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Elegantly wasted, we prepare for the New Year's Eve festivities and send a big fat BUON ANNO NUOVO to OC's readers. Coming back to our regular programming schedule when the cloud of vintage bubbly finally leaves the sky above our heads.
(the awesome image above, of our uncle Bill and auntie Charlotte, was taken by Jurgen Teller for Marc Jacobs)
As OC sits down with some Louis Roederer Cristal (with a side of panettone), she extends the warmest Christmas wishes to all of her readers, everywhere.
(A scene from The Fashion, coming to an opera house [not] near you in January, '08)
Contemporary Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli -- who throughout the years has given us memorable hits such as Linzer Stahloper, Keplers Traum, Frau Frankenstein, and Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit -- is bracing for a world premiere of his latest operatic dabbling titled The Fashion. Raise your hand if you feel like there’s something amiss from the title. Like "The fashion...WHAT WHAT"? The Fashion Addict, The Fashion Files, The Fashion Zone. o gawrd give me sumthing n e thing here...
Opening January 26, 2008 at the Düsseldorf opera house, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, The Fashion is being billed as "a black comedy, in a very British style, about the fashion industry", and promises a full submersion into the world of fashion, with teasers of dueling catwalk stars, feuding stylists, and gender benders. And then there’s this plot summary:
"[The Fashion is] shot through with eroticism and sexual ambiguities: the protagonist is a catwalk star, a model named Tarquin, who’s the toyboy of the stylist from Milan, Maria Maria (Jeanne Piland) and the attractive Mel’s rival, and who turns out to be a woman (Kristen Leich)!"
Awesome. The story has been penned British librettists Bob Goody and Dan Jemmett, and is directed by Michael Simon. Tenor hottie Steven Harrison will be singing one of the leads [as it is written on his website], already having collaborated with the crew in a prior Faust @ Düsseldorf earlier this year.
Conductor John Fiore will hopefully lead the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra to a wickedly fashionable victory! And as someone who owns 14 cheetah-print scarves from Roberto Cavalli's colletion for H&M, I think I know what "fashion" is. \(º_o)/
Now here is a good excuse to insert some pictures of shirtless tenor Steven Harrison as seen in director Michael Simon's take on Faust. Sorry guy, but you'll definitely have to shave ur chest for The Fashion. Enjoy the warmth now while u can, u silly little cub!
Juan Diego Florez, who is clearly aiming for the future destruction of the Tito Schipa legend by dethroning poor dear Tito and installing himself on the overlordy throne of Greatest Tenore Di Grazia Who Ever Inhabited This Sorry Planet, is about to give Catalan music lovers the greatest Xmas gift like evar: this coming Sunday at Barcelona's Liceu, with Joyce Di Donato (whose official website will rudely resize your FireFox window, so please don't visit it), he will appear in Rossini's Cenerentola. A work much appreciated at Casa Opera Chic and wildly dissed by the Telegraph's otherwise perceptive Rupert "McCrankykinz" Christiansen.
Want a ticket to dive into that warm soothing pool of JDF vocal magic? For just about ten bucks, or
it can be yours!
No Crankykinz need apply.
Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony will kick the NY Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel to the curb this Fall -- showing NYers how it's done with a little bit of West Coast flava -- by opening Carnegie Hall's 2008-09 season on September 24, 2008 in a Lenny Bernstein love-fest titled, "Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds". Lending star presence will be Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, and The Hampy-Hamp Thomas Hampson.
The NY Philharmonic has devoted its upcoming season to the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of Lenny's b-day, and the 50th anniversary of his appointment as Music Director. The Lenny festival will present 30 events (from the opening of the season until December 13, 2008) such as symposia, exhibitions, and film screenings, with many concerts narrated by his daughter, Jamie.
Highlights ahoy, like a November concert with Gustavo Dudamel & the Israel Philharmonic performing Lenny's Halil and Jubilee Games. We might have to rearrange our US vacations for some of these events.
Three years without la signorina Renata: on December 19, 2004, Renata Tebaldi ("la voce d'angelo" -- Toscanini's words) left this earth.
