Opera Chic

Pioneer of Dance, Pina Bausch, 1940 - 2009

Pina Bausch, the award-winning German choreographer, dancer, and artist who established the Tanztheater Wuppertal, has passed away at 68, five days after a cancer diagnosis.

Charlotte Higgins reports for The Guardian.

Herrera & Flórez Represent in July's Vanity Fair España's

Smoking Venezuelan/Canary Islands temptress, mezzo Nancy Fabiola Herrera [*website has auto-play audio], has a small feature in this month's Vanity Fair España. Modeling her fiery-red Carmen look, she's buttressed by a lukewarm ~confessional~ from Juan Diego Flórez (read: bio lite). Click image for full size.

Opera Chic Exclusive: Fabio Luisi To Be Named General Music Director of Opernhaus Zürich

Maestro Fabio Luisi (OC's pick for 2008 Conductor of the Year) will succeed Daniele Gatti as General Music Director of Opernhaus Zürich.

Luisi, who's been rawking the Lederhosen off the Staatskapelle Dresden & Staatsoper as Chief Conductor/Music Director since 2007, will start Zürich for the 2012/13 season. He will take the baton from Daniele Gatti, who will leave Opernhaus Zürich after his 3-season contract expires.

It's bittersweet, unlucky news for Staatskapelle & Staatsoper Dresden & Dresden's audiences, but lucky news for Luisi's pugs, who will be full of fresh, clean Swiss air!

You've Been Hit by a Smooth Criminal

Rattle's Aix Ring Concludes in Black & White

(Above: Ben Heppner and Emma Vetter)

Sir Simon Rattle is chilling in Aix-en-Provence for the July 3 premiere of Wagner's Götterdämmerung. The new, minimal Stéphane Braunschweig production is one of the offerings in this year's Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (festival #61), and is the final installment of Rattle's Aix Ring Cycle collaboration. The cast boasts Ben Heppner as Siegfried, Anne Sofie von Otter as Waltraute, Emma Vetter as Gutrune, and Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde.

Rattle (& the Berliner Philharmoniker) & Braunschweig will bid adieu to their Ring Cycle pact, which began in 2006 for the Festival's first Wagner cycle with Das Rheingold. It was followed by Die Walküre in 2007 (which was taped for DVD), Siegfried in 2008, and finishes with 2009's Götterdämmerung. Can Grand Théâtre de Provence contain all the Wagnerian hawtness? We will never know!

(Above: Katarina Dalayman and Anne Sofie von Otter)

Villazon's Message To His Fans: "I Have Not Yet Had The Operation"

From Rolando Villlazon's official website:

Some of you have expressed worries about my recent withdrawal from the "Carmen" -production in Vienna. Don't be concerned! I have not yet had the operation (it will take place in these days), but I decided I want to be careful with my repertoire in the next year.

Opera Chic Summer Reading List, 2009

It's summer, and it's Sunday, and this is Opera Chic's reading list for the season: 12 books, 12 weeks.

Nonfiction:

Larry Tye, Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend

Mary Beard, The Roman Triumph

Timothy Snyder, The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke

Maurice Peress, Dvorak to Duke Ellington: A Conductor Explores America's Music and Its African American Roots

Rick Bass, Why I Came West: A Memoir

John Rosselli, Music and Musicians in Nineteenth Century Italy

Fiction

Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs

Jessica Duchen, Songs Of Triumphant Love

The Lulz

David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

The Heavy Stuff

Franz Kafka, Dearest Father

Tori Spelling, Mommywood

Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition (NYT story here)

Riccardo Muti Remembers Michael Jackson

Opera Chic does not remember -- due to her birth date -- Michael Jackson the musical child prodigy, nor she remembers Michael Jackson the "Thriller" guy; she therefore has no nostalgia to color her evaluation of the late singer, because essentially she became aware of him when he was already a de facto has-been with legal and financial troubles, more tabloid character than pop artist -- a man whose greatness dated back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Still, Opera Chic was happy to read today, in Milan's Corriere della Sera, that the paper asked Riccardo Muti to talk for a while about the late singer, and the Italian maestro admitted to be a fan of sorts.

