Opera Chic

D-Day in Santa Fe: Dessay Steps Up her Game with Traviata's Violetta

She's sung almost everything from Morgana in Handel's Alcina to Ophélie in Thomas's Hamlet, but tonight, the bomb drops on Dessay-Day, and Natalie unveils her first Violetta exclusively for the Santa Fe Opera. The new Verdi Traviata production is from the Laurent Pelly/Chantal Thomas wonder-twin power team, and the highly-anticipated production has everyone clamoring for tickets. OC regrets she can't be in Santa Fe for the opening night, but wishes the entire Santa Fe Opera a giant in bocca al lupo!

Rome's Traviata (2007) With Gheorghiu, Vittorio Grigolo, Bruson: Good Times

A few clips from that memorable drama-llama "Traviata" in Rome, 2007, when Angela Gheorghiu first got pwnd by Renato Bruson (who, as Germont, brought the house down and gave an encore  -- she, Violetta didn't because the audience didn't seem to want one from her); then Angela, badly dissed by critics, promptly left town (more here).

Anna Netrebko's Iced-Out, Blinged-Out Appearance at Opernhaus Zürich

Opera Chic is lucky to have so many well-connected friends from all around Europe who keep her in-the-loop of so many wonderful, operatic happenings. So it is from a lovely friend from Switzerland that OC heard the first report of Anna Netrebko's Violetta premiere for Opernhaus Zürich, and she is gracious to pass on the report. Pictures above and below also provided by her thoughtful friend.

Anna's return to the Opernhaus Zürich was "a gathering of local and international celebrities", and our source tells us that, inevitably, spotted among the crowds were retired bank magnates & moguls, and well-heeled (and well-plastic-surgeried) socialites. And continuing:

"In a performance more mature than her 2005 Salzburg Violetta, there were high expectations, and those expectations were fully met. Anna Netrebko's immaculate singing paired with fine acting made her Violetta very natural and convincing."

"Piotr Beczala as Alfredo also was very fine , although a bit tense in the top notes. He has a wonderful vocal tone which matches very well with Anna's, hence their duets were nothing short of gorgeous."

"Marco Armiliato led a rousing (if here and there a bit wobbly) orchestra with ample pace and fervor."

But the best bit:

"The evening was sponsored by Chopard where Anna Netrebko, as we know, is under contract. So in the lounge you could admire the latest jewelery collection presented in glass showcases guarded by security men, and in Act II Scene 2 Violetta showed off a six figure necklace and matching earrings - recognizably one of the pieces on display in the lounge."

Brand ambassador!

Anna Netrebko Shows Up for Traviata Rehearsals in Fashion

Here's a behind-the-scenes clip of a giggling Anna Netrebko rehearsing with Piotr Beczala shot by SF1, Switzerland's national TV. The two took the stage last night as Violetta & Alfredo in Anna's Opernhaus Zürich Traviata premiere.

Anna talks, rocking a pair of Gucci sunglasses and a beaded Escada top. And we're mentally making out with the camerman for zooming in on her iced-out, Swarovski-covered BlackBerry flip on top of her Traviata manuscript. ~Living the dream~ Someone needs to introduce her to Christian Audigier/Ed Hardy already.

Anna Netrebko's Traviata in Zürich

Netrebko madness has descended on Switzerland, as tomorrow evening she'll take the Opernhaus Zürich stage for the first time as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata. The three performances (April 22, 26 & 29) of Jürgen Flimm's production have been sold-out for ages. She's like the wii of opera singers.

After Zürich, she's off to Wiener Staatsoper in May for three more performances of Violetta, and then stateside at the San Francisco Opera in June for five more Violettas.

Tomorrow night in Zürich, Anna will be lead by Marco Armiliato on the podium, Piotr Beczala as Alfredo, and Juan Pons as Germont.

Zürich released a few pictures:

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Opera For The People: La Traviata In Zurich's Central Train Station, Live on ARTE TV

Only in Switzerland you can orderly stage an opera in the middle of the city's central station the way Opernhaus Zurich did tonight. Eva Mei, Vittorio Grigolo, the Zurich Opera Orchestra conducted by Paolo Carignani have brought Traviata to the people, using various parts of the station as sets, while in an example of controlled chaos people walked by, stared at the madness of it all, took the singers' photos (the orchestra -- obviously the only static element of the production -- was placed on a platform in the middle of the center hall, while singers and the chorus moved around).

The audience/travelers reaction at the end of the show? Massive, unabashed enthusiasm and a never ending ovation that was still going on many minutes after the last note, when the broadcast ended -- each and every one of those people in the train station blissfully unaware of the much-discussed death of classical music, difficulty to understand opera, and general aloofness of nineteenth century musical theater.

Arte TV, probably the best TV station in the world, broadcast it live.

Opera Chic watched it, and you didn't.

More later, by0tches.

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Plasma screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tergermi da tanta macchia bramo! la Traviata Chaos @ la Scala

[**Update**: The strike, which was to cancel Saturday & Monday's Traviata, as well as Barenboim's la prima of Prokofiev's The Gambler on June 16 has been called off last-minute by one of the unions.]

La Scala's cross to bear this season comes in the form of the popular Verdi opera, La Traviata, and it just goes from bad to worse. Unbelievable fallout continues to spin-off from the January 2008 cancellation of the highly-anticipated Terry Gilliam-directed Andrea Chenier. Scala decided to replace Chenier with the uber-boring & ultra-heavy 1990s Liliana Cavani-directed production of Traviata, which they had also dusted-off last July and put into the rotation, hoping to distract from the banality by offering Angela Gheorghiu in the lead role. We were there at la Scala for opening night, witnessed the horror with Angela Gheorghiu in tow, and let's just say that it wasn't pretty.

This time around it doesn't get much better: First came Devia's last-minute cancellation of the rehashed production, then came Corriere della Sera's slam in the form of a wicked, trashing review (see more below), and now comes the inevitable Scala orchestra strike.