Teatro Regio di Parma and some private sponsors have decided to honor the magic of Tebaldi's voice by creating a museum that will present her memorabilia -- more than 50 original costumes, jewels, documents, even her famous vintage travel trunks.
Photographer/Designer/Professional Provocateur Oliviero Toscani will design the Museum. The management of Teatro Regio di Parma has explained that the beautiful castle of Torrechiara on the outskirts of Parma will be transformed into a Tebaldi museum. If you think that Toscani, between épater the public with campaigns centered around photographs of (ALL following links NSFW, repeat, NSFW) horses having secks, meaty human hearts, of pen1ses and newborn babies and men dying of AIDS, of hot priests kissing nuns, and anoxeric women posing as pin-ups, is also a devoted opera fan, think again:
"I never imagined that I'd be involved in a classical music project -- Toscani said -- I am not an expert in the field, I know the names of the biggest singers and conductors, but I never thought I'd be chosen for such a job: that's why I accepted, it's never too late to learn!"
We have no beef with Ollie, we might even like him, but please, please, no horse pen1ses for la signorina Renata's museum. Please.
At 19, she was the youngest performer ever chosen for the Met's Young Artists' Program, and she was simultaneously picked for the role of Barbarina in a production of Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Other cast members included soprano Renée Fleming, mezzo Cecilia Bartoli and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel.
"I thought that all my Christmases had come at once," de Niese said.
Danielle de Niese impresses with creamy tops & downloadable wallpaper.
Rupert Christiansen, always a joy to read even if we often disagree, goes all Cranky McCrankykins on poor Rossini, blasting a hole through La Cenerentola, that masterpiece (ROH podcast here), with a rhetorical shotgun.
Despite a couple of lovely tunes and some ingenious ensembles, the musical substance of the opera is jejune and banal, stuffed with perfunctory runs, sequences and cadences, and buttressed with crude orchestration and raw harmony. Rossini wrote much better operas - Tancredi and La Gazza Ladra, for example - which get far less exposure.
Now, Toby Spence is no Juan Diego (duh), and Evelino Pidò is no Bruno Campanella, and you might like Madge or not (we do, o yes, we do), and anyway il maestro Alessandro Corbelli is firmly in the "can-do-no-wrong" team; but seriously, somebody must have badly interfered with il Ruperto's mood to the point that they horribly clouded his judgement.
Because one thing is clear to any clear-headed observer: between the blinding flashes of surreal humor (Dandini, DonMagnifico), the sweet moments of introspection (Angelina) and her big arias that sound ripped from an opera seria, Rossini wrote in Cenerentola -- also thanks to the libretto by Jacopo Ferretti that has the bulletproof structure and the sustained wit of a Hollywood classic from the 1930s -- a timeless masterpiece, one of his most musically sophisticated works, and a bedrock example of his true genius.
One does not need to listen to the very best version out there to figure that out.
Gerald Finley, as J. Robert Oppenheimer, in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of John Adams's Doctor Atomic, directed by Peter Sellars.
La signora Montserrat Caballé and her daughter Montserrat Marti gave a benefit concert at Tbilisi Opera and Ballet Theater this past Friday in favor of homeless children; they also met the Patriarch of the Georgian Church, Ilya II.
We don't know if Franco Zeffirelli is advising His Excellency the Patriarch on style issues, but we know for sure that the bearded gentleman in (Viktor & Rolf?) black in the middle could sure use some help.
La signora Caballé, instead, with that voice, even now, is beyond and above any kind of criticism, as she'll always be.
Fnac, one of our frequented places to scope out music, is running a special Callas supplement to honor the 30th anniversary of the diva's passing. They have put out a sweet little catalog of all the Callas cds, dvds, and books. Here below is a sample of pages.
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Frengo Zeffirelli dancing with T.J., played by Ricky Schroder, in his 1979 Jon Voight/Faye Dunaway classic film, The Champ. <(^_^)>
We found this full page ad of Bolle yumminess in Corriere yesterday, the Scala étoil posing in Yamamay briefs (Yamamay is a cheesy & cheap underwear company here) for Unicef, the perfect unity of goodwill & tight abs. As you know, Bolle has been a Unicef Goodwill Abassador since 1999.
