Opera Chic

Give Me (Lady) Liberty Or Give Me Death: Liza Minnelli Photographed By Terry Richardson

Liza Minnelli, 65, was photographed for Love Magazine, out now, by bad boy photographer Terry Richardson.

Much more (link NSFW, not safe for work) here.

 

 

Get Angela Gheorghiu For US$ 9.49

Opera Chic does not have fond memories of Gheorghiu's Scala "Traviata". But Amazon has the Blu-Ray priced at a cool $9.49 for those who want to experience in person the digitally-enhanced HDTV record of that unfortunate production.

The Critics Love Muti's "Warlike", "Unforgettable" Macbeth

From today's Corriere della Sera, that devotes a half page, above the fold, to Riccardo Muti's and Peter Stein's "Macbeth" in Salzburg, a "warlike Macbeth", writes the Milanese newspaper, "that makes one smell the stench of death".

From the review (not yet online, wait until tomorrow when the paper's content becomes available for free on Corriere's website):

"His [Muti's] interpretation is not only astonishing in its technique -- a thousand details are carefully refined -- but it's modern, dark, full of tragedy and less propulsive (on average, the tempi are now slower) but much more biting and gloomy than in the past. A 'gothic' interpretation, truly gripping."

 

Wilde At Heart: Alex Ross on Harvard's Uncensored "Dorian Gray"

Alex Ross on the greatness and the tragedy of Oscar Wilde (see the new uncensored, annotated "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Harvard University Press):

"How Oscar Wilde Painted Over 'Dorian Gray'"

Quote:

The transformation is almost dreamlike. Yet I doubt that Wilde would recognize in our world the utopia that he dreamed aloud in “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.” A man who steeped himself in the literature of the ancient Greeks, who modelled his being on the writing of Balzac and Stendhal and Pater, who read Dante every day in prison, might have seen a new kind of hell in the global triumph of American-style pop culture. Medicine prolongs life and slows aging, but personal satisfaction is as elusive a commodity as it was for Dorian Gray. Prejudice wanes, ignorance grows, the world spins forward and backward. Few of us would wish for the return of Wilde’s London, with its opulent surfaces and savage heart. But Wilde might have been content to stay there, savoring his joys and sorrows. No one lives happily ever after.

 

Lady Gaga's pied-de-poule Piano

Lady Gaga came to The View on Tuesday in a total hounds-tooth look from Ferragamo, but it didn't stop at her hemline. The rocker took a page from Liberace and made the piano the protagonist while belting out Yoü and I.

Leo Nucci on Rigoletto: "If You Cry, It's A Success"

The great man shares his wisdom in a brief TV interview -- he's doing his favorite opera with Patrizia Ciofi and Vittorio Grigolo in a triumphal Chorégies d'Orange production conducted by Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli.