Opera Chic

Angela Gheorghiu Disses Martha Stewart, Cancels Her Met Bohème

I mean, come on.

Kathy Battle sings for the Pope & the President; and Angela Gheorghiu doesn't even sing for Martha Stewart?

Gheorghiu canceled her Bohème last night. Elena Evseeva covered for her. Martha Stewart was in the audience.

Martha is a strong girl, she could take federal pen she can take Angela dissing her at the Met.

I mean, Martha's dog just died, for cripes sakes! (maybe Angela had something to do with that, too?

But still, no secret appetizer recipes for Angela this year!

Here's Martha's late dawg, Paw-Paw. omg i'm like srsly crying over here :"-[ R.I.P PAW PAW~

*~*~*

Jay Nordlinger: Fun With Dick (And Angela. And George). Aka, Crushing Ever Harder

We have already written about the quirky sweaty threesome of Jay Nordlinger's idols -- Angela Gheorghiu and Dick Cheney and George W. Bush but, even for somebody who loves people with "huge brass ones" (he's not talking about vocal chords, we fear), this last Valentine is so ripe with unrequited feeling for the object of his affection* that we fear Jonas Kauffman will get jealous pretty soon:

In the title role was Angela Gheorghiu, the Romanian soprano. How they love to hate her! And who does the hating? Certain critics, chat room typists, and other snipers. She is a target, for reasons some of us find bewildering. She is also a great singer — as will be universally recognized when she is safely retired or dead. Then one and all will say what a privilege it was to have heard her.

OC -- who now feels like joining an Angiola chatroom, if such a thing actually exists, just to type away decked out like in the photo above -- has had the privilege to hear Gheorghiu.

Even more than once.

Well, OC still wants her Traviata 204 euros (ie, about a thousand dollars or something) back.

OC to The Jayster: we take PayPal! (free subscriptions to the National Review don't count).

* JN also finds Donald Rumsfeld really hot

La Bohème At Metropolitan Opera: Came for Luisotti, Stayed for Frengo, Gheorghiu Was, Um, There, Too

One of the more detached Bohèmes that OC has been to, with every eye in the house bone dry and tissues unused by the time Ramón Vargas uttered, "Che vuol dire quell'andare e venire...", though not all fault of the tenor. The chemistry between the Ceauşescu-ian ice princess and our Mexican lyric-of-many-scarves was not terribly convincing, and Gheorghiu was detached, while Vargas remained aloof when scenes called for them to converge. Both singers acted independently well enough, but a sense of platonic buddies pervaded their scenes together. Gheorgs couldn't wait for her death scene to be over, squirming uncomfortably and stroking her jaw, while Teh Fargster kept hovering over her and kept like 3-inches away at all times.

The best performance was by Italian Maestro Nicola Luisotti, who guided the tipsy, capsizable ship of Puccini's La Bohème to the safe shores. Angela Gheorghiu was at the helm of S.S. Unprepared, struggling to match obvious and egregious orchestral cues, at one point transposing notes at the end of a passage that was waiting for her measures ahead, and giving Maestro Luisotti the best workout he's had in years. Things got so precarious at one moment that Luisotti abandoned his orchestra and began furiously guiding the short-of-sight Gheorghiu through one of her simpler, later act songs with gigantic and florid flutters of his hand, matching her swells with the ebbs of the orchestra. Gheorghiu hasn't been doing her homework, and bombed the oral quiz. Vargas was more or less on point and the house clearly loves him. His Che gelida manina! wasn't anywhere close to perfection, but he received a wall of spontaneous bravi from the crowds, despite the fact that his voice at the higher notes was pinched, and he strangled a passage.

When Gheorgs wasn't singing to the beat of her own drummer that mysteriously thumped away inside her own head, or searching for the proper facial expression instead of her dependable fallback knotted brows, or beginning her scenes in a timid, inaudible voice that grew in confidence and volume as the act gelled, what did emit from her was a gorgeous, tender, well controlled voice. Act I was a mess for her entrances, while Act III had her struggling once again against the orchesetra. More insulting than her sloppiness was the male leader of the local Gheorghiu fan club, who screamed encouragement from the Family Circle at the end of an early aria "BRAVO". FAIL! U FAIL @ LIFE!

The perfect sound coaxed by Maestro Luisotti from the Metropolitan Orchestra was at moments heavenly. His mastery of Puccini's well-known score was a stellar interpretation, his idiosyncrasies insanely sexay and elegantly succinct, picking-up passages that can easily delve into sentimentality and sappiness. Afterall, it was Italian Maestro Nicola Luisotti's grandpappy that duck hunted with Puccini himself, so we expected a lot from the legacy of Puccini's circle of friends.

One of the highlights of the night was the presentation of two plaques to Mistah Franco Frengo Zeffirelli, who toddled onstage at the end of Act II's immense and unforgettable Cafe Momus scene before the first intermission to speak a few words. Gelb came out and elaborated that they were putting up two commemorative plaques on the stage walls. Frengo then thanked everyone, and personally thanked Mirella Freni, Carlos Kleiber, and Luciano Pavarotti. And Opera Chic. And his legions of silk and cashmere scarves. We <3 u Frengo!

There were a few opening night issues that have to be worked out, such as when Vargas and Gheorghiu remained in shadowed darkness during Act III's "Donde lieta usci". But more on that tomorrow, cuz this OC without sleep thing is about to get ugly.

The Dukes Of Hazard: Roberto, Edward, and The Merry Wives Of Windsor & Alagna

One was King.

The other was Alfredo. At la Scala. Under Muti. At 27. With Pavarotti's blessing. And, if you're an opera singer, or a Republican (in the UK sense, not in the Huckabee sense), it pretty much comes close to being King, too.

Then they both got married.

To Wallis & Angela (the double date from hail, when you think about it).

Anyway.

Roberto Alagna is now in beautiful Valencia to appear at the Palau in Le Dernier Jour D'Un Condamné, written by his brother David Alagna (the one who did the Orphée mashup that got savagely booed in Bologna and received some nastykinZ review as well).

His lovely wife Angela Gheorghiu, as she so often does, canceled on his a$$ so there's another soprano in the cast. But there's also Erwin Schrott appearing alongside Roburto, Schrott the daddy-to-be of Pregs Trebs's baby, so that's going to be one fun production (Anna netrebko is in Valencia too, eating ginormous amounts of fish). Esp. if an emerging artist like Ervino -- who could totally ride his supasta girlfriend's coattails to some serious level of fame in these next few years if he's smart and he may very well be -- studies Alagna up close. As a cautionary tale.

 

A post where the most elegant man of the XX century appears (the Duke of Windsor, not RA) can only end on a high fashion note: enjoy a close up of Alagna's interesting leather/herringbone overcoat.

Like Three Godzillas, Only In Beijing (Tokyo's Safe)

Three of the world's most respected sopranos, Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathleen Battle and Angela Gheorghiu, are set to hit Beijing all at the same time.

One word to enteprising impresarios with a perfectly clean bill of cardiac health: Three Sopranos.

There's big money in that concept if you can avoid to have your still-beating heart ripped out of your chest  by an extremely p-ed off diva.

Roburto Teh Vampire Slayer Ghostbuster

«I took it as a sign from God.» «Tonight, I have finally put away the ghosts of Milan that have haunted me,» he said during a midnight interview in his dressing room.

Roberto Alagna sings Radames in NYC (no loggionisti need apply), talks nonsense afterwards; our merciless big sister La Cieca posts a review from reader Gualtier Malde.

"Total disregard for Lyric Opera’s dedicated personnel and for her fellow artists"

Nevermind that tall tall dude with the #23 jersey that used to play a few years ago.

This is our favorite Chicago Bull, ever.

Why?

That's why.

>Update: Reader Michael, of Opera Now, scooped the story last night! And also made us lol with "sh*t canned".

Loggionisti Need Not Apply: The Alarghiu Family Takes Marseille

Ten minutes of applause -- most of it thanks to the New York Sun critic disguised as a Frenchman, beret on his head and baguette under his armpit, "Bush-Cheney 08 ANYWAY" sticker concealed under the shirt -- in Marseille last night for Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu in the premiere of the Vladimir Cosma's (the guy who scored the flicks from La Boum series, teen-movies extraordinaire that make John Hughes look like Billy Wilder) new opera, Marius Et Fanny.

As we said the other day, for all OC's dislike for AG, we're rooting for a Alagna comeback; now, doing Cosma in Marseille is not exactly the greatest thing ever, but here's hoping the surgery fixed everything and now Roburto can go back to having an illness-free, temper-tantrum-free career (but please, still with a bit of drama now and then!).

We The (Mean) People: Our Beef With Angela

Jay Nordlinger, managing editor of the National Review and classical music critic for the New York Sun, is a man of passion; among his loves, George W. Bush ("a Rushmore-level President") and Angela Gheorghiu (with Dick Cheney as a commedia dell'arte-type of terzo incomodo).

We appreciate the sentiment behind Nordlinger's ode to the "beauty, musicality and endless charm", quote unquote, of Angela Gheorghiu -- because, famously, love is blind, and it must be deaf, too.

He's totally smitten by the Gheorghiu's Scala recital CD (heavily manipulated by sound engineers, we guarantee, since unlike il signor Nordlinger we were actually there at la Scala in the, ahem, flesh to listen) and, really, who are we to interfere with a blooming love story there (one hopes Jonas Kauffman Roberto Alagna is not jealous of Nordlinger, but still, love is love, so more power to the Jayster).

It's all good, as we said, until Nordlinger goes on a tangent about the big meanies in "the chatroom world, the opera-gossip world, the kingdom of the snarks" that hate on poor Angela because, obviously, "she is the target of considerable resentment and envy".

Now, this is the part that, sadly, just doesn't fly. Envy of... what?

There are singers working nowadays who are so evidently much more talented than Gheorghiu (Devia who has 100 times the technique Angela will ever have; Voigt), classier engagements (Bartoli, Mattila), more serious crossover appeal (Fleming), deeper scholarship (Bartoli), singers who sell faster and are much richer (appallingly, Katherine Jenkins, but numbers are numbers and Jenkins beats Gheorghiu there, she's the fastest selling classical recording artist since Callas, the horror, and one of the wealthiest women in Britain to boot) and, frankly, there are many singers who are prettier (Kozena, Garanca, Antonacci, long list unfortunately), thinner (Netrebko), taller (Nadja Michael), act better (Rinat Shaham who, we fear, one day will be permanently stolen by Hollywood), and, let's be practical here, have bigger b00bs (Dessì, who could also give Gheorghiu voice lessons every day of the week, twice on a Sunday; and Daniela Dessì -- whose initials are, appropriately, DD -- is a concert-level piano player, to boot, we are told from reliable sources. Dessì is also secure enough that she routinely sings with her very talented companion; even a declining Alagna would wipe the theater's floor with Angela nowadays, if the Scala Traviata is anything to go by).

We could go on.

So, really, what could people could possibly be envious about here? Where's the beef? (see photo above)

Of Gheorghiu's smallish voice? Her wildly unprofessional cancellation record? The fact that she's married to a clearly more talented, better singer who outshone her every time they sang together (actually, they don't anymore, one wonders why)?

If we are to judge her dispassionately, she's an intense (if sometimes hammy) actress, with a good -- if smallish -- voice who chose carefully her roles and has been marketed smartly by the recording industry as the Traviata/Puccini fierce brunette and she does have -- yes, that's her main virtue, and it's an important one -- megadoses of guts & chutzpah, and a bulldozer's vigor -- she ignored the Scala trademark booing during her Traviata, unlike her way-too-sensitive husband who just lost his peWp during Aida; she's a singer who can take the hazing of an unruly audience, and that means something. But let's be realistic here -- her best Traviata is from 1994. And Georg Solti is not here anymore to lead her by hand (not that she'd listen to an old dude now that she's a megastar).

Her arrogance (sulking off a Muti-conducted Pagliacci because she refused to go back and study the score at Muti's request) and the gleeful refusal to acknowledge great singers from the past (the memorable interview where she denied she could learn anything from Callas) could only fly if she had Callas's voice, or Tebaldi's.

She doesn't.

People will take the tantrums as long as your voice holds, and it's worth the trouble. Then, you end up where Kathleen Battle -- a uniquely talented singer, unlike the not-so-gifted Georghiu -- ended. It's not a good place.

And envy has nothing -- nothing -- to do with it.   

Why Angela Will Leave

Anyway. Full disclosure: Opera Chic is a known Nucci fangirl. Ok thx.

Having said that, Maestro Nucci is scheduled to appear at la Scala tomorrow night (alongside Vargas and Lungu) and on the 17. On the 17 Alfredo will be that hottie Jonas Kaufmann; Violetta will be la Gheorghiu.