To further dismantle the slighted Traviata production currently running at la Scala, the orchestra, once again, will strike tomorrow night (Saturday) leaving Traviata ticket-holders in the lurch. a strike has been called off at the last minute by one of the many unions that basically run the opera house. It has been a grand total of six months that the Scala orchestra last pulled the whole strike drama, at the time even risking the prestigious, much anticipated December 2007 season opening of the Barenboim-conducted Tristan und Isolde.

The current Traviata was slammed by Milan's music critic, who titled his review, "Monatanaro in Debut, Traviata Doesn't Fly." For the singers, he had nothing too offensive to recall, offering lukewarm praise to the adequate Violetta (Irina Lungu, the replacement of Mariella Devia), the technically-sound but charismatically-lacking Alfredo (José Bros), and Germont's always on-point Renato Bruson. It was the 39-year-old, Italian born conductor Carlo Montanaro who bled-out the dying production. The review relayed:

"Ma ad ascoltare questa Traviata pare un azzardo, un investimento spericolato. Il problema non sono i tempi lenti ma il fatto che non veicolano un suono conseguente; il suono, anzi, arriva stanco: cantabili sgonfi e impalpabili, cabalette pesanti. Non c'e' scatto, scarsa l'energia, non l'ombra di un guizzo. La temperatura drammatica non lievita, si resta ancorati a un passo faticoso."

Translation?:"But listening to this Traviata, it (ed: in reference to hiring Carlo Montanaro as the conductor) appears to be a reckless gamble. The problems are not the slow tempi, but lies in the fact that they don’t create a sound; the sound, in fact, is limp...with deflated and nonexistent cantabile and heavy cabalette. There is no pulse, very little energy, not even the shadow of a spark. The dramatic temperature does not grow, it remains anchored to a weary pace."

Ouch! We're actually quite happy for those strike-stricken Saturday-night ticket holders, who can instead of rushing to the theater only to have a night of mediocrity and boredom, can instead enjoy their weekend sensibly.

The Skank Who Came In From The Cold: The Herrmanns Don't Rape Traviata, Temirkanov Translates Verdi Into Russian

Very few things in life one cannot refuse no matter how tired one feels -- a trip through a Manhattan snowstorm to get to the FedEx office to pick up that pristine vintage scarf from Balenciaga one's friend in Paris has found at the Puces in Saint Ouen, a daytrip to the Prada Outlet in Tuscany no matter how hellish the traffic back to Milan on the Autostrada Del Sole will be, crashing a NFL Madden-style line of defense made up of tourists to get to see for the 114th time the Cenacolo @ Santa Maria delle Grazie (or, as an American tourist enlightened us once, "the Dan Brown painting").

A Traviata in Parma's Teatro Regio is one of those things you just cannot miss.

No matter if the Goyard vintage luggage lies still untouched in the hallway, and the crushing jetlag is the kind stylish Oscar-winning films set in Japan are made of: we're so there.

We'll write about the gigantic lunch @ signora Miriam in Trattoria La Buca next week -- we get fat just thinking about it, we need a break -- so here's the play-by-play account of our night at the opera.

Back in April, we got excited by the idea of that subtle, most elegant of conductors,  Yuri Temirkanov , in charge of Traviata, possibly OC's most beloved opera. We got worried instead by the thought of the Herrmann team (not Bernard, that major American composer of the 20th Century), Karl-Ernst and his wife Ursel, directing the piece. Because after bleeding all the Mozart awesomeness out of too many masterpieces (a sterile Così Fan Tutte, a lamely wacky Clemenza Di Tito that had Riccardo Muti rightly appalled, and he ended leaving the Salzburg production in the early 1990s, a geometrically boring Idomeneo) they got us all like, wtf.

(^^^^^^THE DIREKTORS)

We were obviously worried about the German couple's treatment of the piece -- not that we like our Traviata to be necessarily oldskool like the b0ringest Traviata we saw last July in Milan, mind you, we love that wonderful man of Graham Vick's amazing take on it and we're eagerly waiting for an opera house to hire Nigel Lowery to tackle Traviata -- but we were afraid of seeing just another punk Violetta OD with a huge needle in her arm as a Rocky Horrorrific procession of space trannies danced some weird tribal dance.

Instead the Herrmanns gave a very beautiful -- if sometimes pleasantly, slightly kitschy -- account of that greatest of love stories: the big fat dining room painted a Barneyish throbbing shade of purple, the huge oval table in the first act with a Madonna-circa-1985-ultraskanky-Material Girl-Violetta (tho' a really skanky-secksy Svetla Vassileva showing off some really nice legs) dancing on it, straddling -- long legs akimbo -- various lucky guests, their top hats flying everywhere, sparklers planted inside big pineapples, plates happily crashing on the floor. The vista of frozen lake out of the huge floor to ceiling windows in Act II, ice and snow enveloping the action -- the frostiness of separation, of the interruption of love, of paternal deceit. And the genius touch of Germont (a very solid Vladimir Stoyanov, with the right degree of the scared bourgeois' cold blood and with a very very good clear cut Italian diction) singing the heartbreaking "Di Provenza" as Alfredo noisily bawls his out in a fetal position on the floor, unable to even move or to stop crying -- a not so small touch, with a really strong effect on the audience.

And then the crazy party with the gypsies on a stage within the stage, a guy in a lobster mask (don't ask), the croupier cheerfully dealing bad cards, money flying again, Violetta falling down on the floor and her beautiful virginal white dress becomes a broken flower seen from above, her torso its stem; and she sings, "Alfredo, Alfredo di questo core" while lying face down on the floor, basically singing into the floor -- a difficult feat Svetla accomplished beautifully.

The third act, the most conventional part of the staging, had one thing that had poor ol' romantic Opera Chic (Traviata turns us into mush, deal wit it) in stitches: "Parigi, o cara" was sung with Alfredo and Violetta giving their backs to each other -- a lie that you're uncapable of delivering while looking at the loved one in the face. A small idea, but a very good one.