Muti, who -- appropriately -- is rehearsing the critical edition, unheard since the composer's time, of the "Missa De­functorum" by Paisiello in Ravenna (he will also take the work to Maggio Musicale Fiorentino),  remembers that he became aware of Jackson's music in the early 1980s, when the Italian maestro was Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra:

"He is without a doubt one of the most legendary, controversial (and beloved) singers of all time... His controversial story, his weaknesses,  the extreme restlessness and his exhausted last days remind me of the lives of the great castrati like Caffarelli or Farinelli, who became objects of adoration and idolatry. And they often became victims of this adoration".

Then the interviewer asked the inevitable question -- did Muti ever dance to a Michael Jackson song? The maestro tersely answers: "No. I can't dance".

White Nights: Gergiev, Lang², and Eva Green Bring the Randomness

(Above: Montblanc CEO Lutz Bethge, Eva Green & Lang Lang)

Lang² is partying in St. Petersburg for the 17th White Nights Festival, and will join Valery Gergiev in concert tomorrow.

The two came together earlier tonight at the Mariinsky for Montblanc's "New Voices" concert and gala, along with French actress Eva Green. Montblanc's designated winners -- Baritone Alexei Markov & mezzo Kristina Kapustinskaya -- sang at the gala concert. The White Nights Festival kicked-off on May 21 and ends on July 19.

(Above: Gergs & Lang²)

(Above: Gergs & Lang² yay 4 hairgel!)

(Above: Gergiev & Eva Green. Awwwwkward!)

Click the link below for a load of pictures!

Roberto Bolle, Recovering Junk Food Addict

In an interview with Italian "OK" magazine that will make normal human beings with normal human metabolisms very sad, Roberto Bolle admits that until the moment when, ten years ago, he finally decided to watch what he ate and hire a nutritionist, he used to survive on frozen pizza, croissants, coffee, potato chips.

"I felt nauseated, I felt tired: junk food was my refuge from stress, but it really damaged my well-being. I came back to Milan from a stay in London and I decided to quit, cold turkey: calories were killing me. It was a Friday night, I threw frozen pizzas, croissants and the rest of that stuff in the trash. For three days, I detoxed: fresh fruit, veggies, lots of water. The first day was tough, I craved all that sugar and fat".

But he did manage to quit cold turkey, then immediately hired a nutritionist, and now his rock-hard abs are fueled, he explains, "by yoghurt, wild rice, farro, fish, meats, fruit and veggies" and about a gallon of mineral water a day (he found the perfect sponsor, after all).

He admits to the occasional transgression -- some chocolate, a glass of red wine, maybe a pasticcino. "Because junk food is tastier if it's the exception to the rule".

Woody Allen: Zeffirelli Is Better Than Bergman *

* (as opera director).

Woody Allen -- whose production of Gianni Schicchi just traveled from Los Angeles to Festival di Spoleto where it opens tomorrow night -- gave an interview a couple weeks ago to Italian daily Corriere della Sera where he said a few unsurprising things (for example, that his inspiration for the staging came to him from his beloved Italian comedies by Vittorio de Sica and Pietro Germi from the 1950s and 1960s) and quite a few surprising ones.

The Woodman said that opera and film don't mix very often and that he found Ingmar Bergman's film version of The Magic Flute to be "boring", unlike Joseph Losey's Don Giovanni ("good"). Corriere's journalist correctly points out that Bergman has been a huge influence on Allen and Allen is a huge fan, and that Bergman's Magic Flute is usually considered a masterpiece: "Many people are crazy for his Magic Flute but I never really liked it, it's neither opera nor film. There's a director who's excellent at mixing opera and film: Zeffirelli". Zeffirelli is often panned by critics, the Corriere journalist points out.. "He's a great man of the theater and cinema. One of the few who can make opera accessible to a large audience. His Pagliacci and Cavalleria production -- I love those two operas -- is very exciting. If he takes some liberties he does it as an artist... if you bore them, they'll never be back. It's just like baseball".

Oh, and Placido Domingo, who convinced him to do Gianni Schicchi, wants Allen to direct Così Fan Tutte. Allen, who, in the interview, repeats that for him "life without Mozart is unthinkable", admits that it's a very intimidating opera to direct.

But he's thinking about it.

The First Concert In Human History: Party Party

Concert etiquette from 35,000 years ago:

The wing bone of a griffon vulture with five precisely drilled holes in it is the oldest known musical instrument, a 35,000-year-old relic of an early human society that drank beer, played flute and drums and danced around the campfire on cold winter evenings, researchers said Wednesday.

That's a pretty hardcore brand of historically-informed performance.

Leo Nucci Owns Rigoletto, Owns Madrid, Owns Verdi: First Encore In Teatro Real's History

Leo Nucci, the world's greatest Verdi baritone, whipped the Teatro Real's audience to a such a frenzy with his "Vendetta, Tremenda Vendetta" that he had to give an encore -- a first for Teatro Real.

Antonio Moral, general manager of the Spanish house, told El Pais: "Esto es histórico".

As someone who has enjoyed the privilege of basking in the art of Signor Nucci -- a humble man, he does not want to be addressed as "maestro" -- Opera Chic can only say, if you haven't heard him sing Rigoletto, you missed out on one of the (few) absolutely great, history-making performers of our time.

The Lebrecht Plan To Save NYCO: Be Like ENO

Uncle Normy has a plan to save New York City Opera:

First, caution always fails. The only way to save an opera company is to spend on bold new shows. Even if they flop, they create waves.

Second, more is less. The more productions you put on, the better your chances of reducing deficits by attracting a bigger audience and a larger sponsor base. Instead, Steel has planned one gala and 31 performances on a budget of some $30 million. That means every performance costs around $1 million. (Last season, ENO staged 130 performances on a $46 million spend).

Third, the show isn’t over until the large bailiff sings. Dragged to within sight of the bankruptcy courts, ENO averted closure by means of artistic triumph.

In short, be more like ENO.

The Wall Street Journal, on the other hand, seems to have marginally more faith in George Steel:

Given the extreme limitations under which City Opera is now operating, the choices Mr. Steel made in creating this tiny, last-minute season demonstrate a positive strategic spin: a mix of the familiar and the unusual, and a showcase for some of City Opera's historical strengths and accomplishments such as pioneering new works and building a market for Handel. It's a more sensible course than Mr. Mortier's wholesale reinvention. Still, going forward -- if it can -- City Opera will once again have to establish its market niche and find the resources to make that vision sustainable.

139 Billion Chinese Play Almost As Well As Lang Lang -- Or They Soon Will, The Chinese Govt Says. Anne Midgette Reports

Postcard from Beijing:

Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" Bring the Bewbs

Hungary's Miskolci Nemzetközi Operafesztivál 2009 brings out the bewbs in Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. Click the link below for the NSFW, uncensored version.

Alagna In Nantes: Sicilian Soul

Roberto Alagna is in Nantes to bust some serious Sicilian tunes, in a concert apparently conducted by that dude from My Morning Jacket.

Video below:

La Fura Dels Baus Will Subject You To A Body Search: György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre @ Opera di Roma

Opera Chic had prepared a whole post discussing La Fura dels Baus's production of "Le Grand Macabre" at Opera di Roma.

But then, images are worth the proverbial thousands of words.

 Funnily enough, this is going on in Rome as la Scala subjects its audience to a warmed up re-staging of Franco Zeffirelli's 2006 Aida (promptly booed by audiences).

more saggy bewbs under the cut

Rolando Gave Dmitri The Cooties: Covent Garden Cancellations Galore

June 24 seems to be a bad day (night) for ROH-goers: first Rolando Villazon cancels his recital for the reasons well known; then our Dmitri pulls out, too.

A surprised Opera Chic reader received this notice from the Royal Opera House:

I am very sorry to be sending you an email regarding our concert this Wednesday, 24 June. Unfortunately Dmitri Hvorostovsky is under doctors' orders to completely rest his voice and it is with great regret that he has had to cancel all his current engagements. We are, of course, very disappointed not to be hearing Dmitri and hope he will soon make a full recovery.

A Hampson/Calleja/DiDonato extravaganza will replace Dmitri's show.

King of New York, King of New York: Bolle @ the Met

One of the nice things, when you're planning a trip back to the US, is the knowledge that Roberto Bolle will be waiting for you in New York.

Roberto will be dancing at the Met on June 26 (Swan Lake aka Swoon Lake), July 1 (Sylvia),  July 7 (Romeo and Juliet).

His schedule is here.

