Opera Chic

Mozart + Insane Clown Posse + Jack White = ???

Jack White collaborates with Mozart and Insane Clown Posse.

Wolfie, apparently, was a juggalo.

More at Pitchfork.

Opera Chic In Corriere della Sera's "Style" Magazine September Issue

September marks the début of Opera Chic as contributor of Corriere della Sera's "Style" magazine: in the September Issue (Vitorio Grigolo on the cover) she interviewed Juan Diego Florez and Jonas Kaufmann as you can see below...

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Lisa Della Casa: "Ah, Chi Mi Dice Mai", Don Giovanni, Salzburger Festspiele 1954, Wiener Philharmoniker, Wilhelm Furtwängler cond.

Licitra Update, Wednesday Afternoon: No Changes In Tenor's Conditions, His Doctors Say

Today's bulletin from Salvatore Licitra's doctors indicates that there are no changes in the tenor's conditions -- Licitra remains in a coma in the ICU of Garibaldi's hospital in Catania after suffering a probable cerebral hemorrhage while riding his scooter, and suffering extensive head and chest wounds in the following crash this past Saturday night.

Licitra Update, Tuesday Afternoon: Tenor "Likely Suffered A Cerebral Hemorrhage" Before Crashing His Scooter

Italian Radio RAI interviewed Salvatore Licitra's doctor who, after careful analysis of the tenor's brain scans, considers it "likely" that Licitra suffered a cerebral hemorrhage right before crashing his scooter, this past Saturday night. The singer remains in "very serious" conditions. 

Sergio Pintaudi told RAI that

"the situation is very grave, very compromised, and most of all very delicate. He remains in an extremely grave coma''.

Link in Italian here.

Licitra Update, Tuesday Morning: Injured Tenor Still In A Coma, Suffers From Lung Complications

Licitra still in a coma, and suffering from lung complications.

AGI agency reports:

Licitra 'remains in an extremely serious coma' following a car crash last Saturday.
The latest bulletin released by the doctors at Catania's Garibaldi hospital reports that 'during the night monitoring of his respiratory activity and a CAT scan of his chest revealed pulmonary complications due to the impact suffered when he came off his motorbike. As a result his lungs were carefully cleaned via a broncoscopy this morning'.

Licitra Update, Monday Morning: Injured Tenor In "Stable, But Severe" Conditions; "Evolving Unexpectedly"

Salvatore Licitra's doctors have spoken early this morning to the Italian media. The tenor is still in the ICU of Garibaldi hospital in Sicily after suffering extensive head and chest injuries in a fall from his scooter this past Saturday night.

AGI news agency reports:

"Salvatore Licitra's conditions are stable, but severe; he is evolving unexpectedly," said Doctor Pinaudi. The head of the resuscitation department of Garibaldi Hospital, in Catania, released this report.

Tenor Salvatore Licitra Struggling For His Life

*** update: the police has confirmed that Licitra was not wearing a helmet while riding a scooter; he lost control, and fell. His girlfriend, who was with him, is unharmed. 

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The 43-year-old Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra is fighting for his life in the ICU of Garibaldi hospital in Catania, Italy: last night Licitra suffered extensive injuries to his head and chest in a car crash and has undergone surgery.

More information in Italian here.

Another Bocelli on the Way

Italian tabloid magazine Chi reports that Andrea Bocelli will soon be a proud papa. His partner, Veronica Berti (above), is pregnant with the singer's third child. Bocelli has two sons from his ex-wife -- below, from a photograph taken in 2008, Amos hugs his dad and Matteo stands to the right.

Hans Werner Henze - Lacrimosa from "Drei geistliche Konzert" (Joel Brennan, trumpet)

Slatkin On Gheorghiu's Driving Skillz

Leonard Slatkin is a good guy:

"They needed to save the soprano [Angela Gheorghiu], no matter how willfully she distorted the phrasing, moment to moment. The conductor was expendable. My lowest point opening night came at the big ensemble number closing the third act. I cut off and everyone ended on cue, but she just hung on. It finally threw me. Yes, things got very wobbly after that.

"So why would I want to stay on as a traffic cop, when she was running all the red lights, anyway? Bottom line, it's a blip on the radar."

Purcell Under Water @ Waldbühne

Henry Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" by German choreographer Sasha
Waltz will be staged tomorrow at Berlin's Waldbuehne open-air stage (AFP/MacDougall)

 

Opera Chic & Grazia.it: Nino Machaidze On Being Juliette

Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze spoke to OC via Grazia.it about her current run of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at Arena di Verona, which ends tomorrow night.

 You can read about it here.

English translation behind the cut...

Hell Yeah Hedi

One more reason to love French fashion designer Hedi Slimane -- for the symphonically-inspired photos we found on his diary.

We also recommend you to scroll down the front page of his diary where you'll find stunning photos of Amy Winehouse -- and before that, Francis Bean like you've never seen her before.

 

Whereupon Carlito Does His Thing: Carl Maria von Weber, "Der Freischütz", Overture, Carlos Kleiber (1970)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Audience Reacts To Graham Vick's Controversial Production of "Mosè In Egitto", Pesaro

Artists Speak Out: Vick's Mosè in Egitto at Rossini Opera Festival "Dangerous and Offensive"

The two Israeli artists currently engaged at the Rossini Opera Festival, where Graham Vick premiered his polemic Mosè in Egitto less than 24 hours ago, spoke to ANSA about the British stage director's controversial new staging of the Rossini opera (translations all OC's kthnx).  

Soprano Hila Baggio (singing in tonight's Scala di Seta, portrait above) and pianist Maria Nikitin (portrait below) both took issue with Vick's interpretation, although they agreed that fundamentalists and extremism is bad.   

The danger, they explained, "is that people don't know how to distinguish and maybe one starts to think that the Israelis are responsible for these things," or that it feeds the antisemitic climate that "in recent years is in huge growth in North Europe."

Said Baggio "I haven't seen the show, neither the general, i only helped out in a few of the rehearsals, but the idea to transform Moses -- who for us is a really important figure -- into Bin Laden , is offensive. The situation in the Middle East is really serious, the smallest thing can cause damages and it doesn't make sense to bring in other complications. And, even though it is understood that an artist can express themselves in a way that they best believe, an operation like this risks to make everything more problematic." 

Pianista Nikitin saw the general rehearsal and says, "the first scene is like Quentin Tarantino, with people bloody as they wander into the theater," describing how the action is also on the sides of the auditorium as well as the stage. However, speaking about how Vick transformed the Exodus as scored by Rossini into terrorists/Palestinians/Chechen people, "has nothing to do with the story of Moses, and not even with what's going on in the Middle East". 

She said that the Israelis have never committed an act of terrorism as depicted by Vick: "It's never happened in our history". 

She remains cautious of Vick's production: "If someone wants to use a theme like this in a piece of art, you must document it well and act with caution."

Baggio, at the end, said that she does agree with Vick that extremism is dangerous but the way in which Vick developed his concepts could be "dangerous and offensive".

Cops Called in, Anger Flares at Vick's Mosè in Egitto in Pesaro

Polarizing King Vick left Pesaro's audiences either loving or hating his reread of Rossini's Mosè in Egitto as applause battled with boos at the end of opening night. At one point, the loggione was so stirred-up that a fight ensued and police were called in for control.

Corriere della Sera reported -- "Applause and tensions for Moses-Bin Laden and the Police Came: During the scene with the gas masks, from the loggione came cries of 'for shame'" -- that the singers were generally applauded as well as conductor, Roberto Abbado. 

Vick's new staging has also angered others: During the final dress rehearsal, Israeli soprano Hila Baggio (who's at Pesaro to sing in Rossini's Scala di Seta) protested during the first act by leaving the auditorium. 

Senator PDL Elio Massimo Palmizio was so enraged with Vick's staging that he accused the British director of "inducing hatred" and even threatening him with a personal interrogation from the Minister of Culture.

Graham Vick Will F**k up Your Opera House, He's Like The Terminator at this Point

The condition of the Old Testament's Jewish slaves is compared to that of the Palestinians. Moses' likeness is borrowed from Osama Bin Laden complete with a beard, a camo jacket and an Uzi.  

It's Mosè in Egitto, signed by the pen of Graham Vick, the Artistic Director of the Birmingham Opera Company, who is coming to f**k up your opera house -- Pesaro to be exact -- as tonight inaugurates the production at the Rossini Opera Festival.

OC tweeted it earlier when she browsed Corriere della Sera this morning over a cup (or four) of Konga coffee from Dean and Deluca and here's the full report (all translations are OC's kthnx)...

Vick's polemic version enlists bloodied bodies, Israeli flags, and suicide bombers (which Vick uses to symbolize the biblical plague of fire). The parting of the Red Sea and the exodus happens through a hole in the separation barrier that runs along the West Bank.

