Gheorghiu's Duet, Literally, with Callas

 

Comments

[Maria]

No.

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Hahaha! Gheorghiu as Princess Laia! Pathetic promotion of Gheorghiu. Callas outsings and outacts her in this. Who's looking at Gheorghiu when La Divina is present--even from beyond the grave? Most of the selections on Gheorghiu's disc were never performed by Callas on stage. Hahaha! Wahn! Wahn!

[Eric]

Thanks for poasting this video! I adore watching Callas. Side by side, no doubt about it... Callas the real deal! I'm going to play my Callas recordings all day long.

[Mona Bayard]

Sometimes narcissism is its own punishment.

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Yikes! What Callas communicates with an efficiency of gesture and facial expression far exceeds what Gheorghiu is expressing with the multitude of her vagrant hand and arm gestures and her general shimmying about it. Micaela for you Ms. Gheorghiu! Brava, Maria!!!!

[Chris]

I am not hugely enamoured by this duet BUT I ADORE ANGELA'S DISC ! AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING, I GUESS.

[Renate]

Now it's official. Gheorghiu has Grandiose Delusional Disorder.

[Franco]

Don't show Callas the queen again with Gheorghiu the roommaid. They have nothing at all in common. The first one lives it all and every night was as if she lived just for this one evening, the second learns everything just by heart and looks at herself as a star while singing.

[Lou]

She adores Callas. She wishes Maria were alive and were able to sing together. I'm sure that Maria would have accepted it.

[Alexander]

I'm speechless .... no comments

[Liane Bierau]

When I go to this website I am always amazed at the bitchiness of many of these bloggers. Even Callas at her lifetime and even now was not loved by everybody. Angela has a beautiful voice and is a very good actress. I saw her in September as Margarithe in Faust in Covent Garden and to me and many critics she was a far better Margarithe than Poplavskaya in the Met who got great praise with American critics.I bet, once Ghiorghou will have been dead for 30 or so years, she will also have been the greatest. Callas was also very narcissictic and known for being very difficult.

[Marshie]

Tonight
Hamburg State Opera
"Hänsel und Gretel"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgUr5YRSh90

Musikalische Leitung: Johannes Fritzsch
Gertrud: Cheryl Studer
Peter: Wolfgang Schöne
Hänsel: Katrin Wundsam
Gretel: Katerina Tretyakova
Knusperhexe: Renate Spingler
Sandmännchen: Juhee Min
Taumännchen: Katharina Bergrath

[Fava]

She's a piece of work. She's got a set on her, too. I'd like to think that the record company dreamed this one up as a clever marketing strategy to sell CDs, but this has Angela's stamp all over it. The narcissism, the ego and the vanity. Brilliant. She turns Callas into her biggest fan.

[Realto]

I'm going to grab some popcorn and ride out Angela's descent into madness. This should be fun!

[May]

@Liane: while I also like you think that Gheorghiu is a better Marguerite than Poplavskaya and I also saw both (the one thing I think P was better than G as was the portrayal of innocence), and I also agree with you that in 30 years time Gheorghiu will be remembered as great, I don't think that warrants this joining of their names and images. Reminds me a little bit of the film Julie&Julia, where you can't deny Julie Powell's achievement but she was still capitalizing on someone else's hard work (Julia Child). Gheorghiu is wonderful, but her greatness is a far cry from Callas', in terms of her versatility, acting skills, and the sheer size of their respective on stage repertoire.

I mean, surely it's not humble of Gheorghiu to put herself on the screen with Queen Callas. Does that make G any greater?

[richie]

Disgusted to see Callas and Gheorghiu together. The Queen and the bitch. I know what I am talking about. Beeing 73 I have heard Callas 6 times live. That lasted all my lifetime. Saw Gheorghiu once. That was forgotten the next day.

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

@Mona--Brava!

@Liane--Yes, lovely voice and studied actress, but her actual performing repertory is sooooo limited. She is really more a recording artist. None of the selections she sings requires the stunning bravura technique that Callas had in her prime. Yes, Callas did fall from grace like a glorious comet. Just compare what Callas says with her one hand on her hip--totally Carmen!!!! It is genius--not just a pretty body in a RuPaul dress.