The Education of a Critic: Tim Page Reviews His Old Reviews

In Opera News, Tim Page on his 1982 reviews, the current state of arts journalism, and much more:

I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but I was utterly unprepared for my new position, and few things would make me happier now than the opportunity to delete the majority of my early Times reviews from archives and distant memories. Although I had collected records since I was five or six, knew a good deal about contemporary composition and played the piano acceptably, I had scant knowledge of huge portions of the repertory and no understanding of the day-to-day challenges and intricacies of the music world. Even more to the point, I had not yet begun to develop much human empathy for my fellow mortals. So I approached my new job with the prim, Robespierrean surety and the acerbic would-be cleverness that then seemed to me the most important qualities of a working critic.

The Times was used to steep learning curves — developing a voice with which to speak through New York's most powerful and prestigious newspaper is never an easy adaptation — and my editors were good enough to keep me on.

The Bregenz Aida, Part II: Video Evidence

Josh Groban and the Dame

This weekend, Josh Groban and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa were in downtown Los Angels for the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame 10th Anniversary concert. The two ~opera singers~ were inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, and were joined by conductor Thomas Wilkins, Frederica von Stade, John Williams, and some other randoms. The two inductees posed below:

~*~

Click the link below for more photos from the event!

This Just In: Barenboim Booed In Aida @ La Scala

A grimly uninteresting revival of Franco Zeffirelli's production of Aida (the one that had opened the 2006-2007 season under Riccardo Chailly's baton, when Roberto Alagna was booed off the stage right after the second performance's "Celeste Aida" aria) earlier tonight was roundly booed after his debut performance; Daniel Barenboim and Anna Smirnova (Amneris) were the main targets of the loggionisti's anger.

The AGI/Yahoo! Italia Notizie report (in Italian) is here.

Maria José Siri, as Aida, replaced Violeta Urmana who had pulled out earlier. Walter Fraccaro was Radames.

This Image Has NOT Been Photoshopped

Double check it on Presse Ocean.

Graham Vick, CBE, Will F*çK Your Empire Up: Aida in Bregenz

Aida, as we all know, is a horrifically difficult opera to stage -- it doesn't work historically, because the chance of a military commander falling in love with a slave is more or less the same of a modern dayUS Senator falling in love with a beer can -- slaves were literally things to be used -- nobody would believe Radames falling in love with a Flintstones-style lawnmower, after all.  The duty vs love angle is awesome but it's really saddled by so much heavy-handed stuff anyway (as in Zeffirelli's 2006 Scala production, splendid in its luxury and deathly in its motionlessness -- OC was there for the 12/7 premiere and for all the Alagna insanity that followed) that one might as well go nuts and shake things uppa.

A maestro of shaking opera things up, Graham Vick, has dreamed up an interesting variation for Aida: at the Bregenzer Festspiele he's imagined a huge Statue of Liberty -- well her big feet and her right hand -- as the backdrop for Aida

After all it's the same festival that's in the business to stage Tosca under a big eye, and so much more.

More, of course, after the jump.

Pamela Rosenberg Out Of Berlin, TV Producer In

After her drama-heavy tenure at the San Francisco Opera, Pamela Rosenberg's term as Intendantin of the Berliner Philharmoiker has been more or less fun, but it has come to an end, too: and by September, 2010, she'll be replaced by Herr Doktor Martin Hoffmann: lawyer, TV executive and TV producer.

OC's suggestion: how about a nice reality TV show, the zany adventures in the life of a major German orchestra? The skits about his roommates stealing Rattle's conditioner write themselves.

Thomas Hampson Will Put George W. Bush On Trial, Then E-Mail You An Out-Of-Print Score

Unlike those of us -- the President included -- who kind of focus on the current appalling state of the economy, there are some Americans who, understandably, would really like to see examined in court certain actions of that indefatigable d1ldo factory also known as the Bush administration: Thomas Hampson is one of them.

In the latest New Statesman, the Hampster leaves aside for one second the trademark self-love fest of his average interview, and goes political:

Now is not a time to forget but to take responsibility for those wrongs. If righting them means holding those responsible to account, then so be it. We made it through Watergate; we can make it through this.

On the other hand, as a commenter of Tom Service's blog reminds us, Hampson is also the kind of dude who'll e-mail you an out-of-print score that you really need.

Placido Domingo Does Miami Vice On Wetten Dass

Placidone managed to keep some dignity (except for that white suit) in his appearence on the German TV show "Wetten Dass"...

Placidone sings after the jump...

No Faenol Faer Bryn

The money pit also known as BrynFest, the Faenol Festival, has been canceled for this year.

