« September 2010 | Main | November 2010 »
The Chicago Sun Times reports that Riccardo Muti's health crisis last week was caused by "extreme exhaustion as a result of prolonged physical stress." He's currently back home in Ravenna to rest for one month.
What happened when a young Martin Bernheimer offered diva Joan Sutherland a ride in his Volkswagen beater? Good times, good times.
The purity and balance of the emission, the flexibility of the instrument, the beauty of the timbre and the breath control that made the wildest fiorettature sound so apparently effortless -- Sutherland had everything to become the greatest coloratura singer of the 20th Century. She even turned her limitations -- the downright bad diction that not even her most ardent fans can seriously defend -- into her trademark.
Her talent was so astonishing that she made you forget everything else -- she's the anti-realist soprano, there's no opera as musical theater in her universe (no wonder she thought modern stagings were ridiculously beside the point). Sutherland is there, tall and gawky and who cares if she's double the size of the tenor unless the tenor is Pavarotti, she's soaring above that, bending sound to her will, creating extraordinary music that, if you listen close enough, will reveal you secrets -- it's the stuff the Sirens were supposed to do, "tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world", according to Homer (via Butler).
Not to mention, the favorite pastime of some opera lovers, taxidermy, is ill-fitted to explain her work and her life. Thanks to an extraordinary husband -- a much better musicologist and vocal coach than a conductor, but, another of her wonders, she makes his limitations in the pit beside the point -- Sutherland made opera travel in time, bringing the past back to glorious life. She and Bonynge revived a repertory that was considered inferior simply for the lack of the right voice to bring it back to us -- they went back in time and gave a most conservative opera world an actual revolution. Her range and versatility always beat the odds, laughed at the nay-sayers (just consider her mid-career Turandot), taught us that it's pointless to look back at Malibran and Pasta and all the other great dead singers who might or might not have sounded the way we've been taught they did.
Sutherland makes nostalgia look silly -- there's no repertory that's too hard to bring back to life, if you have the talent. She makes us hope that someone else -- with the right voice and, maybe, the right mentor -- will come after her, to surprise us, to show us once again how it's done, here and now. Her work -- and Bonynge's -- remains so fresh because it's so open to new possibilities.
But then, Joan Sutherland made everything look effortless -- the very definition of genius.
While NYC was celebrating the opening of City Ballet with a Fall Gala (post below), the West Coast was simultaneously toasting the opening of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's new season with a banging party that brought out a colorful mix of celebrities, artists, and socialites to Walt Disney Concert Hall -- Michael Eisner, Neil Diamond, Frank Gehry, and Maggie Seaver (a.k.a Joanna Kerns).
Gustavo Dudamel, in his second opening night with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was accompanied by (pregnant) wife, Eloísa, who was in company of Juan Diego Flórez's wife, Julia. The two first ladies of classical music worked the red carpet while their husbands worked the stage.
The first half was a melange of Rossini overatures (La Gazza Ladra and Semiramide) with soloist Juan Diego Flórez singing arias from two Rossini arias. Flórez worked the whole Latino pride thing after the break with Chabuca Granda's Peruvian classic La Flor de la Canela, followed by Mexican and Venezuelan songs. He encored with his show-stopping Ah Mes Amis from La Fille and La Donna è Mobile from Rigoletto.
(Above: Eloísa and Julia)
Follow fierce byotches Ann Rutherford and Anne Jeffreys inside for more fabulousness from opening night!
Continue reading "Celebración at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Opening Night Gala" »
Gala season's the best season in NYC! And Thursday night was no exception as the New York City Ballet opened their new season to an audience of dance fans and socialites. The program sampled choreography by Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine, and a premiere by Benjamin Millepied (to a score commissioned by David Lang).
Sarah Jessica Parker (above) in vintage Halston brought the most star power at the black tie event, almost overshadowed by Natalie Portman (Millepied's hawt girlfriend) and Jake Gyllenhaal (who apparently showed-up with a backpack and refused to have any photographs taken. With a backpack.)
(Above: Ben Gazzara and wife Elke Krivat)
(Above: Socialite Helen Schifter)
(Above: Socialite Michelle Herbert)
(Above: SATC author Candace Bushnell)
You pose topless for an erotic photo and you get canned from your job. It's happened to the best of us. Last August, Russian ballerina Karina Sarkissova posed for secks magazine Wiener (oh the punny) and was fired a short time later by Director of Wiener Staatsballett, Dominique Meyer.
Quite often, France's coolness factor is wildy overrated abroad -- especially by many too-easily-impressed Americans. But whenever France is actually cool, it's very, very, very cool.
Today, for example, the daily Libération, didn't like the fact that the Mayor of Paris has censored Larry Clark's exhibit -- keeping minors out of Clark's show due to City Hall's fears of legal challenges (in France you can't show hardcore sexual images to minors). Therefore, to protest the decision, Libération printed a huge Clark photo, that one can not avoid to describe as X-rated, on their front page, denouncing the Mayor's choice.
(above, Larry Clark photographed by Terry Richardson)
Click below to find a link to the newspaper's front page.
The Italian papers have been reporting on Riccardo Muti's cancellation of his October Chicago Symphony Orchestra commitments coupled with his refusal to take on the MD position at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. After a very last minute cancellation earlier this week in Chicago for a high profile celebratory concert, the Italian maestro flew back to Milan to consort with the medics he mosts trusts.
La Repubblica spoke to Muti as he was preparing to leave Chicago and in his words, the motivation to return to Italy, the maestro said, "to subject myself to a series of tests that I intend to do with my own Italian doctors".
Later this month, Muti's scheduled to take his Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini on tour in Austria and then back to Italy to open Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new season with Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon on December 3, followed by a run of Verdi's Nabucco.
And his refusal to accept the role of Music Director at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma? Rome's mayor Alemanno announced in August 2009 that Muti would be the new MD effective in December 2010 (read OC's editorial here), but Muti hasn't signed onto the official title. The reason according to Muti? "In consideration of the enormous amount of international commitments, and also because of the general difficulties that are plaguing the Italian opera houses." Can you blame him? Get well soon.
Composer Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter canceled a visit to Israel after the leaked trip prompted criticism over her anti-Semitic ancestor.
Continue reading "Katharina Wagner Cancels Israel Trip, Hilarity Ensues" »
Katia's up to her old antics again! Italian soprano sparkplug Katia Ricciarelli publicly trash-talked ex-husband, superchees Italian TV icon Pippo Baudo (and also admitted her great love for Jose Carreras and Herbert Von Karajan), which will all be published in tomorrow's "Diva e Donna" magazine. All translations by OC kthnx!
Speaking against Pippo Baudo's unofficial embargo against "all things Katia" as host of Italian tv shows (which at times dedicate precious air time to opera and classical music), the Italian soprano says that she and Pippo aren't even on speaking terms. Separated in 2004, they were married for eighteen years. Katia was Baudo's second wife. Baudo is the long-time host of "Domenica In" and a prominent face behind Italy's super cheesy San Remo festivals.
She also divulges some of the greatest loves of her life. On Jose Carreras: "We were gorgeous and invincible. With him I experienced the most beautiful years of my life. It ended with him because we had such a strong rapport that I was afraid that it would distract me from my career. And he was married. But between us remains a great friendship."
Sadly, Katia speaks about her long marriage to Baudo: "I thought I'd grow old with him. I have no regrets about how things went. But I can't help thinking that if it had been true love, we would have stayed friends. Instead today, after eighteen years of marriage, we're nothing. Nothing."
"When he broadcasts shows about opera, he doesn't even mention me! He should do it even for the sake of being newsworthy! This isn't the way one should do things."
And she admits to crushing on Herbert von Karajan!! "I wanted to marry Herbert Von Karajan. If he had asked me to come into his 'office', let's say, I would have done it!"
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dear Katia.
About three weeks ago, Katharina Wagner gave an interview to Ynet. Among the more interesting quotes:
Would you like to do a Wagner opera in Israel?
"Gladly. But I'll come to Israel only if I'm invited. This is not something I can initiate."
Today, the Israel correspondent for Italian news agency ANSA reports that Katharina Wagner will travel to Israel in the newxt few days to announce that she has invited the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to play in Bayreuth next year.
