Erwin Schrott, who just launched his shiny-new, official website -- via Decca Music Group, of course -- gushes over his future baby's mama, saying: "Even though the baby isn't born yet, Anna is already a great mother. I knew it from the start." **coughs**. We like it when he sings & looks puuurty...like below, str8 e-chillaxing from his e-gallery.
German opera magazine, Das Opernglas, is carrying an interview with Erwin Schrott, where he is also this month's coverboy. If you don't want sexy time with Schrott, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Lusted after still, but I swear I've seen this picture in the window of a Midtown hair salon as "generic ambiguous hair model".
Schrott reveals that after mating with la Netrebko, he's a better cook, and he's learning Russian (while teaching her Spanish). He is mortified to be labeled as opera's new dream team, isn't having any part of it, and claims that they are a completley normal couple. o ok. Just your average couple that travels weekly around the world, gets $$$ tickets to VIP events, and has boxes of Jimmy Choos and 15K Escada gowns hanging in the closet. yah.
Go to Das Opernglas to access the online article...but no direct linkage allowed, so you'll have to dig around yourselves.
It's a boy.
(And they got married, too. They got their wedding bands in Dubai -- and one hopes her corporate sponsor, a famous jeweler, gave them at least a discount).
(above: 80s nerdy <3throb Doug Llewelyn is all over this.)
Daddy-to-be of the Treb Bebbe, muscle baritone Erwin Schrott, got served by the lawyers for the Rosenblatt Recital Series, that graces London with recitals of leading artists such as our Juan Diego Florez and maestro Leo Nucci. He was supposed to appear in London's Cadogan Hall on 6/11 with Philharmonia.
For our audience to be
treated with such gross unprofessionalism and disrespect by Mr Schrott,
on two occasions, is something that shouldn’t be tolerated. “This
is a regrettable situation, but for the reputation of my Series I
cannot allow artists, with no lawful excuse, to renege on their
contractual commitments. "In the seven years I’ve been running
our recital series I have been impressed time and again by the
dedication of singers to their art and their public. Singers such as Mr
Schrott give opera a bad name and a reputation for not caring for the
people that pay to hear them sing. “I am disgusted by Mr
Schrott’s callous disregard to his contractual obligations. His
behaviour is cowardly and I can only wonder if he has the guts to
appear on a London concert platform as this is the second time he’s
backed out of appearing here.”
Blimey guv'nor!
Just blame it all on a fishbone, Ervino. These guys sound pretty mean.
Another piece of (free) advice from OC: next time you cancel a recital, make sure the d00dz who organize it aren't lawyers, OK?
$ay what you want about Abu Dhabi, but it i$ certainly a fir$t-cla$$ venue for cla$$ical mu$ic, unlike provincial hou$e$ $uch as Covent Garden, Liceu, or, for that matter, la Scala (la Scala, where she has in fact never ever sung -- she's scheduled to do so in a very hazy future Otello that she may or may not want to study for).
Carefully choosing engagements now, after announcing her pregnancy and the streak of cancellations raining down on her schedule, Anna Netrebko will take the time to rawk the Abu Dhabi Festival, together with a team of gung-ho IMG arti$t$ willing to add such a venue to their already impressive resumes, all for the love of mu$ic.
The program opens March 22 and runs to April 2. Highlights will include
violinist Nikolaj Znaider and the London Philharmonic under the
direction of Vladimir Jurowski; pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in an
evening of Mozart, Ravel and Prokofiev; and Grammy-nominated soprano
Anna Netrebko in a special gala with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra.
Anna Bananna on March 29 will be joined by Elina Garanca and Anna's own bebbedaddy Erwin Schrott in an evening of Mozart and Verdi with the Bolshoi group.
And then they make fun of poor Andrea Bocelli for singing in Vega$.
One was King.
The other was Alfredo. At la Scala. Under Muti. At 27. With Pavarotti's blessing. And, if you're an opera singer, or a Republican (in the UK sense, not in the Huckabee sense), it pretty much comes close to being King, too.
Then they both got married.
To Wallis & Angela (the double date from hail, when you think about it).
Anyway.
Roberto Alagna is now in beautiful Valencia to appear at the Palau in Le Dernier Jour D'Un Condamné, written by his brother David Alagna (the one who did the Orphée mashup that got savagely booed in Bologna and received some nastykinZ review as well).
His lovely wife Angela Gheorghiu, as she so often does, canceled on his a$$ 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.
Via Voices From Russia (thanks to reader "knowbody"):
"Yuri Nikolaevich Netrebko, the father of opera star Olga Netrebko, hopes that she and her future husband shall be married in an Orthodox ceremony in one of the churches of Krasnodar. 'Anna has usually agreed with me. We hope that the wedding shall take place in the St Ilya parish in Krasnodar, where Anna was baptised', he stated in an interview published on Wednesday in the newspaper Tvoi Den (Your Day)."
"Olga"?
Besides the funny translation of La Bohème from French to Russian back into English -- it magically becomes "Bohemia" -- we have to confess we always thought that Ervino Schrott, who already has a first wife (whose divorce status is unknown) and a daughter, was Jewish. (In this case, someone should alert il signor Yuri Nikolaeevich of the difference between Russian Orthodox and Jewish Orthodox).
Caption time! We came across in our archives a photo of Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott that begs for a caption. Are you up to the challenge?
(above: click for bigger)
Russian opera star Anna Netrebko is pregnant, she was quoted as saying in an Austrian media report Monday. According to the Austrian weekly News the 36-year-old soprano and her partner, Uruguay-born baritone Erwin Schrott, 35, are expecting their first child in autumn. "We are both very happy that we will be three soon," Netrebko was quoted as saying by News. Her spokesman was not available for comment at the time of writing. Netrebko and Schrott had performed together several times since 2003, but their relationship and subsequent engagement only became public in late 2007.