THE SINGERS

Vassileva started out bad in the first -- not because she missed any notes, she was spot-on all night -- but because she employed that huge voice of hers with really good centri but with the tops really really ugly, a voice that's too harsh up there and the more she pushes the more she gets it out of control -- not my thang at all. She got better and better, more confident, pushing less, and reaching into those beautiful middles she has, and even the lack of chemistry with Alfredo in act I, a perfectly correct if somewhat uninspiring Massimo Giordano, was replaced by a nice warmth as the opera progressed. It just didn't work at the party -- I mean, he's already smitten, OK;  but she was just being a bYotch, not REALLY giving away one inch, and her interest for the boi totally approached zero; unhelped by really heavy makeup and those legs in black tights very visible all the time, she just looked like a very nasty skank, not one of the most complex heroines in the history of everything.

She thankfully recovered, stealing the show from the boi. We have already said that Stoyanov as Germont gave a really dignified appearence to that awful man's hypocrisy, and his Di Provenza was really good.

 
TEH UNCLE SOLLY

Yuri Temirkanov, our dear Uncle Solly, did something very special and unique (and was cheered as a hero by the Parma Verdi ultrasnobs): as we wrote last night, in Act I a few times the voices, and in one instance the orchestra, couldn't really match his intentions and the voices lagged slightly behind and the orchestra ran the risk of giving that appalling ooompah-ooompah beat that Verdi gets whenever things in the pit collapse on themselves -- Temirkanov's quicksilver tempi were the fastest we've heard this side of young Muti (still our fave conducting in any Traviata), the pacing that required lighting-fast change of colors -- then the production really took off, and it all made sense: the understated lean/mean Traviata  of the first act was in fact as flirtatious with the listeners as Violetta's own attitude -- became in Act II, with the separation of the lovers, a brooding race toward their frantic reunion; then the horrible sadness of Act III, Violetta's death hitting you as hard as a slap across the face, the dark colors of Act II having become very clear and delicate in Act III -- Temirkanov conducting with a merciless eye toward the text, toward what's happening onstage -- a stroke of genius that made the audience perplexed at first, then when it became clear what he was doing, well, somebody even screamed "Bravo Maestro!" right after the preludio of Act III, igniting more applause from the audience, and you should have been there to hear the cheering, the "Grazie Maestro!" screamed from the usually cruel loggionisti, and Temirkanov shyly climbing onstage as the orchestra happily stomped their feet on the pit's wooden floor, beating their bows on their music stands, and Temirkanov was kissed twice by his Violetta and he shyly pointed his index finger toward his cheek -- requesting a third kiss, Russian style, bringing down teh haus even more.

PS:: A quick note to fans of the too-famous Violettas who think that it's all about them, period: whenever Vassileva came out on stage to enjoy her many calls, she pointed to the orchestra pit, and clapped her hands, asking the audience to give it up for the kids who had played so well such an unusual reading of Traviata. She knew that without their great work, and had the grace to share the massive cheering with them.

Yuri Temirkanov's "Traviata" In Parma: The Dying Of The Light

Verdi Festival is raging in Parma and so, KungFu-Fighting a serious case of teh jetlags in the name of Verdi, Opera Chic earlier today had her sassy corpse driven to Parma where (after a revitalizing lunch at Trattoria La Buca in Zibello, the place where Bill Buford fell in love with Italian handmade pasta, and you would too, and his life was changed forever, and yours would be too) she witnessed a stunning metamorphosis: her sweet Uncle Solly, better known by the general public as Yuri Temirkanov, walked on the podium as the greatest Tchaikovsky conductor in the world and as one of the most prominent Mahler conductors, and two and a half hours later walked on stage to gather the thunder of applause from the all-knowing Verdi gourmets of Parma who officially elected him as one of the greatest Verdi conductors working today.

Because most people would not think of hiring Temirkanov as a conductor to stage a Traviata a few miles from Verdi's hometown during Verdi's own festival -- instead he showed everybody how for all the talk about the "Italianate sound", the "Russian sensibility", and all that, a Russian conductor can work with an orchestra of young Italians in front of what could possibly be the audience made up of the most snobbish Verdi lovers in the world, and give a lesson in, ahem, "Italianate sound".

A full review w/pix is coming later tomorrow because Opera Chic needs Japanese green tea and organic minestrone di verdure and a good night's sleep under Pratesi's bedsheets, but Temirkanov -- in the Herrmann's production that already was introduced in Germany and at La Monnaie, more about the Herrmanns tomorrow -- really accomplished something very major: after a first act where a few times the voices, and in one instance the orchestra, couldn't really match his intentions -- the quicksilver tempi, the sudden, delicious sense of pacing that required lighting-fast change of colors -- the production really took off, and it all made sense: the lean, mean understatement of the first act was in fact as flirtatious with the listeners as Violetta's own attitude -- it then became in the second act a dark, brooding run heading toward the frantic excitement and devastating sadness of the third, at Violetta's deathbed.   

What a joy to see uncle Solly conduct in his trademark batonless manner -- "When in doubt, just look into my eyes" he tells his orchestras -- using as always his left hand to beautifully shape his dynamics and tickle the music with his fingers whenever he needs more from a section, lowering his shoulders as if exhaling in sadness whenever he needs less, and how often he does. In the second act, a window on the set reflected, from our vantage point, the LCD screen placed stage right with the live feed of the YuriCam, the video feed of the conductor's cues for the benefit of the singers placed deeper onto the stage, and Opera Chic just thought, wow, one day a smart opera house will broadcast these feeds live over the Internet, and music companies will add them as extra content in their overpriced DVDs.

And we'll all take conducting lessons from our favorite maestri.

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.

A Bewtleg Traviata: Carlito's Way

Among the many paradoxes of Carlos Kleiber's not-particularly-happy life -- chief among them the horrible, crippling inferiority complex towards a conductor, his father, whose talent was actually inferior to Carlos's -- is that the only Traviata he recorded officially -- with Cotrubas as Violetta -- is also his worst. It's by far his worst record, and it's a pretty bad Traviata even compared to other not-so-stellar versions by other conductors.