What does it mean? The consensus here -- oh the txt messages & emails we've received today from our well-informed friends and neighbors -- is that putting la Gheorghiu on the same night as Nucci (beloved by so many here at la Scala) is very likely a recipe for disaster.

Because:

a) it's realistic to assume that Maestro Maazel will from now on concentrate more on the job at hand, thus avoiding more unpleasant reactions from the loggione (he's not their favorite but he had a pretty civil relationship with them until last night, and he had even received from the loggionisti WILD cheering for his conducting a beautifully fierce and elegantly tense Tosca last year -- ed. Opera Chic was also mightily impressed by Tosca/Dessì's beWbs)

b) Kaufmann has recently sung here in a recital and has left a very good impression. And frankly, he's sexier and more confident than his colleague Vargas.

c) unless Nucci drops the ball and has one of his (very) infrequent not-so-good nights, we can assume he'll get A LOT of cheering. They won't clamor for an encore, OK, the way they did in Rome with Renato Bruson.

But why would Angela's Violetta risk being upstaged by Giorgio Germont? Why would a global secksystar risk having a 65-year-old gentleman steal the show, and maybe get the boos while Nucci gets flowers and bunnies and standing ovations and jus primae noctis over nubile young women?

We've seen Nucci drive la Scala insane with joy -- we've heard the wild cheering, the screams of "Sei come Cappuccilli" -- la Scala's greatest compliment for a baritone --, we've seen the usually stern gentlemen in bespoke suits all misty-eyed after Nucci's "Il Balen del Suo Sorriso". We've heard the thundering noise of the happy feet of the overjoyed gallerie audiences going all thudthudthudthud on the gallerie's glorious wooden floors, sending little echoes all around the hall for Nucci.

Now, Angela has given the cameras here already enough material between the prova generale and last night's show to compose a decent DVD that will come out next year. Why would anyone -- any soprano, not just Angela -- risk being a spectator of somebody else's success like that? Why should she be there getting the occasional boo while impotently watching Nucci bring teh haus down?

Why?

That's why so many of the good ones here are betting against Gheorghiu being still here on the 17th. Fool me once (in Rome), OK.

Twice? No way, Leo.

Irina Lungu: Who's That Girl?

Tired of trying to project enough power to reach the deeper regions of the cavernous opera house last night, Angela Gheorghiu will rest her tonsils tomorrow night and Violetta, as scheduled, will be Irina Lungu. La Gheorghiu -- who, as we have already written, has to thank the heavens that Maestro Maazel sucked so bad that he distracted the loggionisti from Angela's limitations and took by far the most part of the boos -- la Gheorghiu  is supposed to be back on stage Saturday night, at 8PM sharp, hair and makeup and costume ready. Possibly. But more of that later.

Anyway: Angela's understudy (the third soprano booked for this already unfortunate production is Elena Mosuc) has already appeared at la Scala in 2004 and she rawked Rome this past April with her Violetta. She's been apparently so good during rehersals that Irina really surprised many people around Scala, we have been told, with fine acting, clear diction, good power and a beautiful intonazione -- a tasty 27-year old brunette from Moldova, she is 15 years younger than Angela (or even 17, if you listen to the gossip that indicates a little of creative PR tinkering with Gheorghiu's actual birthdate.

She is scheduled to appear alongside Ramon Vargas (again) and Germont pére will be the awesome Leo Nucci, replacing last night's Roberto Frontali, a seasoned pro who has all of Opera Chic rezpect but whose baritone, last night, came across as simply too flat  -- on the stony side especially when more warmth was needed, for example in "Di Provenza" -- and we really hope it was simply a bit of fatigue.

Critics Go Nuclear On "Useless" Maazel, "Capricious" Gheorghiu

Oh Lordy Lordy.

Where to begin?

OK, Italy's leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, goes nuclear in so many ways on the Scala production of Traviata that Opera Chic  had the misfortune to attend last night (and she missed a very nice Southampton 4th of July barbecue for this!).

The first attack is, well, a subtle but lethal stab -- the paper's lead classical music critic, the one who declined to review Gheorghiu's Traviata in Rome last April and went to a performance of the understudies instead (best diss evar), declined to review the Scala's show, and opted to write a beautiful hommage to the late Beverly Sills (taking care to point out how, among her many accomplishments, the usually very stern Corriere lead critic writes, Sills has been "one of the greatest Violettas" in history).

Among the praise for Sills, "queen of technique and of pathos", kudos to her "unique vibrato technique", "a musicality of the highest order", her chilling death scenes, and she "will forever have a unique place in music history". Then the critic admits that in her arias of deepest sorrow, she had the power to literally move to tears.

What a beautiful hommage.

And the duty to review the Traviata fell on the shoulders of the other Corriere critic, a urbane scholar who's usually polite and moderate in his pans. But he made an exception last night.

Let's see, and remember that we're talking about the review of a usually quiet musicologist and college professor who's on the record as being that rare creature, a critic who usually likes Maazel:

... Angela Gheorghiu, Romanian soprano who has the habit of acting as a ridiculous diva in an era that does not allow such behavior anymore...

... to see today this 1990 staging means to see all the dust, all the wear and tear, all the  problems  that make it much weaker than its actual age suggests. It's a Traviata completely without ideas, a staging that does not say anything on the mystery of this woman, one of the most fascinating creatures ever imagined by an artist's mind...

(Maazel), formidable French-American musician, is a capricious man: can conduct divinely, as in the recent Rachmaninov concert here at la Scala and can give useless and lazy performances such as this one... the music sticks to the skin like humidity in these clammy Milan days, heavy, dead, unless Maazel occasionally remembers to be the artist he is... slow tempi, washed-out sound...

(Gheorghiu) the "diva" is truly an average soprano, small-voiced,  wrong diction, but she does have colors, intonazione, and even beautiful expressive moments. The problem? She acts on stage like the diva she believes herself to be, with hysteria... not even young Pavarotti could get away with this stuff... 

Wow.

Wowzykins.

The critic for il Giornale goes nuclear as well. Just read his first two words:

"Ouch. Ouch." ("Ahi. Ahi" in Italian).

