Although Salzburger Festspiele's official website has alread confirmed soprano Ailyn Pérez singing Juliette for the August 18th performance of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette -- the same Roméo et Juliette that our pregnant Anna Netrebko pulled out of to prepare her nest for bebbe -- we are left wondering who else can fill Nepregko's swollen shoes and sing opposite of Rolando Villazón's Roméo?
OC has been told that the heavily-hyped (by the Scala publicity machine, since, among other reasons, she's also a graduate of Scala's own academy) Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze, who is currently Lauretta -- singing an underwhelming O mio babbino caro -- in Scala's Il Trittico, will step into the rotation as Juliette. The premiere is on Saturday, August 2, with an additional 8 performances running until Monday, August 25. John Osborn will be sharing the role of Roméo with Villazón.
We want to congratulate Machaidze's PR machine (complete with bland, vaguely sycophantic fluff magazine pieces) for churning out yet another mediocre soprano to fill the void. Too many MCs not enough mics. We weren't impressed with her Lauretta, but whatevs. The Hypeman Cometh. They recently ran a full page interview/ad with the young soprano in like Il Venerdi' or something ICR, but OC didn't blog it because there wasn't even anything '^kewl^' enough for a pull. You can see a few screenshots of her here from a live broadcast on Classica.