Luckily, there have always been alternate versions, bewtleg recordings of Traviata conducted by CK that not only don't suXor but are actually beautiful, Kleiberian wonders of phrasing and clarity.

Among them -- the P2P networks (OperaShare too) are lousy with'em, may Zeus bless'em -- there's this delicious 1985 version @ Munich, Gruberova/Shicoff rawking the haus, Carlos conducting.

http://rapidshare.com/files/16487594/Traviata_Munich85.7.rar.001

http://rapidshare.com/files/16490817/Traviata_Munich85.7.rar.002

Now, is tonight's Traviata going to be this good? We wish, and even if we so don't carry the Maazel-Hata-Society card, we doubt it.

But if Angela's voice doesn't sound as small as it apparently did during rehearsals (la Scala is a huge theatre esp. after the renovations that enlarged the backstage area ginormously, and maybe she wasn't completely singing in voce to save her vocal chords for the big night, who knows) and nobody boos her -- the loggionisti don't seem to have a beef with her, just with her hubby, but you never know -- OC should be in for a nice night.

We'll report back, deep in the Milanese night (late afternoon for you East Coast types, teatime in San Francisco).

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.

Violetta = Edith Piaf? Maybe Zeffirelli Has A Point After All

Yesterday we were left a bit cold by Franco Zeffirelli's rant against every other director alive except himself (and three other survivors to his wrath).

Because, really, Frengo slapped around even our dear Graham Vick and that just doesn't fly at OC's headquarters.

But then, today we heard that the Traviata that just premiered at the Opera Garnier in Paris -- conducted by the appalling Sylvain Cambreling -- has been designed by the director, Swiss professional provocateur (*yawn*) Christophe Marthaler, as a twisted hommage to Edith Piaf, with a pinch of hip-hop dance numbers sprinkled all over the party scene, too, just to be, you know, hip or something.

In an orgy of golden lamé dinner jackets and Cabaret-style neon signs, the gloomy progression of Verdi's opera is marked by Marthaler's concept -- "Violetta could be a pop-star, or a model... she belongs to the world of the VIPs", had explained Marthaler, betraying his fundamental confusion, or ignorance, about the actual heart of the opera, which is the relationship of the démi-monde with the power structure of the day -- and then the kicker: "She resembles Edith Piaf, a small woman with a great voice, who had many men but wasn't a prostitute. I've been inspired by Piaf's affair with Theo Sarapo". k.

Gerard Mortier, on his way to New York City Opera, said: "This is the best show of my career".

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:

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 here. Also, the always erudite fignaz had mentioned the drop-out in comments here.

Another Angela Smackdown: Gheorghiu and "Uneducated Palates"

Say you're the critic for the nation's leading daily newspaper, and say you really don't like an overhyped singer and you have to review the opera she's appearing in.

What do you do?

Most people would simply pan the unfortunate singer and get it over with.

That, of course, would be the easy way out.

And, in a way, panning -- or better yet, savaging -- a singer who usually gets a lot of hype can become a twisted form of PR, adding to the opera house's hype (no such thing as bad publicity, etc).

What Corriere della Sera did to Opera di Roma's Traviata is instead an example of almost Zen-like serenity: the critic simply explained that, since the main cast is made for "uneducated palates", he has reviewed the alternate cast's show (same conductor, obviously, but Angela Gheorghiu and Renato Bruson replaced by Myrto Papatanasiu and Dario Solari).

 

"With his (ed: conductor Gianluigi Gelmetti) vision, and with the cast I have chosen to listen to, a different one from the cast that appeared at la prima last Friday, made for uneducated palates, Rome's Traviata is important.
(...)
Gelmetti has instincts, and chooses rational, exact tempi, exact in strictly musical sense and in their relation to tradition; he has a tendency to adopt a fast pacing but also the rare ability to give room  to the voices...
(...)
I have chosen a cast that I appreciate, made of young artists instructed by the conductor, of excellent quality. The baritone, Dario Solari, appears even to be excellent ... The tenor Vittorio Grigolo has delicious diction and timbro: he needs to work on his tessitura acuta; the soprano Myrto Papatanasiu has a pleasantly tart timbro, a wide flow, beautiful colorature and balance in the use of vibrato.

So give it up for Myrto!

Ouch!

And what about Angela? Ask this guy!

There are of course some more pictures from the Zeffirelli production (slammed by Corriere della Sera): you can find them below.

Some Guys Get All The Encores, Some Girls Just Don't: Bruson vs Gheorghiu

After Opera di Roma's historical Traviata we can only bow our heads in appreciation for the two great artists who graced the Roman stage with their presence, and show our readers two examples of their extraordinary talent.

Singer no. 1: Maestro Renato Bruson (you know, the one who last night got all the standing ovations and the requests for an encore and he granted them, not the other one) in Ravenna's 1991 Traviata, showing the world how you sing "Di Provenza il mar, il suol" -- diction, emissione, color, acting. Like, everything.

Download the .mp3 file here (link expires in a week)

A rapidshare series of links for the files that compose the (very lo-fi, it's VHS transfer) DVD is here, courtesy of the always tasty La Tertulia Del Foyer.

Singer no. 2: Gheorghiu singing some Rumanian pop song with a Stefan Banica, jr., which we found via the blawg of our carissimo amico Parsifal, Greek's hottest export since la meravigliosa signora Elena Suliotis (whom we'll post about very soon -- Suliotis, not Parsifal, he has this post already). 

The answer, of course, to our dear readers: who would you rather ask an encore from, 1 or 2?

Renato Bruson: All Hail the Eighth King of Rome; Angela's pi$$ed; Zeffirelli's revenge?

If Rome's Traviata were a videogame -- and frankly, why not -- we'd say that Renato Bruson 0wned Angela Gheorghiu at Halo using just the keyboard -- Angela was all made up with big hair and all, fresh from a diet that made her as svelte as mean ol' Frengo likes his leading ladies to be, and she was all like, "here's my big titanium wi-fi prototype remote controller my hawt husband (may i introduce you to my hawt husband?) got me in Tokyo, made to measure on my hand's plaster cast measurements".

