Opera Chic

Trittico Gets The Plasma Treatment

(above: Barabara Frittoli in Suor Angelica on top of Ronconi's scary dead Madonna from Scala's Il Trittico)

Classica broadcast via satellite a live transmission from the Thursday night performance at La Scala of Puccini's Il Trittico. OC endured it once again so she could bring you legal shots of the performance via her Canon camera and Samsung plasma. Chailly's conducting remained heavenly even through the canning and compression of live sound to media, although Team Ronconi's odd set designs appeared much darker on screen. The key singers, of course, were much more emotive, with Suor Angelica's Barbara Frittoli even admitting in a post-performance interview that the music moved her so much that she was crying just before one of her arias. suffering for art and all. 

The performance was hosted by Classica tv host Gianandrea Gavazzeni's son, he of oddly-composed facial hemispheres, who coolly interviewed both Barbara Frittoli and Leo Nucci (Nucci in full costume and makeup and fake nose, relaxed as a lamby only minutes before getting on stage for his Schicchi) in his II ordine palco between intermissions. There was also a small pre-recorded piece on both Maestro Chailly (who masterfully dissected the evolution of Puccini's style, more on this in a later post) and director Luca Ronconi.

Oddly enough, it was also the first out of the previous three performances where Mariana Lipovšek as Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica wasn't booed loudly at the curtain call. Ronconi didn't show up at curtain call. no boos? a weird coincidence, since the loggione had booed after every previous performance (they didn't like the staging). were they absent?  diplomatically silent? good faith? bad? hmmmmm.

Puccini's Trittico will be rebroadcast on Classica a few times next month: April 19 (9pm), 21 (8am), 23 (1:30pm), 27 (10:15am), and 29 (11am). Dayuuum.

OC made a niiiice leetel photo album of a few dozen screenshots, which you can enjoy here. Below are a few of the highlights.

(above: Juan Pons strangles Miroslav Dvorsky in the finale of Il Tabarro.)

(above: The nuns of Suor Angelica walk all over the giant plastic Madonna)

(above: Barbara Frittoli takes her curtain call with her immortalized son)

(above: Leo Nucci in Dante garb as Gianni Schicchi with a prosthetic nose)

(above: Vittorio Grigolo takes a curtain call for Gianni Schicchi: well-deserved applause)

Così Fan Muti, Part II: Kaiser Riccardo's Spring Tour '08 Is On @ Full Blast

A few nites ago, Opera Chic, flipping through the channels, found on Classica la Ceci singing Fiordiligi, and that's usually a treat (no we r not Ceci-haterZ @ all, hails naw, deal wit it). But then, OC immediately started to tinker with her plasma's audio settings, thinking something must have been off since the orchestra sound came out incredibly tinny, empty, flat. And soooooooo mortally slow.

Then the director cut to the orchestra pit and there he was, Niki Harnoncourt, and we then knew the audio settings were OK, as in fact they were. Opera's favorite taxidermist had gutted Così the same way he gutted Nozze @ Salzburg two years ago, and we have to say Così, usually three hour something, lasted about nine hours. Or so it felt.

So how we pined for some seriously awesome Mozart, airy and light and witty and FAST and crystal-clear the way Mozart-DaPonte has got to be. Riccardo Muti's Mozart, for example.

The music of chance actually decreed that, as we were suffering through Harnoncourt's reading of the score, Muti in the flesh was showing off his Wiener in Wien conducting Così Fan Tutte (in De Simone's staging) with a cast that made us tingle in all the right places: la Frittoline as Fiordiligi, Angelika Kirchschlager as Dorabella, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo as Guglielmo and Francesco Meli (la Fittolina's boi) as Ferrando.

Yeah, Muti is showing Vienna how it's done these days, exercising the usual ownage of the audience with standing Os, moshing, celebratory rounds of AK-47s ammo being shot during curtain calls, riots outside of the sold-out venue, standing room tickets being exchanged for newborn babies on the blak market, you know the drill.

And we so wish we were there, getting insulin shocks one after another in the inevitable marathon of Sachertorte eating, crossing the street from our hotel to the Staatsoper to check out Muti, la Frittolina, Angie, Brando and the rest of the gang.

Interestingly, Muti is about to launch a spring offensive of concerts, operas, tour, parties, and so forth: just back from the States where he conducted the NYPhil, he is now in Vienna for Così, on March 8 he'll conduct his wonder kids of Orchestra Cherubini in Vienna for Don Pasquale (been there done that), in April he'll go on tour with the Wiener, and in May he'll introduce at the Whitsun Festival in Salzburg Paisiello's Il Matrimonio Inaspettato. On May 17 and 18, on to Florence to celebrate in two concerts the 40th anniversary of his debut with the Maggio Musicale orchestra.

Good to see that there's a lot of life outside of la Scala. It's always healthy to remember that.

Happy 2(.)(.)8 With Roberto Abbado @ La Fenice: Capodanno With Frittoli, Furlanetto, Fraccaro, & Frittoli's Bewbs

Barely awake after partyin' all nite & damaging a fine reserve of vintage bubbly, OC watched live on ZDF a sizable slice of Maestro Pretre's not-so-fresh Sachertorte, the New Year's Concert from Vienna (we love GP, he's like a kindly grandpappy, and he almost always moves us: not today, tho, too weak, too flat -- in the last few years other conductors such as Jansons and Mehta have rawked Strauss much MUCH harder). OC then tuned her big shiny plasma to RaiUno, that had decided instead to broadcast live from la Fenice in Venice the Italian version of Vienna's classic new year's extravaganza.