"It is a case of taking one step back so that we can take two huge steps forward and come back with a bang next year",

promised Bryn.

Dmitry Hvorostovsky: When Self Love Almost Borders on Douchiness

Russian baritone Dmitry Hvorostovsky speaks from Moscow (he's currently there to sing a few concerts with Gergiev) about his personal & professional life, talks about his childhood in Siberia, his fetish for Italy, and his life as a secksy, silver-haired rock'n'rolla! He also reveals that he wants to sing Boris Godunov in a filmed version. He also wants to explore new Russian roles and Verdi's Macbeth & Otello, with a definite foray into crossover. Then he gives a few shot-outs to his favorite singers (Alagna & Angela, Pape, Furlanetto, Fleming, Kaufmann, Radvanovsky...hmmmm, but not on the list: Netrebko)!

Closing Time: Lorin Maazel To Ring Closing Bell Of New York Stock Exchange

Maestro Lorin Maazel, whose slavish devotion to Mammon is even greater than his (often dormant) musical talent, will ring the Closing Bell of the New York Stock Exchange next Monday, June 22, at 4PM.

Maazel is about to close, also, his seven-year tenure as Music Director of the NY Phil.

Wacky Hat Day: Katherine Jenkins Got the Memo

Today was the first day of the Royal Ascot, a nearly 300-year-old summer tradition in England, where the Royal family squints at each other for a few hours & parades around a horse track in precarious hats, while getting hammered on flutes of Bollinger and watching their corgis urinate on their subjects' expensively handmade Cleverley shoes.

Not one to miss out on free canapés and paparazzi swarms, Katherine Jenkins was in attendance, though looking like she got kicked out of the Barbie Dream House circa 1985.

*click the link below, especially if you're a British-Royalty-[Excluding]-[Katherine]-[Jenkins]-[Cuz]-[She]-[Ain't]-[Royalty]-In-Wacky-Hats fetishist*

NYCO's Numbers

GM as in, of course, Gérard Mortier.

The New York Times on NYCO's red sea:

During Ms. Baker’s tenure, City Opera has raided its endowment — which now stands at $16 million, down from $57 million when she was appointed in December 2003 — to pay off debts and cover operating expenses.

...

“I don’t see how they could not close,” said Robert W. Wilson, a former City Opera chairman who now serves on the Metropolitan Opera board. “There is a slight chance that they can remain open, but where would the money come from?”

They Go To La Scala A Lot And You Don't: The New Scala Ads

The tag line for the new Scala ad campaign -- they want you to subscribe to their new season, the one whose program accidentally leaked on their web site while it was still supposed to be embargoed -- is  "You Were Not Here -- No More Regrets". (in the photo above, from today's Corriere della Sera newspaper, Daniel Barenboim and Patrice Chereau post-Tristan -- Opera Chic was there, obvs).

Funnily enough, Opera Chic's tag line, proudly, since October 2006, is "I Go To La Scala A Lot... And You Don't". On the other hand, Opera Chic sometimes does regret that -- and it's not just because of the astronomical ticket prices, even for humble Gallerie.

Below, an alternate take on the ad, remixed by operachic.com, parody, fair use, etc:

Sweet Firebird Of Youth: Google Honors Stravinsky's Birthday

Google celebrates Stravinsky's birthday on their homepage; the Internet riots.

(Major props to Tom Service's "Igor beavers" comment -- repeat it fast with a British accent and it sounds so naughty)

Villazon Cancels May 2010 `Carmen' Premiere in Vienna

More bad news for Rolando: the comeback is getting pushed and pushed farther into the future:

Star tenor Rolando Villazon has canceled his May 2010 premiere of "Carmen" in Vienna as he recovers from surgery to remove a cyst on his larynx.

Villazon was to have appeared alongside soprano Anna Netrebko and mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca in the May 3 premiere at the Vienna State Opera.

But the Mexican singer says he's being extra cautious with his schedule to ensure he makes a full recovery.

Lotte Lehmann in Rosenkavalier, photographed by Edward Steichen, Vanity Fair, 1935

(via)

Chorégies d'Orange 2009 On TV: Ciofi, Grigolo, Alagna, Chung, Prêtre

Chorégies d'Orange has a pretty cool TV schedule this year: Chung's Traviata with Ciofi and Grigolo (France 2, 7/15), and Prêtre's Pagliacci and Cavalleria Rusticana with Roberto Alagna (France 3, 8/5) will once more demonstrate the superiority of European television over its transoceanic counterpart (we do broadcast more baseball, though, and that's always a good thing, even when the Yankees suck).