And then old gray glum Bruson shows up with an old grody Atari 1981 joystick that falls apart immediately so that he has to use a Commodore 64 keyboard and there are some keys missing to boot, and he still PWNS her big time, and it's 'game over' before she even realizes what hit her.

All those people standing up, screaming "Bis! Bis!", asking for an encore at the top of their lungs. And Bruson -- grudgingly lol -- giving that encore, as Angela watched the horror unfold in front of her eyes.

He didn't waste time spelling it out, but Bruson's encore was a very clear way to say:

"I am an old baritone in Rome, and you're not. I give encores at Opera di Roma, and you don't."

//we like him, unsurprisingly.

We don't mind Angela; Angela needs a cookie: here's a cookie:

 

Anyway.

What was I just saying? Oh yes, the old-skool: because that's how the old-skool works: the new kids have all the hype and DVDs and recitals lined up until 2035 and the sycophantic journalists and the classical music record executives (who cannot distinguish the sound of a viola from that of a harpsicord because they used to work for a cellphone company). And that's, you know, Angela.

Then the old-skoolly-old singers like Bruson show up, and they don't l00k so hot now, and their voices have seen better times: but they have the skillz of a lifetime of hard work and hard study. And they've sung opposite all the greats, the ones that singers of Angela's generation only listen to on CDs on their Bang & Olufsen sound systems.

Next week, it'll be the 45th -- yes yes...forty-fifth -- anniversary of Bruson's debut at Opera di Roma,  in a 1962 Puritani. Coincidentally, and the irony is too delicious to behold, we're told that Angela's actual birthdate (the official biographies say she was born in 1965) is really 1962.

So this old cranky dude actually debuted there when Angela just a baybay -- or wasn't even (barely) born!

No wonder that he let her belt out a few choice arias, and then when the second act was going at full steam, right before Angela's huge arias of the third, tragic act, he decided to crank up the awesome just a little bit. And swiftly went for the kill.

We're told Angela really never knew what hit her.

We also hear that Opera di Roma is probably going to rename the opera Germont.

It's pretty easy:

ANGELA GHEORGHIU RENATO BRUSON IS TRAVIATA GERMONT

Looks good to me!

//(more on Zeffirelli's revenge later: it's the weekend & we're also redesigning the blawg, and you're not)

^^^update^^^

Rome's Il Messaggero writes that Angela didn't start very well, and neither did Grigolo in a lackluster first act:

Destava però qualche perplessità la limitata potenza della voce: quattro anni fa, quando la Gheorghiu debuttò a Roma, al Teatro Argentina, nello stesso titolo, sembrava più grande.

The translation: The limited power of her voice was somewhat perplexing: four years ago, when Gheorghiu debuted in Rome, at Teatro Argentina, in the same opera, (her voice) appeared to be bigger.

But then after Bruson's triumph in the second act things warmed up, and the third was the best, thanks to the voices and Gelmetti's conducting. Flowers and bunnies and ovations and all.

Angela Gets Pwnd: Applause For Gheorghiu, But Bruson Gives The Encore

This just in: crazy cheering in Rome for the premiere of Angela Gheorghiu's Violetta in Traviata (the eighth staging of this opera in Zeffirelli's career) at Opera di Roma.

But the triumph is for oldskool baritone Renato Bruson, who got cheered so wildly, for several minutes, in a standing ovation by the entire theatre after his "Di Provenza", that OMGOMGOMG he decided to pull a Juan Diego & give an encore to the crowd that at that point totally lost its pewp, drunk with Bacchanalian joy.

Less thrilled, apparently, was Mrs. Alagna herself.

But after all, even if 71 year old Bruson's voice is obviously quite spent, he remains -- in Opera Chic's humble view -- one of the greatest Germont ever, certainly the greatest of the last 30 years (and Opera Chic is a HUGE Cappuccili and Nucci fan). But Bruson's ability in creating a Germont that is a monster of ambiguity and cynicism and hypocrisy -- a character of Shakespearian proportions -- well deserved the recognition (right after last year's recital at la Scala, Bruson got almost buried under an avalanche of flowers raining down on him -- an honor that left the famously grumpy baritone visibly moved).

So give it up for Maestro Bruson and, hells, for Giuseppe Verdi and Francesco Maria Piave.

Oh, I almost forgot -- Angela Gheorghiu was there, too.

Gheorghiu + Zeffirelli's "Traviata" @ a Movie Theatre NOT Near You

La Traviata from Opera di Roma, the Zeffirelli production with Angela Gheorghiu, will be broadcast live, Friday night, in High Definition & Dolby Sorround in 22 movie theatres (ticket price: a reasonable 10 euros).

The only problem, if you live in Milan, where the h3ll are those theatres?

Mysteriously, when it comes to Milan, they're all suburban locations -- not a single show in -- or even close to -- downtown Milan.

Anyway, here is the list of the movie theatres and their locations:

Agorà in Robecco sul Naviglio (Milan)
San Luigi in Cuggiono (Milan)
Michelangelo in Modena
Argentia in Gorgonzola (Milan) heh
Duse in Agrate Brianza (Milan)
Cristallo in Cesano Boscone (Milan)
Capitol in Sermide (Mantua)
Lux in Quistello (Mantua)
Sala della Comunità in Vò di Brendola (Vicenza)
Eden in Genoa
Manzoni in Maniago (Pordenone)
Primavera and Leone XIII in Vicenza
Da Ponte Martinovich in Bassano del Grappa (Vicenza)
San Massimo in Verona
Don Bosco in Gualdo Tadino (Perugia)
San Luigi in Concorrezzo (Milan)
Victor in Cesena
Agnelli in Turin
Rex in Padua
San Filippo Neri in Collebeato (Brescia)
Il Piccolo in Santo Spirito (Bari)

Saint Angela: Zeffirelli's Prayer For Violetta

Widespread rumors that Gheorghiu, after pulling out of all her Traviata dates in Rome except two, throwing the Franco Zeffirelli-directed production into chaos, was going to pull out of her Milan Traviata in July (her proper operatic debut there, she has only appeared in a recital as of now) have been at the moment put to rest.