La Trebka, vain girl as she is, was just tired to hear that we made fun of her newly meaty silhouette, and so she decided to come clean and blame the baby fat instead of unruly eating habits. La Trebkens joins the ranks of Hollywood celebrity like Angelina Jolie, Jamie Lynn Spears, Gwen Stefani, Kate Blanchett, and Nicole Kidman, who all recenly announced pregnancies in the past months.
Let's just hope the baby doesn't look like a Russian Tony Danza
***update***
Reader Anastasia points out:
Don't the professional ballerinas dance well into the end of their second trimesters? Why is she pulling out of her performances so quickly? Exhaustion? Aside from looking chubby lately, is she really even showing? I don't mean to sound so doubtful of her actions, but is it really necessary to immediately quit all future performances like she did?
Answer: to devote more time to eating chocolate!
****update****
The Internets react: in Barcelona, essential Liceu blogger gtl torn t, writes:
Anna Netrebko ha anunciado hoy su embarazo
Viva el embarazo!
*****update*****
Moah opera blog reactions: La Cieca, in her snazzy redesign, joins in the Pregs-Trebs fun.
*****update******
Jessica Duchen blimeys!
Reader giuseppewagner alerts us: Erwin Schrott is a "Tony Danza lookalike".
We leave the verdict to the readers; we just add that, indeed, they might have never been spotted in different places at the same time.
(note to the readers re the photos above: Schrott is the one with the shirt on, for once)
The L.A. Times on the revival of the LA Opera Don Giovanni:
"I thought I detected a thread of misogyny running through the production".
Lorenzo DaPonte, that famously PC man, would never had agreed to that.
And seriously, even if Friend of Opera Chic Tim Mangan, a man of unimpeachable taste, writes on the OC Register that "Director Mariusz Trelinski puts himself very much front and center, and though he cannot quite elbow poor Mozart out of the limelight, he does manage a great deal of distraction", who cares when you deck out Erwin Schrott in a Fu Manchu outfit/hairstyle + seriously tight bright pants + a plunging neckline, hairy chest galore?
Ervino verbally illuminates us re: his character: “He’s totally a storyteller. I think he’s such a liar, you know?”
Not to mention, like, teh rapeZorZ!
San Juan showed some <3 for Netrebko & Schrott a few nights ago during "una noche de amor y pasion" @ Centro de Bellas Artes de Puerto Rico. La Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico, conducted by Plácido Domingo, led Erwin Schrott (for an indisposed Rolando) and Netrebko as part of the CulturArte de Puerto Rico festival.
While we were in Vienna scarfing loads of Einspänner & Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, Anna was in NYC downing truckloads of Hebrew Nationals & Starbucks fraps. Ain't no shame in the game. OC goes on a Hostess/Betty Crocker/Aunt Jemimie/Welsh Grape Sody binge for the first 24 hours whenever she's back in the US&A. j/k. After eating all this belli freschi Italian food, that American crap is srsly like omg poison! Go Anna Go. We still <3 u with those sweet curves (and extensions).
Clickie click.
Demi Moore, Britney Spears, Madonna, Erwin Schrott.
It's not the setup for a grody joke about a dream gangbang for skanky washed-up celebrities, but a sad possibility: are they all Kabbalah celebrity fans, the 4 of them?
Over at our big sister La Cieca 's there's a nice debate about how awesome Erwin Schrott is (well, about how awesome his abs are -- OC's take is that they're awesome but she still has a weakness for Teddy Tahu Rhodes's steel washboard abz -- maybe we could set up a barechested performance of whatever opera you want and have them fight each other with their abs as lethal weapons).
But the picture above, from a 2006 performance of La Damnation de Faust in Rome, Antonio Pappano conducting the hawtness of Schrott and Jonas Kaufmann, Vasselina Kasarova staring gloomily at all that male beefy hawtness obliterating her from the stage, seems to indicate that, isn't that a Kabbalah bracelet around Schrott's manly big thick wrist?
*****update*****
A source very close to Ervino illuminates us by assuring Opera Chic that this is not a Kabbalah bracelet but a regular red non-Kabbalah thingie.
We're grateful for the info, and please send more Erwin ab photos.
Those h0rny Londoners may miss Anna (get well soon xoxoxo OperaChic) , but Erwin Schrott's massive pex are stealing teh show (no kwai!) in Don Giovanni. Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph is impressed (by teh pecks), and not impressed (by the Russian lady with bad hair):
Erwin Schrott is the most sardonic, seductive, witty and mercurial Don Giovanni I have ever seen (ed: daym!).
This hugely gifted (ed: !!!) Uruguayan bass oozes sex appeal, but he doesn't just preen his good looks and firm pecs - this is a subtle and thoughtful characterisation of an insouciantly self-centred aristocrat, sung with clarity and sensitivity.
His comic timing was immaculate, the champagne aria fizzed, the serenade melted, and he was dragged down to hell with splendid heroic defiance. An enthralling star turn.
The evening's other big attraction was the over-hyped Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, who cried off sick.
She was replaced as Donna Anna by the Royal Opera's resident apprentice, Marina Poplavskaya, who gave an intense but wayward and nervous performance - sometimes thrilling, sometimes off-pitch.
Hers is clearly a potentially major talent, but Mozart is not, I think, her bag. I want to hear her sweep through Verdi or Tchaikovsky.
2 wrdz: Lady Macbeth!!!