And then the barrage  begins, mentioning how "Gheorghiu sings the way they used to sing in provincial opera houses a long time ago... irregular emissione... the shabby vowels of her Italian diction... the speed changes meant to create cheap effects. If she hadn't announced her presence here as some sort of Messiah the audience would have greeted her cordially, because she's a singer who deserves respect in her repertoire... Maazel's inertia is very different from his great days on the podium... the booing upset him in the finale... only rarely a conductor abandons his singer they way Maazel did by refusing the curtain calls".

Ahia!

hOh Noes Look What You've Done Angiola The Drama Llama Is Back!

Critics savage last night's Traviata at La Scala, question the management's judgement, cut Gheorghiu down to size, scold Maazel and zero in on director Cavani; show-stealing Leo Nucci lurks in the wings; an All About Eve scenario begins to develop; the "when is Angela leaving Milan" countdown begins among Scala insiders; and more.

Much More.

Teh Drama Llama is back in full force at la Scala; Opera Chic has delayed her flight home indefinitely; stay tuned for wall-to-wall coverage according to this website's shameful tradition when it comes to classical music drama developing at la Scala.

Stay tuned for more juicyness...

Angela Gheorghiu Gets A Loggionisti Pardon, Survives Almost Unscathed; Lorin Maazel Almost Pulls An Alagna, Refuses To Show Up For Curtain Calls *~>UPDATED<~*

BREAKING

This just in: Opera Chic has just come home from la Scala's Traviata, Angela Gheorghiu's opera debut in the theatre where her husband Roberto Alagna got booed off the stage last December in Aida.

More later, very soon, but for now: Angela Gheorghiu got sporadically booed by loggionisti but was lucky enough to be saved by the lameness of Maestro Maazel's conducting -- it was poor Maazel who ended up taking one for the team, a bit like the dude who went hunting with Dick Cheney and got shot in the face and then apologized to the VP.

Anyway: in the audience we were all bracing for a skewering of la Gheorghiu but we got instead an anti-Maazel torrent of boos right before the start of the third act. Maazel actually had to wait a full 90 seconds until all the booing had died down, because it would have drowned out the pianissimo of the Scala orchestra.

It went downhill from there. And Angela was home free.

Stay tuned for more...Opera Chic needs to showah

VVVV UPDATE VVVV

The drama llama that is the Alagna-Gheorghiu couple keeps on giving, but sometimes in a weird way: as I said, everybody thought Gheorghiu was going to get a brisk a$$kicking by loggionisti tonight (the sad truth is that they mostly hate her for having uttered some slightly flippant remarks about Callas -- something like "I don't imitate any other sopranos, Callas included", or words to that effect -- more than for her, frankly, too-small voice).

OC had only heard Gheorghiu live once before tonight's trainwreck -- a recital at la Scala, and it's unfair to judge a soprano's power from a recital like that one. But in that big house, tonight, Gheorghiu's voice REALLY sounded small. And her acting, well, she has charisma but not really tons of it.

Instead, she did get some booing -- mostly concentrated on the left side of the second galleria where a small team of loud Angela-haterz vocalized some nasty BOOOOOOOOOOOs after her big arias of the first and second act. They were clearly there, but they were kinda drowned-out with the general applause anyways.

The surprise, though, was Lorin Maazel's conducting: OC is on the record as being a fan of the maestro's knowledge and his competence, but this is the night where he embodied all the limitations his haterz keep talking about -- that he just goes thru the motions like a high-priced hack.

It was a very bad night for the maestro, a night that smelled of lack of preparation with the orchestra (because come on, these people have been subjected to Muti's Verdi drills for 20 years, and in the last two years they have delivered two perfectly fine Verdi performances for Maestro Chailly, a muscularly hot Rigoletto and a correct if uninspiring Aida, it can't be the orchestra's fault; and Maazel is a man who knows his scores. Tonight's debacle just reeked of laziness on the maestro's part).

What happened? Well, he tried to flesh out the first act doing that "elegantly aloof" thing that he sometimes does very well, only it collapsed on him: very stilted phrasing, overlong tempi, a sense of shallowness. Act II is where things really fell apart, never to recover.

And the loggionisti's impatience cost him a nice round of boos and nasty catcalls ("Poor Verdi", "Poor Italy", "Conduct a band of amateurs instead" among the finest examples).

He had to wait for the insults to stop coming, he just couldn''t give the downbeat to begin Act III, they'd have drowned the music out.

This is a small clip taken from the Rai radio feed, keep in mind the applause has been pumped up by the mics, at la Scala the boos and catcalls sounded much stronger than you hear in the clip below -- but they came from up on high in the second Galleria, basically from the roof, and the performance was being filmed for a DVD and broadcast live on radio and via Internet. The file's here:

http://download.yousendit.com/AD76100013D382A1

Irritated by the sneering loggionisti (his Italian is amazing, so he understood every nuance of sarcasm), Maazel refused to join the rest of the cast for the curtain calls (very sporadic boos, mostly applause for the cast, even an attempt of a standing ovation in the middle of the platea). Not an Alagna-style tantrum, OK, but Maazel's a big boy, he can take the abuse. Just show up and face the loggione, your career speaks for itself -- to OC he demonstrated lack of sportsmanship. If you show up for the cheeering you have to show up for the abuse too -- to show leadership.

Gheorghiu started a bit tentative, but got better in Act II and finished pretty strong even if I could have cared less for the OMFGLOOKATMEMYLUNGZARECOLLAPSING shtick, that gets old really quick. Her voice is small, even for la Scala. Her acting -- bah. She looked great, tho -- she has lost weight and she is now a tall(ish) really slender (think Atkins-style, with arms even too thin for her frame) 40-something with big b00bs. Not enuff to make OC go gay (Netrebko is our honorary "Soprano I'd Go Gay For") but not bad ma'am, not bad at all.

Ramon Vargas instead started pretty strong and ran out of steam pretty quick, and by the time he slapped her around throwing cash all over the stage like a drunken sailor who just won a poker game in a Thai bordello, poor Ramon was really gasping for air, his lungs more damaged than the TBC lady's. His diction is also pretty bad when it comes to Cs and Zs -- it's easy to fix for a Spanish speaker and OC is surprised he hasn't done that already. But we like Ramon so we're biased.

Wanna know more: (like, how sucky was Liliana Cavani's staging? We liked the Pescucci costumes tho, exquisite)?

Wait until tomorrow. OC haz spaken.

Aaaaand Traviata It Is: It'd Better Be Good, Angela!