La Gheorghiu will in fact appear, they're hoping at la Scala, in at least three productions of the Lorin Maazel-conducted opera (she was supposed to have been booked for six, but whatever), singing opposite Ramon Vargas. Elena Mosuc, a reliable if not OMGOMGOMG-exciting Violetta, has been put under contract for the same production (she's been therefore added to the understudy Irina Lungu as Gheorghiu's alternate, just, ya know, in case, wink wink).

The fun part is that on May 4 la Scala will begin the sale of the tkts for Traviata, and I know I'd spend the 204 euros (yikes!) to catch our drama empress, AG: Lungu or Mosuc, not so much, with all due rezpekt.

We'll see!

Around lunchtime, then, in Roma, our own Franco "Frengo" Zeffirelli, in the course of a massive press conference where he introduced the even more massive cast of his Traviata, debuting Friday night at Opera di Roma (Frengo's eighth Traviata -- what a career).

"A completely new Traviata -- he promised the assorted audience of journalists, critics, photographers, Opera di Roma management and staffers, grips, friends of friends, boyfriends, male and female escorts, cabana boys and general hanger-ons -- Completamente nuova and radically different from my earlier productions, closest to the original Dumas envisioned. In my old age, I think I have found the ideal solution to the staging of this most difficult opera. The protagonist is 'Santa Violetta martire dell'amore', Saint Violetta martyr for love".

Saint Angela rawks our unholy sox!

Opera di Roma has also stolen the Met's game plan: Friday night, Traviata will be broadcast live to 22 Italian movie theatres (none of them in Rome, even if it's all sold out already lol!), a joint Microcinema / Poste Italiane / Cinecittá holding / Istituto Luce / Rai project: the ticket's price, 10 euros.

Other initiatives: 150 opera tickets for each performance will be given away for free to music-loving representatives of Rome's massive immigrant community. And the day before la prima conductor Gianlluigi Gelmetti will speak to the students of Università La Sapienza, Zeffirelli and Opera di Roma GM Ernani will appear at Dams Tre university for a lecture.

Gheorghiu will sing only on the nights of the 20 and 24: the other Violettas will be Irina Lungu, Myrto Papatanasiu and Anna Rita Taliento. Alfredo will be Vittorio "hawtness" Grigoli, Marius Brenciu and Alfredo Portilla. (in the picture above you can see the entire cast, photographed yesterday in St. Peter's Square)

Whew!

That was close!

^^^update^^^

The 22 cinemas where Traviata will be broadcast are in the following cities: Milan, Mantua, Modena, Vicenza, Pordenone, Perugia, Bari, Brescia, Vicenza,  Genova, Verona, Cesena, Turin, Padova.

Traviata With Three Tenors; Angela Gheorghiu Only Sings Twice; Zeffirelli Is All Like, WTF?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Hellzapoppin' that has become the Rome production of Traviata: as we all know, Roberto Alagna was supposed to star alongside his hawt wife ("May I introduce you to my hawt wife?"), but then he told Zeffirelli he could available only for two performances, leading an angry Zeffirelli to let it go and say, naw thanxbi, he doesn't want a "tenor with a stopwatch".

Then poor Filianoti, Alagna's replacement as Alfredo, apparently gets sick (peritonitis, apparently; get well soon, if you have peritonitis!).

Now all Hellzapoppin' breaks loose: all in all four tenors will sing the role of Alfredo in the course of the production (nine shows total, premieres on the 20th); Gheorghiu will only sing for two nights, la prima included; in total, three sopranos will be Violetta.

Zeffirelli is all, like, p*ssed off. He had to organize three general rehearsals with the various casts; forget about singers with stopwatches, this is the production of the waltzing singers -- who's on first?

La prima will happen on Friday night with Gheorghiu as Violetta and sexy newcomer, the  30-year-old Rome-born Vittorio "Yes, I sang with the Pussycat Dolls" & "I Look a Bit Like an Italian Orlando Bloom" & "If You Light Me Right and Have Photoshop" Grigolo (pronounce: Gree-GAW-law, accent on the first "o").

Corriere della Sera, yesterday, ran a big interview ("Traviata Loves Me") with Grigolo: where he says that, strangely, his contract clearly states that he'll be the singer at la prima, when in fact it was supposed to be Filianoti's gig (and the Opera di Roma website still has Filianoti on as the lead Alfredo).



Grigolo seems to be slightly annoyed by the whole uncertain business: «I'm not attacking anyone, but indecision hurts a production, and I had to go talk to Zeffirelli. He told me not to worry, the in this production every night is a premiere. It's not exactly so. One needs to know when one will appear onstage, you need to prepare mentally».

To recap: Friday night it's Gheorghiu and Grigolo -- and, exciting news, the great Renato Bruson as Germont!

After that, who knows!

At this point the staging itself becomes a sidenote: Zeffirelli has organized rehearsals with all the singers at his awesome Roman villa, explaining his vision of a cynical Alfredo (he refuses to allow his tenors to play Alfredo with even a hint of naiveté -- he wants a fundamentally unsympathetic Alfredo). And the opera will  open with Violetta's death during the ouverture, with all the action as a flashback.

Gheorghiu will -- hopefully -- be in Milan in July to sing Traviata (a different staging, Liliana Cavani), and conducted by Lorin Maazel (the Rome Traviata is conducted by Maestro Gelmetti), and with Ramon Vargas (replaced later on by seksay Jonas Kauffmann) as Alfredo and the awesome Leo Nucci as Germont. It premieres on July 3, so the question is: should I stay in Milan until then to watch the fireworks of loggionisti's reaction to Gheorghiu's Violetta (Young Mirella Freni was literally buried in screams and boos and whistles when she dared sing "Maria's role") and miss the 4th of July back in the USA, or fly back home to be able to enjoy the actual "Happy Birthday USA" fireworks?