From Russia With Balls: Rupert Christiansen Finds A Real Male Soprano: Yuryi Mynenko

Opera Chic does not know what the "BBC Cardiff Singer of the World" is and does not want to know -- she just assumes it's a Welsh Eurovision without vowels and lots of w's and y's --
 but whatever that is, Sir Rupert Christiansen found a real singer there, apparently, and even when she disagrees with Ruperto on specifics, Opera Chic trusts his ear. OC is not in the business of grading singers via YouTube and computer speakers -- the Internet's favorite pastime -- but this Ukrainian dude does seem to have a meaty, rich sound that it's hard not to be tempted to define as "ballsy". Castrato ballsy, that is.

Here's Yuryi Mynenko in "Oh Patria.. Di tanti Palpiti", an adequately throbbing (literally, too) Rossini aria. Whatever's going on in this dude's voice box, seems to be pretty awesome indeed. The mullet, though, really needs to be cut off.

Diva vs. Diva: More Munich Redux

Battle Royale. The divas slug it out between the pages of Abendzeitung, both armed with cleavage and inkwell locks.

~*~

~~Click the link below to see what other goodies we uncovered in Munich! [Including a rare shot of Strauss and YOU KNOW WHO!!! ~~

Picture Post: Bayerische Staatsoper in all its Glory

One week ago, Opera Chic made her inaugural trip to the Nationaltheater München -- where the Bayerische Staatsoper bats at home -- to catch Gatti's sublime control of the Verdi masterpiece, Aida, and to get caught-up in the inevitable drama that followed Angela Gheorghiu singing the lead role in Verdi's La Traviata.

The opera theater crowns the spacious Max Joseph Platz and the monolith contains endless glass chandeliers, gold leaf accents throughout, and polished marble floors. OC was right at home.

Click the link below to see more shots of the theater, and TONS of exterior shots showing the advertising campaigns for Aida and Traviata (Kaufmann & Angela pictures included)...

Placido Domingo, NBA Champion

(via Culture Monster)

Anna's Chauffeur Speaks; The SF Chronicle Savages Her Violetta

The Examiner publishes (scroll halfway down the page) an email from Paul Ziller, the super who the other night in San Francisco played Anna's/Violetta's chauffeur in La Traviata. An excerpt:

I looked in the rear view mirror and whose face was it I saw...but Anna Netrebko's. I nearly swallowed my tongue. It was an out-of-body experience of sorts. Those now famous eyes were looking back at me (or, at least past me), and her beautiful rhinestone earrings and tiara shimmered with the light coming from the nearby stage lights. I felt like I was in an exotic fragrance commercial

Unfortunately Joshua Kosman, the "Chronicle" music critic, wasn't as smitten as this excitable nice young man:

The evening's shocker was the Violetta of soprano Anna Netrebko, a worrisome assemblage of technical problems and stagey mannerisms that came to life only in the opera's short final act.

...

Gone was the sleek, silvery tone that once coursed with thrilling precision through the most demanding vocal assignments. Gone, too, was the focus on emotional and dramatic detail that brought fresh insights to a range of roles.

In their place was a dark-hued, sluggish sound, deployed with laborious uncertainty and awkward breath control (I can't recall the last time I was so keenly aware of an opera singer's breathing - and no, it wasn't just the TB speaking). The glittery roulades of "Sempre libera" in Act 1, as Violetta decides to embrace the pleasures of the demimonde for good, sounded crude and approximate.

Then her singing -- not her acting -- apparently got better.

On the other hand, the dude from the San Jose Mercury News heard some "liquid amber" so a good night was had by almost all.

The Critic-As-Taxidermist Will Bore You To Tears: Why Kael Still Matters

Nobody still seriously clings to the idea of the critic for an important magazine or newspaper as gatekeeper of high culture and embalmer, for all posterity, of What Is Important. Still, Richard Brody, a New Yorker blogger, in a post about film critic Andrew Sarris (and it does indeed suck that Sarris was fired by the New York Observer, together with a bunch of other people we really wish can find another newspaper job very soon), writes:

...if you were to watch only the movies Sarris endorsed, I’d predict that you’d have a pretty good sense of the best of world cinema at the time; if only Kael’s picks, you’d likely have a very skewed and narrow view of it.