Giuseppina Manin of Corriere interviewed the British opera director and writes that the production is Vick's personal statement against fundamentalism and monotheistic religions and that the final dress rehearsal a few days ago drew out an enthusiastic applause (from where all the photos were taken) and that Vick believes that the Old Testament hid the seeds of religious fanaticism and violence.

Vick on Moses:

"It's true, he resembles Bin Laden -- on the contrary, he's an archetype. Moses summarizes in himself all of the fundamentalists. Let's not forget that every terrorist is also a freedom fighter in the eyes of someone else. And besides, Rossini presents him as always angry and threatening. His war against the Egyptians resembles very much a 'holy war' on which to speculate actual jihad. While rereading the works of Rossini, I felt the need to take into consideration how much had befallen the Middle East in the last ten years."

Manin also says that scenes in Vick's production bear witness to the torture of Guantanamo prisoners, the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis, and the 2004 Beslan massacre.

But Vick isn't necessarily grinding his political axe:

"There's no intention to provoke or to make anyone angry. I looked only to present various points of view, to push the spectator into rethinking our stories. To reflect, to participate, also emotionally. The biggest stories raise the biggest questions. It's to their merit, the sense of their continuing vitality."

Roberto Abbado conducts the Orchestra del Teatro comunale di Bologna and the cast includes Sonia Ganassi.

Graham Vick is like The Terminator of opera directors: It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

Opera Chic & Grazia.it: Two Post in One

For this week's Stasera Esco column on Grazia.it, Opera Chic looks ahead to Italy's early fall classical music festivals and picks three of her favorites for "Aspettando l'autunno: Tre Imperdibili Festival di Musica Classica".

Don't worry -- next week we'll jump right back to the present!

But now we need to hop back into the DeLorean and go back in time since we forgot to mention last week's piece for Stasera Esco, "Shiseido Cura la Bellezza dell'opera". We grilled Japanese beauty giant Shiseido on their evolving partnership with Teatro alla Scala as the first beauty company in the theater's history to have the honor.

You can see more of the cool photos (and the piece) here! Tomorrow we'll drop in the English translations behind the cut, but in the meantime you can check out the pieces (in Italian) on Grazia.it. 

Photos credit Shiseido, Luca Chiaudano and Photomovie.

The Dark Magic of Oswald Kabasta: Respighi's "Impressioni Brasiliane"

 

Opera Chic has written in the past of the dark magic in Oswald Kabasta's conducting -- now a gentle soul has uploaded one of the most surprising examples of Kabasta's genius: his interpretation of Respighi's "Impressioni Brasiliane", a masterpiece by a wildly underrated composer conducted by an unjustly forgotten genius.

"Tony Curtis and Franz Liszt": J.D. McClatchy's "Cağaloğlu"

In the latest issue of The New Yorker (subscriber only), you can find J.D. McClatchy's new poem Cağaloğlu and it rocks.

Our favorite verses:

 

Bolshoi Beauties

The Youth Issue no. 12 of Acne Paper has Benjamin Alexander Huse shooting from the Bolshoi.

[Via]

Colin Firth Under the Tuscan Sun

Colin Firth made a surprise visit this weekend to Cortona, Italy to visit the IMG-powered Tuscan Sun Festival.

The British actor took in a performance of Friday night's Schubertiade, a musical journey through the life and times of Schubert, narrated by Greta Scacchi (Carla Fracci was also in the audience).

The Cortona-based late summer classical music and lifestyle festival opened on July 30 and invited performers such as Martha Argerich, Pinchas Zukerman and Jeremy Irons (to narrate "Seduction, Smoke and Music: The love story of Chopin and George Sand). It also hosted another edition a wellness yoga class run by probably the world's richest aerobics instructor (and wife of Sting), Trudi Skyler.

Tonight closes the festival's 9th edition in a concert dedicated to an entire span of early music to bel canto -- Haendel, Bach and Boccherini to Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti -- interpreted by Russian-born cellist Nina Kotova and Valley Girl Danielle de Niese, accompanied by I Virtuosi del Teatro alla Scala ensemble.

Westwood does Salzburg

British fashion designer, original punk rock couture girl, and all around paragon of how to still kick a$$ post-semicentenary Vivienne Westwood dipped into tonight's Claus Guth production of Cosi' fan tutte at the Salzburger Festspiele. She was escorted by her husband Andreas Kronthaler.

Will we see a Westwood-styled opera production in the near future? We can only hope!