We have found the true reason for Barenboim's idiosyncratic flinch, visible on the televised versions of Teatro alla Scala's Tristan und Isolde la prima from December 7, 2007. We hear it from a good source that the rogue teddy bear was hurled @ Barenboim by one of the pissed Fials workers .
//You can find the real version here on teh utoobes @ 6:40.
Italian film and opera legend Franco Zeffirelli says he has agreed to become an image consultant to Pope Benedict XVI.
The pope does not have a "happy image", Zeffirelli tells Italian daily La Stampa in an interview published today.
"Coming after a Pope as telegenic as John Paul II is a difficult task," he said.
Two words: gold lamé. Lots of gold lamé.
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Here's a cap of the La Stampa print version. Additionally, Frengo said that he wants to be elected to the Vatican to act as a sort of watchdog for protecting the church's image in popular culture, a defender of sacred imagery and faith-based reference. He goes onto cite Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, and how much damage it inflicted.
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A big hello to the readers of Crooks And Liars where our main political girl bluegal took a break from waging war on Christmas & on the baby Jesus and from second-guessing the commander-in-chief, and very kindly linked us.
Antonio Banderas spoke with Argentinean newspaper La Nación de Buenos Aires and revealed that he has been commissioned by the cultural powers that be @ the Junta de Andalucía [the gub'mint of Andalucia] to direct a new version of Bizet’s Carmen in 2010. He also asserted that he is a lover of opera, and claimed to have listened to over 40 different operas this past summer. It's all good...only if Banderas doesn't cast his wife somewhere in this hot mess.
(I am not having intimate relations with this woman, says Anna Netrebko)
Update those score cards -- Anna Netrebko is speaking to the German-language press, and has issued the following statement “Ein für alle Mal: Ich bin nicht lesbisch”.
She felt she had to clear the air after recent rumors arose that she was getting cozy with Ludmilla "Lucy" Diakovska, a German-Bulgarian singer who started as one of the original members of the biggest selling German all-girl pop group called "No Angels", which was born out of the 2000 television talent show "Popstars".
The rumors started when Netrebko met with Lucy via a TV show. Both women have gone on the record to state their apparent disinterest in women.
I mean really, all Netrebko had to say is well, just look at her. ~@_@~
***update***
Anna may have watched too many episodes of Will & Grace, hence the confusion.
Not only la Scala is losing tenor Marcelo Alvarez for both their Andrea Chenier next June and their next Prima, Don Carlos on 12/7/2008, as previously reported; they also lost their most exciting choice for director, Terry Gilliam, who was in charge of giving good ole Chenier a patina of provocative genius and whose choice had generated much international attention for the opera house.
In Gilliam's place, French veteran Nicolas Joel, former Monty Python member and famous film director of masterpieces such as Brazil, Time Bandits, 12 Monkeys.
The good news is, maybe the orchestra will strike again, so it doesn't matter who would have directed the opera because nobody will see it!
Our most beloved, drunkenly-enraged, homophobic, anti-Semite, fallen Hollywood actor has shared with the world that he has other hobbies than h8ing on, well, almost every minority out there. He was spotted at Tuesday night’s Katherine Jenkins/Darcey Bussell Viva La Diva extravaganza in London (that Opera Chic covered in detail here), and declared himself an opera and ballet lover.
In his eloquent words, “When I was a kid I used to go and look at opera and ballet.” Having a “go and look” at an opera is like coincidentally walking by the opera house while you happen to be downtown picking-up your dry cleaning. What the hell is that? He is also quoted on Viva La Diva saying, "I loved it. I thought it was great. They are both amazing talents. I sat there with a smile on my face the whole time.”
C’mon Mel. That's just the liquor talking. Or he was under the influence of Jenkins' scary rack.
Poor Daniel Barenboim.
We really feel like giving him a cookie now: here's a cookie, Maestro.