What do my dear readers think? Angela or USA?

More Traviata Rehearsal Pics; Filianoti Out, Grigolo Gets To Be Mr. Gheorghiu (Onstage Only)

As our reader "fignaz" informed us, Giuseppe Filianoti (who replaced Roberto "La Scala Makes My Skin Curl and My Blood Sugar Drop" Alagna) is out (with peritonitis: get well s00n!).

Steps in his substitute, Vittorio Grigolo.

You can admire him in these two new shots from Rome's rehearsals; enjoy a denim-clas Angela Gheorghiu, too (AOL keywords: hips, b00bs, makeup).

Traviata: It's On! Gheorghiu in Rehearsals for Zeffirelli's Rome Xtravaganza

It's on, bYotches! The Franco Zeffirelli (aka "frengo") staging (direction and sets!) of Traviata for the Opera di Roma, you know, the one where Roberto "Imouttahere" Alagna was supposed to star alongside his hawt wife ("let me introduce you to my hawt wife") Angela Gheorghiu, is on!

This coming Friday, 20 Aprile, it's la prima -- and here are some fresh photos of the rehearsals. You can see Angela discussing her husband whereabouts with Zeffirelli, and you can also enjoy the lavish sets Frengo cooked up for this secksy production.

We can only ask ourselves: whar r u robayrtaw???

A "new" Traviata for La Festa Della Donna

Today, in recognition of "La Festa della Donna", (the lamest of lame holidays in all of Italy) you will be able to get your itchy little opera-loving hands on a brand new collector's edition DVD boxset of the Zubin Mehta-conducted film La Traviata à Paris, directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, and starring Eteri Gvazava, José Cura, and Rolando Panerai.

This La Traviata was originally broadcast live (in four parts over the span of two days) on European television during the summer of 2000 (omg RUN its teh y2k millennium bug), where the singers and gigantic load of extras (numbered at 1,500) were dropped into actual locations around Paris (the opening scene takes place at L'Hôtel de Boisgelin) and the countryside. This new format allowed the opera unbridled, naturalistic expression and a 360-degree scope of acting/filming, but left many (Opera Chic included) with the distinct impression of perplexity. È strano, indeed.

This new boxset DVD comes with a book, and a 44-page libretto with special images from director-of-photagraphy Vittorio Storaro. Nicknamed "La Traviata del Terzo Millennio", it was also the winner of Four Emmy Awards and of the Prix Italia. Verdi's score is played by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

It runs a bit over three hours, with lots of extras, including promos (witness the sickest, palest Violetta ev4r), outtakes (um, yeah, were going to need u 2 cough harder), historical location guides (welcome to our humble cottage, now plz remove ur riding boots tnx), and an hour-long "Making Of", which apparently took seven years to prepare from the mind of producer Andrea Andermann.

<spoiler>Guys, I have the leaked copy: VIOLETTA DIES!</spoiler>

heh.

ok, but can I just ask what is going on during the final scene? omg, we have filthy pornography here! WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED??!

(I SWEAR ON THE GHOST OF COUNT CHOCOLA AND BOO BERRY THAT THIS ABOVE IS A SCREENCAP FROM THE LA TRAVIATA À PARIS!!)

Alagna Says: I'll Be Back!

In today’s Corriere, Alagna shares with the public a few quotable gems during a recent interview regarding his current Manon in Vienna, his three recent cancellations in Italy, and his struggling relationship with Teatro alla Scala. On first read, it comes across as hilarious. On the second read: not so funny.

The article, "Alagna a Star in Vienna; I will Sue La Scala: In Italy, Also Abandoned by Zeffirelli; I Will Block the Aida DVD," begins with some Roman slang:

"In Italy they call him, ‘The Tenor Of The Three Holes.’" [ed: In Roman slang, cancellations & no-shows are regarded as "holes", so he's a tenor "delle tre buche", or "of three holes". All three are alluding to the La Scala Aida, the Opera di Roma La Traviata, and the 57th Sanremo cancellations.]

• Alagna begins: “If a colleague cancels an engagement, nothing happens. If I cancel, it’s like an earthquake.” Alagna continues, “They call me and Angela ‘The Bonnie and Clyde of Opera’: Angela didn’t know what it had meant, so I bought the movie for her. She cried. [ed: omg no way] But the truth is that all of the theaters want me. After Milan, I’m a celebrity.”

• On his cancellation of Sanremo: “They (The Staatsoper) had given me permission to sing in Sanremo, and I wanted the challenge, I was curious.”

Then Alagna addresses his feelings towards La Scala, and regards the management in a dismissive tone as “Those People”. He feels “betrayed” by Zeffirelli, and continues-on about Zeffirelli's false enthusiasm, saying, “He was crazy with joy. He told me that he had never cast a couple that loves each other in real life, and then he gave me an autographed copy of his book with a dedication that I won’t even begin to describe to you.”

• On his flight from the stage at La Scala: “I was abandoned by everybody. After the crowd booed me, I was ready to come back. I would have looked straight at the audience, and I would have asked, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, shall we go on?’ But my replacement was already there on the stage.”

• On the La Scala lawsuit: “La Scala did indeed forbid me to sing via their lawyers. But they unilaterally broke the contract. So I sued.”

• On the forthcoming Decca-produced Aida DVD: “I called Decca. I won’t authorize the sale of a DVD of Aida in which you are only able to see the sets, or where the singers are indistinguishable and far away. I’m a producer, too, and I know how to make a good video. I asked that we add to the video -- as special content -- a scene of the crowd booing me. They cannot publish anything without my consent. The people side with me. Do you know how many records I’ve sold in 2006? 970,000! Find me another singer who did that. I’d do it all over again.”