The first part of the concert (Luisa Miller: Sinfonia; I vespri siciliani: Le quattro stagioni
Inverno, Primavera, Estate, Autunno) has been ruthlessly killed by Rai's powahs because the Pope was simultaneously giving a ginormous speech in Rome and Italy's most popular channel was totally whalin' on that, because if you'd rather listen to an old cranky Italian (Verdi) than an old cranky German (the Pope) you'll make the Baby Jesus cry; after the Pope hath spawken, finally, they managed to beam, live, the images and sound from Venice for the second part of the concert: a mashup of Italian opera arias and the inevitable Va' Pensiero. (not exactly the happiest  sound to welcome the new years, but whatevs).

Maestro Roberto Abbado -- who hadn't chosen personally the program for the second part of the concert but had to execute a RAI-made list of blockbuster tunes, as he managed to wisely let know to Corriere della Sera's a few days ago -- managed to make lemonade out of those state-TV lemons, showing us once again what a fine, fine, elegant, underrated conductor he really is.

The singers: a juicy Barbara Frittoli who flaunted some exquisite colors, a massive bewbétage and, we're frank because we *heart* her, a dangerously sagging neckline (at the very least, she needs to be lighted very differently; Dr. 90210 can come to the rescue too); il maestro Ferruccio Furlanetto who shook the Fenice's recently rebuilt walls with the raw powah of his bass-baritone; and Marcello Giordani's last-minute replacement, il signor Walter Fraccaro -- Alagna's doppelganger for Zeffirelli's unlucky Aida of December '06 at la Scala -- who was just happy that Alagna was nowhere to be seen. Sadly, Alagna would have totally eaten WF's lunch, and we're not sayin' much here, are we.   

As we said above, Abbado's beautiful phrasing managed not to drown Va' Pensiero in the usual sea of corniness, kept Libiamo's band-like waves of sound within the limits of the acceptable,  and even Aida's Marcia Trionfale (photo above) was elegantly  shaped by the Milanese maestro. Who gets a bonus because he didn't show up, like many conductors lazily choose to do, in white tie for a morning concert. Avoiding the stuffy classic morning suit, he opted for a beautiful midnite blue suit with simple white shirt and pearl gray tie, an OC rating of A. Very nice also the natural gray of the maestro's hair. 

Abbado's hand clasping Frittoli's for the post-concert applause:

New Year bonus for our readers: a closeup of la signora Frittoli's impressive cleavage. No n1pple slip, mebbe next year! Rawk on 2(.)(.)8

Frittoli Floods The Lake

Ah to be in beautiful Stresa tonight, eating some delicious pesce di lago at Opera Chic's favorite little restaurant on Lake Maggiore after the performance of superhawttie Barbara Frittoli, who'll bust out some Lied awesomeness with il maestro Gianadrea Noseda, that underrated, talented conductor -- OC so wishes she was there.

And next Saturday, in Stresa, Frittoli will be Vitellia.

*checks Alitalia schedule*

Frittoli Does Duparc, La Scala Goes "Huh?"

Swept by the idyllic Salzburg walks, and blinded by the chance to go shopping at her favorite food store in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Opera Chic missed the chance of going to Barbara Frittoli's recital at la Scala tonight: thankfully, we had various friends at the theater (none of them, sadly, for various reasons, with Opera Chic's ninja skills for surreptitious picture-taking, so no images tonite sorrie!).

One of our friends just explained to us that after the first part was received very warmly (Schubert and Verdi, duh), the second part of the recital was accompanied by polite applause and a faint feeling of okokhuhuyawnkaynext! boredom in the audience.

The "bis" -- Vissi d'arte and Io sono l'umile ancella, not the most subversive choice of encores -- obviously brought the house down, with wild cheering and standing ovations.

The problem is of course that the second part was made of EIGHT songs by Henri Duparc -- basically half of the entire production of one of classical music's most outstanding -- and most forgotten -- geniuses.

A friend -- a kicka$$ lady of the Milanese old skool who attended the event with a similarly old skool buddy, a lady whose début here in the palchi happened when Maria Callas was on stage, not the otherwise excellent Frittoli --  pointed out: "Che gente alla Scala!", they're only happy with the big crowd-pleaser arias and prone to diffidence and even utter boredom when something less well-known is being performed.

Poor maestro Sinopoli had the same problem: every time he added, say, Zemlinsky to his programs, Opera Chic is told that people here would go all huffy, waiting for their beloved works they had already heard dozens of times.

This terrible habit of a nice chunk of la Scala's audience hasn't been broken during the Muti years -- operagoing and concertgoing as social event, light entertainment that must not interfere with one's comfort zone. And considering that  Lissner's choice for this year's la prima was Frengo's  Aida xtravanganza spectacular we doubt that the solution is around the corner. It's just, to quote Schopenhauer, lame.

And now if you'll excuse us, we need to pump up the volume, Bidu Sayao's version of Duparc's Chanson Triste is coming up on the vintage McIntosh sound system. Again and forever, merci Henri.