It's not really about appearing "skewed" and "narrow" a few decades later -- more simply, a critic who still considers herself a gatekeeper of everything proper and highbrow and tweedy represents a journalistic template that just doesn't work anymore.

Michiko Kakutani, for example, probably mistakes her juice, the residual power she obviously still has, at least in part, in the book business, as long as she still writes for The New York Times and as long as the NYT is still business of course, for an actual wider role as bouncer of high culture, who'll either keep an author out or will let that author in the club. Pauline Kael -- the anti-Kakutani in so many ways -- has influenced so many critics who came after her not simply because she could write circles around the many Bosley Crowthers determined to bore their readers to tears. Kael mattered -- and still matters -- because for all the flaws in her arguments, for all her (frequent, but not that frequent) bad calls, she wrote reviews, not entries for a future textbook about Important Films. She didn't even call them films, to her they were "movies". She wrote about what mattered to her, one way or the other, as a way to engage the reader. That's how you stay relevant 30 years later, you don't accomplish that by having been "right".

Sarris himself once wrote, leaving Kael horrified, that a chronology of his ''represents a weighted critical valuation". Give us critics who engage us, and that we'd love to disagree with (what's the point of reading someone you agree with most of the times? And who seriously will still avoid a movie or an opera because The New York Times or The New Republic wrote that it's not good?).

"Weighted critical valuations" are so terribly dull, if you lost it at the movies -- or at the opera, in Opera Chic's case.

John Malkovich, Not An Opera Fan, Will Strangle You With Your Bra

"I'm not an opera fan -- I'm tempted to say neither will anyone else be once they've seen this" -- John Malkovich

"This" is actually "The Infernal Comedy", whose fully staged version premieres on July 1 in Vienna.

Want to know more? The intensely cool Mr. Malkovich explains that

"It's not really an opera in that sense, it's a one-man show within the symphonic experience, let's say."

The Infernal Comedy, written by Michael Sturminger, "incorporates music from Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Boccherini and Weber, and two sopranos perform while Malkovich strangles them with bras, Unterweger's weapon of choice".

Terry Teachout Rips A Big One

Terry Teachout, who's not horrified by the classic Broadway audience habit of giving random ovations to stars simply for showing up (a bad habit that Met audiences, mostly content to clap their hands even for the most mediocre performances, have duly co-opted), argues in the Wall Street Journal that:

When in doubt, wait—then let ’er rip. You’ll be glad you did.

In short, it's theater- and opera-going as buildup of gaseous appreciation; criticism as flatulence.

Elaine Alvarez Steps in for Harteros (who stepped in for Gheorghiu) @ the Bayerische Staatsoper

(Photo: Kristin Hoebermann)

American soprano Elaine Alvarez saves the day, yet again and again. This time, she'll be the relief Violetta at the Bayerische Staatsoper for tomorrow night's performance of La Traviata. Opera Chic was in Munich on Tuesday night to see Angela's Violetta, but now it's Elaine's turn to sizzle with Jonas Kaufmann's Alfredo.

Anja Harteros was originally called in to replace Angela Gheorghiu (Opera Chic reported on it here), although both divas pulled out, citing health issues. Alvarez is familiar with replacing Gheorghiu, as in September 2007 for LOC's La Bohème, she stepped-in last minute for the freshly-canned Angela.

When Lorin Met Karlheinz

More evidence for the "Stockhausen was a big huge bag of douche" case in a Lorin Maazel profile in the NYT, where the maestro also explains he could -- or could not -- take early retirement at 95. 

Stockhausen referred to the “sentimental weakness of German Jewish immigrants” who kept alive an “obscene love” for Romantic music, Mr. Maazel said, then suggested that Mr. Maazel come close to a speaker to hear a piece of his. “A tremendous blast came out of it which almost destroyed my eardrum, which he knew perfectly well would happen,” Mr. Maazel said. “Total monster.”

Green Eggs And Sushi With Netrebko But She'd Rather Order Out For Mexican (She Does Not Mean Villazon)

A San Francisco Chronicle reporter has sushi in Netrebko's apartment, where the singer proceeds to tell her that she went from a size 4 (before pregnancy) to a size 8.

We're not sure if that's American sizes, French sizes, Russian sizes, or if it's simply yardage.