(Above: Giuseppe Filianoti as Hoffmann at The Met)
We could read Financial Times music critic Martin Berheimer wax poetic about something as mind-numbingly boring as the multi-party federal parliamentary democratic republic of Switzerland and still love every word. Luckily for us, he sticks to reviewing classical music.
Continue reading "Tales of Filianoti at The Metropolitan Opera" »
Toronto's Canadian Opera Company raised the curtain on their new season this weekend with an opening (afternoon -- wtf?) performance of Verdi's Aida. In a new production by Tim Albery (who was booed during his curtain call), Aida is no longer an exposition of Egyptian pageantry -- instead it's filled with gritty, stark scenes from a generic war-torn country.
Excellent singing and acting aside (save the director, everyone was lauded for their individual performances), American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky (as the lead) should receive all sorts of accolades just for being able to channel her inner diva while wearing the world's ugliest pair of kicks. It's like the shoes you'd find on a1940s Dust Bowl WPA worker.
Loads more photos and podcasts can be found here!
(Above: Radvanovsky detail)
(Above: Sondra Radvanovsky with Scott Hendricks' Amonasro)
(Above: Sondra Radvanovsky and Jill Grove as Amneris)
(All photos: AP/Canadian Opera Company/Michael Cooper)
Rap star Kanye West always brings the drama, which is why, coming from the drama-rich vernacular of the opera world, we love his antics. Whether his famous rants are powering internet memes or he's being called a gay fishtick-loving fish, his unrelenting narcissism makes him the Weeble-Wobble of the rap world. In a live performance this weekend from Saturday Night Live, Kanye brought along a corps of ballerinas and soloists to beautify his jam "Runaway".
The good news is that (contrary to what we fancied) Italian maestro Riccardo Muti isn't actually a Schwarzenegger-esque cyborg sent from the future to save classical music from mediocre interpretations and tempi-beating charlatans. The bad news is that he's only human. Over the weekend after suffering from "extreme gastric distress" (or as the Italian press calls it, "forti disturbi gastrici"), Muti's been forced to cancel the next couple weeks of performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and fly back to Milan (he arrives tomorrow morning) to consort with his team of Milanese health specialists. Harry Bicket, Asher Fisch, and Pierre Boulez will step in the next two weeks for the duration of Muti's CSO Fall commitments (three concerts total).
At the end of this month, Muti's scheduled to take his Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini on tour in Austria (culminating in a concert at Vienna's Musikverein) and then back to Italy to open Teatro dell'Opera di Roma's new season with Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon on December 3.
Our biggest and healthiest wishes for a speedy recovery, Maestro!
Last night's gala event with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra went ahead without its (co)star, Riccardo Muti. The maestro was forced to a last minute cancellation of his concert performance with Anne-Sophie Mutter, citing sudden illness. With the set list altered (Mozart added to Beethoven -- for Rossini and Liszt), soloist Mutter stepped up and conducted herself in Beethoven's violin concerto and later dedicated an encore (of Bach) to Muti.
Verdi's goddess Aida gives the Canadian Opera Company reason to channel their inner divas. On occasion of Sondra Radvanovsky's Aida debut for the company's first production of Verdi's grand opera in 25 years, The Globe and Mail's Style section gets all fashion-y, proving that Canadians don't throw tuxedo jackets over Toronto Maple Leaf jerseys for opening nights (obligatory Canada/hockey joke).
Using the opera house to model Hermès, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Valentino, here's a sample of dramatic, black tie dresses that could quite possibly overshadow the drama on stage. Go to the slideshow for a few more looks.
(Above: Edgard Varèse, photograph: Katherine Young/Getty)
San Francisco Symphony (who under Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas recently gave a gorgeous performance of Berlioz and Ravel in Milan as part of their 2010 European Tour) is getting in the Halloween spirit. On the evening of October 31st, they're screening the 1920 silent horror movie Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore (with an uncredited cameo by Edgard Varèse as a London policeman -- photo above!). Live accompaniment -- freaky organ and spine-tingling percussion -- will provide the creepy soundtrack.
Tabloid "newspaper" The Daily Mail carried a photo of "opera" "singer" Katherine Jenkins at the Ryder Cup opening ceremony in Wales, where the Welsh singer, according to The Daily Mail, was oggled by Tiger Woods.
The Daily Mail failed to report that only seconds later, Woods also was caught ogling the sky.