• On the police threats from December 10, 2006 when he showed-up at La Scala against their wishes: “Somebody at La Scala spread some gossip. They said I had fled to Paris, but all of that was lies. That’s why I showed up in front of the theater, to counter-act those claims. There were carabinieri [teh Italian police] in front of the theater because they were equating me to the bandit Salvatore Giuliano [the most famous bandit in Italy]. And why do you think everybody was against me? Because I was a whipping boy. Who is the real target, you ask? It’s not me, but really General Manager of La Scala Stéphane Lissner”.

The interviewer then asks Alagna, “So, is it over for you and Milan?" Alagna replies, “I don’t exclude anybody. La Scala is mine. It does not belong to ‘Those People' [addressing La Scala management]. It’s like telling a Christian he can’t go to church anymore. God made me a tenor.”

• Alagna regarding the Rome cancellation of La Traviata: “I had to go to Paris for Simon Boccanegra, so I saw the staging of La Travitata. But I didn’t like it, so I cancelled. It was a sort of concerto version. So then I made myself available to Rome for just two nights. And it wasn’t good enough for them. They have the bad habit of announcing the cast even if they don’t have a signed contract with the artists yet. I told them: ‘Guys, I’ll come if I can, with pleasure’. Artistic Director Mauro Trombetta, a delightful person, told me that in Rome, I’d be the new Beniamino Gigli. But I don’t have room in my schedule for now. I have to study four new operas, one of them written by my brothers Davide and Federico. They do everything: they’re sculptors, painters, composers”.

• Alanga, after asked when he’d actually be back in Italy, replied, “I’ll be back to Italy in 2008, in Bologna, for Gluck’s Orfeo. And in Italy they offered me the artistic directorship of a theatre, too. I’m relaxed, trust me”.

wow okay...uh...WHAT??!!!

Frengo on Alagna the Clockwork Tenor

Among the piles of mail that Opera Chic found after her mad Salzburg/Cortina long weekend -- the usual invitations to wine tastings, gallery shows, the unfortunate American Express bills, the expired Valentines and general fan mail -- she found a copy of Sunday's Corriere della Sera. In it, a great story about the Zeffirelli-Fires-Alagna-from-Rome's-Traviata story we reported on last week.

Some choice quotes follow. Here's one from our friend Franco "Frengo" Zeffirelli (who, since Angela Gheorghiu will be Violetta, had promised a superhawt "very erotic" staging with the husband-and-wife team):

"Alagna wanted to sing for two nights only, I don't stage an opera with a singer who stands there with a watch in his hand. Then, immediately thereafter, I was supposed to work with another tenor. It wouldn't have been respectful: not for me, nor for the audience".

The Corriere della Sera writer then hints what everybody -- Zeffirelli and the Opera di Roma -- was really afraid of: some other incident with the loggione -- Roman opera lovers, maybe, would not accept to be upstaged by their milanese colleagues.

The story also carries an awesome little piece of news: the Opera di Roma Artistic Director, Mauro Trombetta, has personally flown to Vienna (where Alagna will debut next Saturday in Massenet's Manon, at least if doesn't change his mind again) to try to talk some sense into Alagna:

   «It is not appropriate to start an argument. Alagna wanted to come to Rome to please his wife Angela Gheorghiu, but had other commitments. He asked for forgiveness, he told me it's been a long time since they sang together: the problem is he has to study a part for another opera he's not familiar with, and just didn't have the time».

Roberto! Not again! Snap!

Alagna Again: CU L8R! ROME + LA TRAVIATA = TEH LAM0RZ!

Alerted this morning to Opera Chic by kick-a$$ reader fignaz, and now verified: Roberto Alagna has PULLED-OUT of the upcoming April 20, 2007 Teatro dell'Opera Roma La Traviata la prima (with direction and staging by our very own Franco "FRENGO" Zeffirelli).

Instead, the role of Alfredo will be sung by Giuseppe Filianoti for both la prima on April 20, and Alagna's other anticipated performance on April 22, 2007.

We have it confirmed by unimpeachable authority that it went like this:

Zeffirelli, still royally pissed because of the Teatro alla Scala snub, told Alagna that he'd have to join the second cast, because he didn't want him around for la prima. Alagna (obviously) laughed in his face, and called the engagement off.

WHAT

THE

HIZZY

ALAGNA??!!

Bad opera is like bad sex...

...and Opera Chic doesn't kiss 'n' tell.

However, last night's La Traviata at the NYC Metropolitan Opera house should have been kicked out of bed long before Act III's Parigi, O cara. In fact, from Violetta's first sign of consumption with Nulla, Nulla...Oh qual pallor, I was hoping that her illness was some new strain of a super-sexy turbo-infected flu, which would cut her down halfway through E' strano! No such luck.

Hei-Kyung Hong’s glaring mispronunciations and topless voice (but not the sexy kind) plagued Violetta's tenuous interpretation. I've seen her Violetta before, and it's never been this bad. Rizzi’s shallow, empty, rushed conducting was criminal. And I’ll just keep it at that. I fear Milan has turned me into a pedantic Verdi snob...halp!

Interestingly enough, only one year has elapsed since I played here in NYC on the home field, and the changes that Gelb has administered post-Volpe-era are immense. From audience to ticket price, it's not only palpable, but visible (mainly via the alarmingly lax dress code, culprit of the new student corps that comprised the audience).

I’ve always been one for accessibility and open dialogue, but I fear that the MET will soon turn into a bit of a joke; a once-sacred hall of operatic history will be relegated in the same league as Broadway. I’ve been reading all the criticism (and equal praise) for Gelb’s new vision, but the impact wasn’t particularly tangible from the outside. Once Gelb has successfully opened the doors to this new edgy clientele that he is so desperately trying to corral, he'll need to improvise a contingency plan to halt cultural degradation.

The MET to me now is like bumping into a previously-hawt ex-boyfriend in a bar, who put on some extra beer-calories and got a funny haircut: you can still see that underlying hawtness, and know that once he gets over that rough-patch and get's his sh*t together, he'll be just fine.