[richie]

When Callas stepped on stage you forgot to breathe even without her having sung one note. When Gheorghiu stepped on stage you thought: what does she love except herself.

[jayne]

Angela Gheorghiu will never approach the greatness of Maria Callas.

I like Angela in her own right, that being said. I am not too concerned about her personality. No one right now has a top that blooms like Angela's, regardless of her relatively compact voice.

But leave Maria to her meteoric legacy. No one can touch her, certainly no one has so far. She is the one and only.

[Chiedu90069]

Callas famously said in a fabulous recorded interview that she had no rivals because she sang a vast repertory while the rest sang the same 5 or 6 roles over and over again. I can only imagine what Maria would have made of Gheorghiu and her limited rep. Maybe an appetizer before dinner!

[Oroveso]

I saw/heard Callas. I have seen/heard Gheorghiu. The difference between a sublime Canaletto oil painting of the Grand Canal and San Marco and a blind tourist's cell-phone snapshot. Vergogna to EMI and Gheorghiu. Absolutely disgusting, devoid of class and shameless.

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Richie, tell us about seeing and hearing La Divina live.

[richie]

Well I saw her in London it must have been 1965 in Tosca (Zeffirelli, Tito Gobbi, Renato Cioni). All the shades between a young girl and the woman that deservedly murdered Scarpia where breathtaking. She brought the house down and I was happy and sad at the same time for I felt that the things would come to an end somehow. Heard her in Royal Festival Hall in a concert, that must have been in 1962. She started with 'ocean thou mighty monster' Oberon in English!!! After the first words she lost the text she spread her arms laughed loud and said: excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I just start once more. Ovations. That was so natural, so human, I was told that such a thing happened only once in her career and I was there. I always asked me why she began with this terribly difficult aria (9 minutes) where one usually starts with a warm-up aria. I heard her in Paris in Norma twice and in Medea. In Norma with (I still freeze) Franco Corelli, Christa Ludwig and Zaccaria. And I heard her in Hamburg and Düsseldorf in her concerts. After Norma I could not sleep for two nights and I met her and Corelli with many people after the performance in the Grand Opéra de Paris (Palais Garnier). For the tickets I had waited a whole night (12 hours).
Greetings from Germany. (sorry my English is not the best) Richie

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Thank you for this delicious reminiscence!!! (Your English is excellent!) Yes, starting with the Weber would be quite a demanding scene since the singer must manage so many vocal challenges. The first time I heard saw Caballe in concert with the Chicago Symphony, a year after her famous Carnegie Hall debut as the Borgia, she sang only the Weber and Strauss Four Last Songs: the Weber came first. Holiday best wishes. (I only saw Callas in one of her final recitals with di Stefano--she would have been all right had she avoided "Vissi d'arte" and "Suicidio" and stuck to lighter pieces. She sang the duet from L'Elisir d'Amore which was actually very good; after all, that was what Mme. Hidalgo prepared her for. She looked so fabulous in her couture that evening. I will never forget it.)

[Liane Bierau]

@Bill Philin Poplis and May

You are most likely right in what you are saying and I have never seen Callas live, but she certainly was larger than live, and as I said not EVERYBODY liked her but this does not justify that people are so very bitchy. Angela may not be by far as vesitile as Callas, but what she does she does very well und still plays to absolutely full houses. You can't get a ticket here in London when she sings. And her Tosca here in July was tops!!!

[Les Mitnick]

EMI really goofed with this one. While a previous poster correctly said that there were those who didn't like Callas during her prime, none of them denied La Divina's ability to command a stage and deliver a performance.

The music that Gheorghiu sings on this recording is NOT music for which Callas is readily identified, though she did record these items.
When I think of Callas, I think of Norma, Medea, Violetta, Lucia, Lady Macbeth, Anna Bolena, etc, as well as all the gazillions of other roles she sang. I think of her as immortal.