Opera Chic has decided to postpone her (long-overdue) Summer trip back to the USA to catch Angela Gheorghiu in Traviata at la Scala, Lorin Maazel conductor tomorrow night.

Nevermind that OC has thus given up her invitation to Katy and Andy Spade's Fourth of July barbecue in Southampton, with pastel-colored veg hawt dogs and pinwheels galore. Angela's behavior has so far been reasonably manageable, even if director Liliana Cavani has quite loudly complained with la Scala -- and also thru the press this morning -- that "she hasn't shown up a lot for the rehearsals".

But despite some Maazel choice cuts to the score, and despite some apparent truce declared by the loggione, tension remains high. Violetta here is "Maria's role", and bigger singers than Gheorghiu (for example, Mirella Freni) have been savagely booed in the past.

We'll see, and hear, soon.

Roberto Alagna SPEAKS!

Roberto Alagna (pictured above in a photo AP) will chat with his fans -- whatever's left of them -- on June 26 on the awesome Le Monde de la Musique.

Some of our questions:

a/s/l & how much heat r u packing?

Is Angela as mean as everybody says, or is she worse?

Who settled your 5-star hotel bill in Milan after you ran off of Aida, la Scala or yourself?

Did you really allow your career to crash itself into a wall just so you could chat with strangers online?

You used to be the best young tenor around, working at la Scala with Muti and in Berlin with Abbado and at the Covent Garden with Pappano, leaving recordings of great beauty. We used to really look up to you. Look at yourself now. Why, Roberto, why?

Chailly: Alagna Sunk My Manon Lescaut

Riccardo Chailly today took part in a press event to plug the release of his forthcoming Aida DVD, a recording of the unfortunate Scala production of last December.

Chailly explained that his next opera in Milan should have been Manon Lescaut with, um, Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu.

"The Manon project was linked to Alagna and Gheorghiu's casting, so (General Manager Stéphane) Lissner and I chose another work, Il Trittico. An opera that hasn't been staged here at la Scala in the last 25 years", Chailly said.

La Angela Finally at Teatro Real; Set To Be Mimì At Liceu in 2009, If She Feels Like It

The splendid Gran Liceu blogger gtl torn t reports that Angela Gheorghiu -- looking somehow rough in close-up (see photo above) but thin and in b00balicious form -- has appeared the other night for the first time at Madrid's Teatro Real. It's her debut there because she had pulled out (o rly?) of a Traviata production a few years ago. Angela is set, if it all goes well, to appear in 2009 (whatevS) at the Gran Teatre del Liceu as Mimì.

El Paìs has this Angela gem:

"Great voices are rare, like pearls... the physique is unimportant".

What3vs!

Heh.

(as a bonus to the Angela fans -- there must be some, after all) this promo video interview has Angela giving a small lecture about Puccini.

gtl torn t also reports that Opera Chic's personal friend and companion of many shoe-shopping expeditions, La Ceci (aka Cecilia Bartoli), will be in Barcelona on November 4 for the Palau 100 concerts. 

Angela: Hot or Not?

Thanks to a certain tipster who alerted OC of the certain filleting of a certain soprano in today's Evening Standard, we can again share in the schadenfreude (celebrity misfortune *always* makes us feel better) that is so rewarding with the Alagnas (the Angertos). 

In "Diva Not So Divine", homegirl Angela got served after an unimpressive recital at the Barbican from last night, under the baton of Ion Marin -- despite modeling three skimpy costumes to show-off her newly toned somethin'somethin'. Quoteth Fiona Maddocks:

"She sang nine arias, totaling just 33 minutes of music plus encores, scandalously short by any measure...Some tepid Giordani and Handel represented the bulk of the first half, with an obliging LSO filling the yawning gaps. Her Habanera from Carmen had all the erotic warmth of a winter night out in Moldova."

Downward spiral. She must be getting performance tips from britney (minus the wig. and the lipsynching. and the gum-chewing. you get my point.) 

La Traviata Sold Out, Nobody Finds The Darn Tickets: This Is Our Surprised Face

Unsurprisingly, the tkts for Angela Gheorghiu's (well, if she shows up, if she doesn't it will be Elena Mosuc's and Irina Lungu's) La Traviata at La Scala have sold out in less than an hour this morning, starting 9AM Milan time. Even worse, the Teatro alla Scala website crashed horribly and was unreachable, making it impossible for opera lovers who wanted a ticket to even purchase one.

Who's riding the lollerskates then? The infamous La Scala ticket scalpers -- they have unsurprisingly and gleefully made a killing -- their 204 euro tickets will now be sold for much more than that, even double. If Angela is there, of course.

Note to our dear readers who are stuffing Opera Chic's email box with anti-Scala flames: if you really want to see the show, either accept the scalpers murderous prices or book your visit to Milan with one of the city's 5-star hotels -- the concierge desks are always able to find tickets. Not really mysteriously, either -- they enjoy a very good relationship with the theater, after all.

You think this sucks? We wish we could help, but you're better-off telling la Scala what you think.

Just to make this clearer to our non-Milanese readers: it's interesting to see how so many scalpers -- we could already recognize them all after a couple months of La Scala-going... it's always the same middle aged gentlemen...funny how la Scala still doesn't recognize them -- whip out of their pockets the infamous "accordion". The accordion being the strange strips of 12 or 15 tickets all still attached to each other. What makes this sight very strange is that you and I (where "you and I" means "regular, non-scalper person") can only buy 2 tickets maximum during a single transaction. How these gentlemen manage to get an entire "accordion" is, frankly beyond Opera Chic.

Well, no, not beyond us, but it'd be unwise to point that out here, since our legal fund's resources are somewhat limited.

Anyway: the dubious legality of it all does not seem to bother La Scala's management much, alas.

After all, it's only the non-bloated-with-cash serious opera lovers who -- ahem -- pay the price. Minor local politicians and their friends, corporate sponsors, unknown "VIPs", TV skanks, and silicon-injected escorts always have their nice platea -- or excellent center palchi -- tickets anyway. And, you know, for free.

The good news is, Candide tickets are still there -- all of them, as we predicted. Gawd, what a terrible, terrible box office bomb -- after all that free worldwide publicity to boot!

Poor Lenny.

Angela's Claws: Gheorghiu's Body & Soul

(ooops! Wrong Angela! sry)

omg Angela is in London and for the first time after leaving Rome's Traviata in a huff she SPAKE (to the Times). Here, fresh off of the internets, are some choice quotes:

“Jonathan Miller? I barely know him. He just used my name to promote himself, that’s all.”

