art and painters, composers, and playwrights. She had an aggressive temperament, was enthralling and had a tough core of Egyptian femininity. There's a Cleopatra-esque spirit  of modern Egyptian women and not because the first catalyst of the recent revolution was a woman."

La Ceci makes a role debut at Zurich Opera House premiere on February 10 as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello ossia il Moro di Venezia, but she'd rather be singing the headline.

So is it true that she dreams about singing Otello?

"I'd love it so much! But I'd have to be reborn as a guy. More than Otello, tho, I'd love to play Don Giovanni, a marvelous Mozart role. Don't you think there's a little Don Giovanni in all of us? I'm a Gemini and I feel in me the "gemello" side of the "gemella".

Ceci wears the pants. We just iron them for her. We rarely see her in Italy, but she has a concert in Rome on Aril 5 to sing arias from her Sacrificium CD. Will she come back to Italy after that?

"Italy, Italy. To live there is difficult, but to live without it is impossible. I come back in vacation, there are my friends, my family. But how's it possible to work in the Italian opera houses when they such small amounts of money and they're always late programming their seasons? Regardless, Barenboim got in touch with me about La Scala and maybe ill sing in the 2013-14 season. I really hope so!"

Us, too.

Opera Chic & Grazia.it: Daniel Harding, the Conductor in the Tom Ford Frac

We've been talking about his sartorial prowess for ages (since back when OC was writing for WMag's Editors' Blog) and last week British conductor Daniel Harding was back in one of Europe's fashion capitals to conduct Filarmonica della Scala in a Dvořák/Beethoven one-two punch.  

Between throwing an open rehearsal the day prior to his January 9th concert and ducking into Tom Ford on via Verri for a personal fitting, Harding shared with OC a few thoughts on his Dvořák/Beethoven concert, Carlo Maria Giulini (who the concert was dedicated to) and Milan's winter sales.

If your Italian skills are better than Hans Landa's, click here to read the interview on OC's Grazia.it Stasera Esco column. If your Italian's more like Aldo Raine's, click the link below and say ~Gorlami~.

Music is My Bag, Literally

OC's bags of choice are Prada, Bottega Veneta and Celine, but these handmade felt bags are cool, too. Via Sea of Shoes, from this Etsy.

 

Quasthoff Retirement Announcement Aftermath

Opera Chic was saddened by the news that broke earlier today from Camp Quasthoff that announced the 52-year-old German bass-baritone's retirement from the opera stage due to health reasons. One of the concerts wiped from the slate was an upcoming March 23 performance in Boston for its Celebrity Series. Thomas Quasthoff was to perform with tenor Michael Schade.

Quasthoff's statement to the press demonstrates why he's treasured for his elegance and professionalism.

“After almost 40 years, I have decided to retire from concert life. My health no longer allows me to live up to the high standard that I have always set for my art and myself. I owe a lot to this wonderful profession and leave without a trace of bitterness. On the contrary, I am looking forward to the new challenges that will now enter my life. I would like to thank all my fellow musicians and colleagues, with whom I stood together on stage, all the organizers, and my audience for their loyalty.”

OC's just proud she caught Quasthoff in December 2005 at La Scala for a Barenboim-conducted Beethoven's Ninth and in 2009 for Winterreise and knew the power of his voice and musical spirit. And the news is terrible for all music lovers because, very simply, Everything Is Illuminated In The Light Of Thomas Quasthoff's Genius, and the music world now is much darker.

"How I taught Sherlock Holmes to play the violin"

From The Guardian, Benedict Cumberbatch's violin lessons:

I was sitting outside in the sun at AIR Lyndhurst studios in London when we first met: he strode up, motorbike gear on, helmet in hand. I lent him my spare violin and as he attached his leather belt to it and slung it over his shoulder, I realised that violins look much cooler when worn by bikers.