Mme. Callas was the supreme diva of the last century, but her supremacy should not reduce other great singers to second-rate status. Still, anyone who attempts La Divina's greatest roles is risking a comparison, and while Carmen was certainly not a Callas role (save for the recording and the arias she sang on stage), Gheorghiu is doing herself no favors by participating in this nonsense. Next to Callas, she's a mosquito.

[May]

Wow Richie how amazing that you saw Queen Callas in all these performances! Norma!!! and Tosca! and Corelli!!! Gobbi!! Wow!!!!!!!

It must have been worth it to stay up all night for tickets.
This just proves what real greatness is- the experience stays with you even after more than fifty years.
Gheorghiu's performances simply do not carry the same magnitude, and this silly CD and video just highlights it.

Oroveso, you have seen Callas too? Tell us please!

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Thanks, Richie, for this delicious reminiscence. What fantastic casts! Your English is excellent. I only got to hear Callas "live" once in one of her final recitals with di Stefano. No matter how she sang she had a presence that was inimitable. I only wish she had had the courage to get back on the stage and tackle Saint-Saens' Dalila. But, as I age, I see Life can wear even the strongest down.

[Guillaume]

I was worried that I was the only one who saw how much Gheorghiu loves herself when she performs! Many of my colleagues at school seem to love her and I am constantly baffled by it. I saw her in boheme at the Met and it was disgusting to see her play such a humble, sweet character as Mimi.
Indeed, she has talent worthy of an international (well, that may be pushing it) career, but she is certainly no Callas! This coming from someone who isn't a terribly great fan of Callas— I just don't care for her tone, but I respect her technique and immense acting capability.

What a career-destroyer you've created, Angela!

[richie]

From Richie! To add this: I was a student then in Paris and lived near Sorbonne. For the tickets I went at 12 in the night knowing that the box office would open the next day at noon. When I arrived nobody was there waiting. But I had a certain feeling and some food with me. I was November and quite cold. At about 12.20 in the night came the next person and from that time on people began to come slowly but surely. When the box office opened the next day at noon, I was the first to get tickets. The queue was more than 400 meters long and could be seen till Printemps and Lafayette. During the night people helped each other with water, food, blankets, hats and so on. There was but one subject: Maria Callas. Beeing from Germany my best friend in Paris came from Chicago but was unable that night to wait with me. He was not specially friendly with opera but every now and then when we telephone (he lives now in San Francisco) he mentions that through me he was one of the lucky people who heard Callas live. And he adds: I never thought that opera could make me freeze. Callas made me freeze all over. Well Ed you felt it without knowing much about opera. Her greatness moved everybody who heard and saw her live.

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

Very charming story! So much devotion! Now people wait all night or days to get a new Iphone! LOL. How values have changed! I wish I had seen La Divina in a fully staged opera! And you saw all the classic roles!

[Miss Johnson From London]

Let's urge EMI to release a duets video of Angie with the late Mari Lyn and up the delusion factor to the stratosphere.

[Lily]

What bothers me about this effort by AG is how she has co-opted the stature of another artist without that artist's permission.

MC is dead; she cannot give permission. So AG should not be stirring up MC's ashes to promote her own career.

AG has much talent and beauty of her own. Surely that ought to be enough for her.

[artandhockey]

Just read these comments.
Growing up in Vienna I, too, stood in line many hours, even, in the cold to get standing room tickets for special opera singers' performances at the taatsoper.
One did it, one shared a folding stool with friends, one took turns going to a cafe to warm up and eat! And all helped one another!
Now.. ..ah well. There IS the Met and others in the movies. A very far cry from BEING THERE!
Even on Stehplatz!

[Bill Philin Ploplis]

What you say is true, Lily! I just saw some segments of the Tosca performance that was moviecast and thought she offered what no other singer offers today in that role. I wish she would just not give interviews or give into crazy PR stunts and just perform, perform, perform. Alas! In the final act, I could already see that she is aging, and she should not waste any moment of what is left of her career with silly diva nonsense.

[Rose-Mary Hyslop]

Cheeky-very cheeky-but why not? Angela looks and sounds fabulous, and it's time we all got over this Maria Callas-is -untouchable stuff.If she were still alive we'd no doubt be all over her, ripping her to shreds.