“There’s really nowhere to escape in a solo concert. Really, to make my debut at La Scala with a recital . . . I think it was very courageous.”

“I have a problem with many opera directors because they often don’t serve the music but just make productions about themselves. Either that, or they listen to me sing and just sit with tears in their eyes and don’t challenge me. I need to have help, and I don’t always get it.”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t read the critics.”

“Pop music is for the body, but opera is for the soul.”

But, then, the best part comes when she's asked if, because of her husband being loudly booed off the stage at la Scala she intends to retaliate -- as he had threatened -- by not singing there again:

“I won’t pay for anyone else’s scandals,” she says pragmatically. “Are you kidding? I have enough of my own.” Yes, but was he right to leave? “I don’t know, but I think it’s much more healthy for everybody to avoid these matters. I’m very sorry for Roberto and the public, but life must go on. You have to move on to the next stage.”

That's our girl!

If she doesn't run, she'll sing at the Barbican on Tuesday night. That's, of course, for "uneducated palates", etc.

Angela Drama, The Final Insult (We Hope): Ten Days Later, A Final Pan

The drama-llama that is the Alagna-Gheorghiu couple keeps on giving, and we're getting tired of it: if Corriere della Sera chose to review the alternate cast of Rome's Traviata, because Gheorghiu is for "uneducated palates",  la Repubblica has instead waited for ten days after the show, and then, only today, in a little forgotten corner of a "Spettacoli" page, has published a slam of the Rumanian soprano, panning the show and blaming

"...  the pale, small, unsexy voice  of Angela Gheorghiu (blindly unchanging, whether she's playing a courtesan or a redeemed woman) Zeffirelli's Violetta has no shades, no torment, no rage, immediately acts as a sainted martyr... and bleeds to a mortal pallor the erotic force so abundant in the score".

As weird as it sounds -- Opera Chic defending Angela? -- O.K., that's enough, right?

wait no. again. omg again sry sry this is too easy:

"...  the pale, small, unsexy voice  of Angela Gheorghiu ..."

ANGELA, GET WITH IT OR GET LOST IN IT!

vvvvvvvvvv UPDATE vvvvvvvvvv

Here's the piece in the full page (you can see it is an after-thought)

and here is the piece for those who want to see:

OH NO SHE DIDNT *SNAPS* (ANGELA GOES MEEORRWW)

There are so many invaluable contacts and awe-inspiring friends that OC has made these past six months of blogging, but one in particular must be mentioned: loyal reader, stellone fignaz...who always has the 411, somehow manages to be in 20 locations at one time, uncovers the most obscure recordings, and always has his super-figgynaz fingers on the pulse of the opera world. Even more fortunate is that he is insanely generous, and shares his booty liberally. It was fignaz who forwarded to me a sparkly little gem of an mp3, more twinkly than a Chopard happy diamond, more cutting than a Kikuichi knife, and more blinding than the sunlight off my pearly white teeth.

Rai's Radio Tre program, La Barcaccia, was all over the Opera di Roma La Traviata la prima, and rebroadcast their opening night coverage this past Tuesday, April 24, with clips of the performance, along with scattered interviews. One of their victims was Angela Gheorghiu, who joins hosts Enrico Stinchelli and Michele Suozzo for a chat an hour after the performance.

Listen and weep. Here's the yousendit link (an mp3) of a small clip from the interview that addresses Angela's reaction to the Bruson encore business, where Angela describes his actions as "not kind" and "not collegial".

And that's all I'm gonna say about that. peace & i'm out.  //*Note to playbill, et al...freely steal this translation ('tis the nature of teh intarnets), but plz be nice enough to give the Opera Chic blog attribution/ascription tia ktnxbi.

~~omg here is the super-translation (with notes)~~

• INTERVIEWER: It’s strange, for a diva like you: Bruson cunningly gave an encore...
• ANGELA (overlaps): It is not kind, not kind...
• INTERVIEWER: I thought, for the theater’s tradition...
• ANGELA (overlaps): I don’t think it is done, no...
• INTERVIEWER: So I thought, "What’s Angela supposed to do now..."
• ANGELA: He surprised me, it was a surprise, yes, yes.
• INTERVIEWER: Then what are you preparing as a response to this?
• ANGELA (playing dumb): A response to what?
• INTERVIEWER: To that thing.
• ANGELA: Nothing, it happened, and if you...no, "no comment".
• INTERVIEWER: Well, in a way, Germont, with Violetta, he’s never too – he’s a cynical man...this father who only thinks about his son...
• ANGELA (interrupting): No, no. He’s just, he’s an Italian singer, this thing has been allowed in Italy...
  (note: in her quick Italian, AG says “è passato”, from the verb “passare” ( to pass), which is not correct, and ambiguous: She either mean,s “this has passed” as in “this has been allowed to proceed, to go forth”, or she simply means, “this has happened”, as in “this is part of what has passed; part of the past”: her followup, though, indicates her exact meaning).
  In another theatre it’s certain that this is not allowed, this same thing. (note: “E’ sicuro che non passa”, are her words: she’s using “passare” as “being allowed to go forth”, the other meaning would not make any sense here).
  And then, certainly, he is a great artist, he has sung forever...
  (she uses, incorrectly, “enormemente”, literally “enormously”, context and the following argument indicates that she means “a lot”, quantity, not quality, or better yet “for a long time”)
  In this theatre and all over the world, and maybe, it is, it is a hommage on his part. But it certainly isn’t very collegial.
  (in the sense of camaraderie, “collegiale” in Italian means just that).
• INTERVIEWER: It was  a surprise!
• ANGELA: A surprise, yes. I’ve never accepted it for me, I don’t know if it’s very collegial.
• INTERVIEWER: Listen, at this point, what we can say...what about this tenor, he came here, to debut, with you...
• ANGELA: Yes, yes, I met him in London at the Proms, a concert of mine. He did his songs, no?
• INTERVIEWER: You’re a beautiful couple, I have to say.
• ANGELA: Yes yes, I was very surprised to see a singer who has a beautiful voice, musical sense, a handsome kid who...
• INTERVIEWER: We’d better not tell Roberto then.
• ANGELA: No, no, let’s tell him, these are the things...
• INTERVIEWER: He’s not jealous.
• ANGELA: No, all of us. I’m jealous, he is too, but this is our job. It’s made of meeting colleagues. It’s a good thing they’re bravi e belli...
• INTERVIEWER: True, he just did Manon with la Netrebko and you do La Traviata with Grigolo.
• ANGELA: Ooooooooooooh, no, I sing all the time. I also did a most beautiful Traviata in New York with Jonas Kauffmann who’s really very good, I sing with all the tenors in the world who are really belli e bravi… like Roberto, it comes natural to be with everybody.

play or get played am i rite?