He's a world-class pianist and conductor, a writer, a peace activist, and a humanitarian: he arrived at la Scala after the stormy Muti years (19) and everybody assured him that the very tense situation of trouble-prone la Scala would vanish, and his arrival would be justly celebrated as a great triumph for the opera house and its future, and rightly so.
Instead.
Instead the Scala unions canceled his two Verdi Requiems (one at la Scala, one in Parma) in memory of Arturo Toscanini, they disrupted the rehearsals for his Tristan Und Isolde with endless union meetings, they barely allowed the premiere and the second show to be staged and then they went on strike again, against their Maestro Scaligero (the only other conductor to obtain the prestigious title of guest conductor was Wilhelm Furtwaengler).
An "appalled and saddened" -- a source told Opera Chic -- Barenboim flew to Berlin immediately after the strike was declared earlier today (he has a Don Giovanni there); Scala GM Stephane Lissner, who had agreed to find in the cash-strapped Scala coffers (as reported here on Opera Chic, they keep losing sponsors and city government funding, millions of euros of loss) 3.2 MILLION euros for the end of the year bonus, and Lissner has also succesfully lobbied the central government to change the laws (the so-called Legge Asciutti) that at the moment make it illegal for him to greenlight a new comprehensive bonus package for his more than 1,000 workers.
And 60 orchestra players, after getting their share of the bonus and agreeing to go ahead with la Prima, went on strike earlier today, as we reported as it happened a few hours ago (scroll down 2 posts).
Which opens a question: if the three unions that gather most of the Scala workers (CGIL, CISL, UIL) cannot basically guarantee the management that after an agreement has been found the operas and concerts will indeed happen, what is the point of dealing with them in the first place?
Seriously. Why should one waste one's time if they cannot control the situation after an agreement has been found?
This was a very bad day indeed. Today a Milanese court awarded the family of a Scala worker who died in 2000 at 56 of a rare lung ailment 200,000 euros in damages: the man had apparently been hurt by asbesto particles present in the Scala stage machines.
Two days ago, the New York Philharmonic held a press conference to announce a new venture within the Democratic People's Republic of Korea: acting as cultural ambassadors, Executive Director Z.Z. Zarin Mehta will send the NYPhil to the DPRK for a two-day musical festival in the capital Pyongyang, ending with a concert on February 26, 2008 under Maestro Maazel. This will be the first time an American orchestra has ever played in the DPRK, and hope they will act accordingly, wearing shorts, firing semi-automatic weapons, munching on twinkies, popping ritalin, and drinking starbucks frapps as they sit in the pit.
The New York Post, one of NYC’s most entertaining newspapers (it costs a freaking quarter) that consistently creates the lamest headlines ever (In May 2007, when NY Yankee's hitter Alex Rodriguez, a.k.a "A-Rod" was seen taking out a blond who wasn't his wife, their headline screamed "STRAY-ROD") fires back hilariously in an ALL CAPS 22 font article, “SYMPHONY FOR THE DEVIL”, and goes on to document a laundry list of offenses from the North Korean government under their most entertaining royalty, Kim Jong-Illiest. We're siding with The New York Post on this one based on headline alone. A++
You'd think that institutions such as the US government (Callas was a NYC-born US citizen), the Greek Government (Callas took Greek citizenship in order to dissolve her first marriage and be able to remarry), the Italian government (Callas lived here for 20 years, married an Italian, became a star here), la Scala, the Met and other opera houses around the world would actually have 42,000 euros (US $60,000) to spare to buy at Sotheby's auction last night in Milan Maria Callas's annotated scores.
Instead a private citizen, and unabashed Callas lover, il signor Bruno Tosi, saved the scores from ending up in the hands of somebody who'd stash them away somewhere forever or, even worse, an investment fund that'd bury them in some safe somewhere, waiting to be resold page by page at a future date to maximize the investment.
So, a big thank you to signor Tosi and big, fat "booo" to all the abovementioned, myopic institutions.
Tosi, a devoted Callas scholar and collector, is planning to create a Callas museum in Venice: let us hope the project comes to life soon.