All U Evere Wanted To Know About Angela's Walkout, Or Something

This morning, Opera Chic woke up and found her mailbox overflowing with reader's questions about the Angela Gheorghiu Roman fiasco (the electronic mailbox we mean -- the actual mailbox downstairs is overflowing with invitations to fabulous parties, Centurion black AmEx bills, Costume National invitation-only sales, gallery show openings, packages with rare LPs bought on eBay, wine tastings, marriage proposals, etc. [j/k j/k about the Centurion black AmEx.])

The only semi-rational decision, then, is to answer most of the interesting ones here (and the ones we can answer without going to jail), instead of answering privately all our readers who took the trouble to write.

Here we go:

• DID ANYBODY SEE A SECOND GUNMAN FIRE AT JFK FROM THE GRASSY KNOLL?

ha ha/ just playin'. fo'reals starts below vvvv

• WAS BRUSON'S ENCORE  (THE REASON FOR GHEORGHIU'S ANGER & SUBSEQUENT CANCELLATION)  REALLY PLANNED IN ADVANCE?

Ah, the usual question: conspiracy or not? Just like it happened for the Alagna fiasco at la Scala (the question then was: did the loggionisti plan their protest in advance?)! Our (educated, after asking around) guess is this: the applause for Bruson is genuine, the man is very popular, and his long career and his stature are key to the standing ovation he enjoyed. So, the very long ovation is congruent; so many great singers enjoy them here in Italy and elsewhere: it really seems genuine.

But, in all fairness, Gheorghiu's main points -- that 1) encores just aren't done, period, especially by a singer who's not the main character of the opera, and 2) that Gelmetti should have gone ahead with the score instead of leading the orchestra in the dreaded (by Angela) bis -- do indeed make sense. And it's obvious that, had Gelmetti decided so, the encore just would not have happened. Instead, we know for a fact that Gheorghiu received a big surprise there. Having said this, it's highly unlikely -- and frankly way too Machiavellian -- to imagine that Bruson and Gelmetti devilishly egged her on just to make her lose her plot and leave the production. It certainly wasn't the most polite gesture, and complaining about it afterwards, even forcefully, would have made perfect sense on her part. Going so far as to leave her already very short commitment in Rome (just two shows) is, of course, entirely another. As we wrote yesterday, Gelmetti is not big on coddling divas anyway.

• WHY IS THE OPERA DI ROMA SWEEPING THE INCIDENT UNDER THE (RED) CARPET?

Because they don't have anything -- repeat: anything -- to gain from starting a very public beef with Gheorghiu. The production had already lost Alagna and Filianoti, the big emphasis was on Zeffirelli's production anyway (the essentially very traditional -- if a bit tacky -- staging has actually been met with very high interest by other opera houses around the world, so expect to see Frengo's 8th Traviata in an opera house near you very very soon; after all Zeffirelli is still the go-to-guy, even at 84, whenever a General Manager does not want to push the avant-garde button too much and wants to give a classic, old-skool, crowd-pleasing staging to his or her audience).

Gheorghiu -- and this is a paradox, of course -- at least gave them the chance to milk a lot of additional press for la prima. They've been better off with one Angela than no Angela: she knows it, the management knows it. Neither is raising a stink about it -- except of course for the audience who's been showing up the other night expecting Angela and finding another singer instead. Gheorghiu's been smarting enough not to storm off the stage in the middle of a scene the way her husband did in Milan  -- hence ensuring no lawsuits, no worldwide attention. Did she ruin her standing in Rome? Of course. Not that she particularly cares. Are other opera houses around the world worried that her tantrums are getting worse? Of course they are. And that's what leads us to the next question.

• WHAT'S GOING ON AT LA SCALA? SHE'S SUPPOSED TO APPEAR THERE IN TRAVIATA ON JULY 3rd, RIGHT?

That she is supposed to do, yes: it'd be her debut in an opera at la Scala. On May 4 the tickets for that show -- and the replicas -- will be available at la Scala and on their website. Is she going to show up? The good ones (i.e., the ticket scalpers who'd get stuck with a bunch of no-Angela tkts if they buy them in bulk and then she doesn't show up) are probably going to bet against it, at this point. And la Scala, only a week ago, has hired another soprano, Elena Mosuc -- there will be three of them (the third one's Ilvina Lungu, who replaced Angela the other night in Rome, it's a small opera world).

The situation here is very different from Rome: this Traviata, unlike Rome's, has simply not been hyped by la Scala -- whose big sellers, this season, have been the Chailly/Zeffirelli unlucky Aida, the Gatti/Lenhoff Lohengrin, the Harding/Bondy Salome, Barenboim's Eroica and his forthcoming piano recital, the forthcoming Jenufa, and the many Gergiev, Temirkanov, Boulez philharmonic concerts. The Traviata is a July show with a strong cast already (Alvarez, Nucci, Kauffmann), a strong director (Liliana Cavani), a strong conductor (Maazel), strong costumes and sets (Ferretti/Pescucci). The show can take the "hit" of a Gheorghiu defection.

And if, as we all think will happen, the loggionisti will send her a message for her husband, since he didn't leave them the time to, last December, well, la Scala can take it. On the one hand, Gheorghiu -- a tough, tough lady, mind you, certifiably capable of charming the socks off of many men if she decides to amp up the sexy, but whose well-developed contemptous gaze can curdle milk in a few seconds -- is hardly afraid of the loggionisti, that unruly bunch (even if she lacks Callas's superhero-like ability to simply stare them down into submission with that steely gaze of hers). But she may very well decide that it just isn't worth the effort. Especially since a certain Mirella Freni was literally booed off the stage in this theatre when she dared show up and sings "Maria's role". Most people at la Scala we spoke to think that she appreciates the challenge. They also doubt she'll show up.  Officially, nothing has changed: she's committed to the show, and she's supposed to appear sometime in mid-to-late June for rehearsals.         

• WHY U SUCH A H8R??? ANG3LA RAWKS!!!111

Opera Chic is *so* not chugging on the Angela Haterade it isn't even funnay -- we've just been telling our readers what various friends, contacts (one of them called Angela's 1994 turn in the London Traviata "an apparition", so we're not asking Angela-haterz here) and acquaintances have explained to us about her walkout and general behavior, in Rome and elsewhere. OC herself has paid good money last year to see Angela in her la Scala recital, which she has enjoyed (well, not that much, it was just ok). OC thinks Angela is the less talented half of the family, too. But the problem is her behavior AND her recent decline in vocal performance -- in a pretty ruthless business such as opera, you cannot sustain both for long. Just ask Kathy Battle (a much superior artist to Angela to begin with), whose antics were endured by conductors and opera house management as long as her voice remained crystal clear -- as soon as she started to have problems, her behavior became suddendly reason enough to cut her, and she's been (sadly, for us fans) spending time with the rapidly decomposing corpse of her career ever since (we have an awesome Battle Tantrum story we'll share some other time, it's too good to waste as an offtopic aside).

• WHO R U RILLY?

im opera chic. warship me.

There She Goes Again: Why Angela Left

Simply put, she left because she didn't really want to be there in the first place.

Because she felt humiliated by Renato Bruson's encore, an encore that she considers a setup, conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti repeating the aria way too quickly, refusing to either let the applause die down and go ahead from there or simply to barge ahead with the score, using the orchestra to force the applauding crowd into submission. Instead she thinks Gelmetti allowed Bruson to run away with the show.

And because, really, she can leave just like that, with a doctor's note, the way she so often does.

She left because she can and because there was no way she'd go back up there last night singing opposite Bruson, conducted by Gelmetti (who, in fact, does indeed have a reputation for not suffering tantrums lightly).

She's left important productions in important venues for much less, after all.

She stormed off Ravenna Festival's stage, almost ten years ago, a few minutes into her first Pagliacci rehearsal with Riccardo Muti (she had already clashed with Night Porter director Liliana Cavani, a woman of otherwise Vedic calm) -- because Muti corrected her, and suggested Angela did more work on the score. She felt humiliated, and left. Her husband left the production too, just a few days after her, blaming health problems. Riccardo Muti, who prepared the alternate cast in record time, ended in the emergency room -- via ambulance -- just a few hours before la prima, K.O.'d by a renal colic that for all these years people close to the maestro have blamed on the stress caused by the couple's behavior (note to singers felled by random mystery illnesses: Muti asked for a painkiller shot, rested for a few hours in the hospital, then went on to the Teatro Alighieri where he conducted Pagliacci as per his commitment. He never worked with the Gheorghius again).   

Back to Rome's Traviata: her husband -- who, if you listen to the inside talk, in Rome and at la Scala, is the reasonable half of the couple, not to mention the nicer half -- had at least the good sense to cancel without bothering to show up -- well, not exactly: he at least had the good manners to tell Zeffirelli that he'd be available only for two shows, giving Zeffirelli the chance to say no thankx in a relatively painless manner;  then of course Zeffirelli found himself stuck with a Gheorghiu who waited until the last moment to let him that she'd be available only for two shows, too.

At that point Zeffirelli and Opera di Roma management had to suck it up: firing her would just be nuts, they had been hyping the show as a star-heavy production, very likely the 84-year-old maestro's last new staging of Traviata -- this is his eighth! -- and you just don't pull that off in an emergency with a no-marquee-name, young cast, however talented they may be (and indeed Myrto is a talented young singer). Zeffirelli can pull off awesome stuff like his still powerful flower-children Romeo and Juliet, but this Traviata's concept was much different, and it was impossible to shift the staging's focus. They needed Angela, even for two nights only. For her name and for the hype (and yes, her husband's tantrum at La Scala in a way helped -- bad publicity, no publicity etc), and to their credit at Opera di Roma they're not exactly crying crocodile tears -- they pretented to play along with the "Oh, too bad, I'm sick!" thing. They're just like matches: you play with the Gheorghius, you get burned.

Same for la Scala: they cast her knowing fully the extent of her self-admiration and her cancellation-prone record (they hired two alternate sopranos, just in case); it'll be her first opera there (she only had one recital, last year, and of course there was no way she'd appear at la Scala during Muti's Musical Directorship) and la Scala will happily gather the hype (as much hype as you can get in July anyway) that comes together with her name (and her husband's).

Will she pull another stunt? Well, we hear that it's unlikely she'll sing opposite Leo Nucci anyway -- what if la Scala's audience asks him for the encore he never gave in a 40-year splendid career?  (I mean, they love him so much he already led them in a singalong there, wtf!). It'd be the Bruson/Rome fiasco all over again, only 10x worse. So the talk is, she'll sing -- if indeed she'll be there -- opposite the less dangerous Roberto Frontali. And let us hope dear Lorin Maazel keeps his good humor!

Anyway, long post, I know: she left Rome because she knows she can do Traviata in her sleep, at this point. It's her signature role. And she really thinks she sung better, last Friday, than she actually did. Because all those recitals with their yummy fees are taking their tolls on her voice.

Her husband said she cried when he explained her why they called them "the Bonnie and Clyde of opera" -- she hadn't seen the movie.

One hopes she has seen All About Eve , at least.

Gheorghiu Pulls An Alagna, Leaves Rome In A Huff: "Imattahere!!!"

*BREAKING NEWS*

Angela Gheorghiu, royally pi$$ed for the loud ovations awarded by the audience to baritone Renato Bruson, and even more pi$$ed by the historic encore given by Bruson at their Traviata premiere last Friday, has left Rome.

Her commitment for last night's show has been fulfilled by one of her replacements, Irina Lungu.

Her latest tantrum is seen not only as disrespectful toward the audience, Rome's Opera and her colleagues, but especially as a slap in the face to her director, Franco Zeffirelli, who is said to be "appalled but not surprised" by her "childish" behavior.

Sources close to the Roman opera house -- who is spinning Angela's cancellation as due to an unspecified "illness" -- are ominously predicting a bleak future for Gheorghiu's -- and her husband Roberto Alagna's -- careers "if they keep up this primadonna act -- they just don't have the talent to support it".

The name of crash-and-burn Kathleen Battle is being mentioned quite often.

All hell, obviously, is breaking loose.

vvvUPDATE from excellent opera blogger PARSIFAL vvv

Parsifal's has published ruminations on the developing situation