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Opera Chic spoke to Israeli soprano Chen Reiss for Grazia.it about her full-fury November -- she'll sing some Mozart sacred arias at the International Festival of Sacred Music and Art in Rome and she'll launch her second CD with Onyx Classics, “Le Rossignol et la Rose”.
Read the English translation of the interview (and an outtake about singing Gilda that wasn't included in the Grazia.it version) under the cut!
Continue reading "OC & Grazia.it: Chen Reiss, Born This Way" »
Hans Werner Henze, possibly the greatest composer of the post-WWII years, a true gentleman (and a dog lover) passed away today at the age of 86.
The sense of loss is just too overwhelming, as of now, to add much more -- Opera Chic was lucky enough to meet the great man in Florence at the "Phaedra" premiere, and as she wrote then, OC never had the chance to meet Strauss, or Schoenberg, or Stravinsky. But she had the honor to meet Hans Werner Henze. And the memory of that encounter, and of his kind smile when an American girl introduced herself and told him how much his music menat to her, will always remain in her heart.
Lang² lovers have three different versions of his new Chopin album -- which launched yesterday in Italy -- to covet. In addition to a set of etudes, a handful of nocturnes and waltzes, the deluxe edition features home videos of precocious baby Lang² and the dubstepping Marquese in Ocean 12 (photo above).
Cellist Mischa Maisky opens with Bach for the 2012-13 season of Filarmonica Romana tonight at Rome's Teatro Olimpico, in homage to late violinist Piero Farulli. Maisky will be awarded the "Life for Music" award for his musicianship and maybe possibly also for his his ~deal with it~ 'tude.
It's crunch time for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Above, rehearsals for tomorrow night's 40th anniversary season opening at Carnegie Hall. Between Beethoven's 5th and Rossini's overture to L'italiana in Algeri is the world premiere of Augusta Read Thomas' Earth Echoes with Nathan Gunn and mezzo Sasha Cooke. The piece, just under a half hour, is an operatic song cycle commissioned by Orpheus and The Koussevitzky Music Foundations that sources texts from Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and assorted poems. Ain't no party like a song cycle party 'cause a song cycle party don't stop.
Jessica Duchen for The Independent reframes the classical music industry's sexism as a landscape where female soloists are either marginalized or sexualized, citing the backlash over Yuja Wang's ever-shrinking concert gear and that sweaty-palm Benedetti profile in The Sun.
Classical music is a meritocracy, theoretically. The best musician wins. If only this were true. It isn't. It is deeply, appallingly sexist. This sexism is so ingrained that it's part of the industry furniture, taken for granted beyond the point of fight-back. We've been in denial about it for too long, and the problem is growing worse in today's climate of retrenchment.
Spoiler: Classical music is full of super-nerds (see above) who are awkward around the opposite sex, OC included. *pushes up glasses, walks into door*
The French press confirms what we reported here -- Stéphane Lissner will replace Nicolas Joel at the Paris Opera in 2015, jumping from his GM contract at Teatro alla Scala.
A piece in today's Corriere (print only), The Importance of the Voice, references Leo Nucci's opinion on the whole Daniel-Day-Lewis-as-Lincoln-vocal-polemic. In the Spielberg-directed film, Lewis affects an auto-toned, mid-pitch tenor that contrasts the general preconception that the sixteenth American president matched a deep baritone to his +6 foot tall frame.
Leo Nucci, currently singing Rigoletto at Teatro Regio di Parma's Verdi Festival, discussed the charisma and authority of the Verdi baritone.
"Verdi raises the voice of the baritone, in the tessitura, and lowers that of the tenor and in a certain sense they're put on the same level and we always think that, Mozart aside, the tenor was almost always the protagonist. But all these years, I've greatly thought about what makes the baritone voice so special: from Nabbuco to I Due Foscari, from Macbeth to Luisa Miller, and Rigoletto, and Germont in Travata -- for Verdi, it's the voice of authority. The voice of fathers. The voice of calm. The voice that as children, we heard in the arms of our fathers, right next to his heart."
"Naturally the americans had attributed a baritone voice to Lincoln, the father of the nation -- in the sense that a century later than the founding fathers of the united states he was the father of multiracial America. The acuto, there's nothing to do, it's petulant. I think about certain popes: what a disadvantage for Benedict XVI not to have that nice warm tone of his predecessor!"
"When I was a kid, know who my idols were? Not the great opera legends but Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby, the father of all of us baritones. And at the theater? Gassman was my hero, another great baritone voice. Like Albertazzi. As a Catholic and thinking about a reader of the bible, I never lost a single comment from the sacred texts of Cardinal Ravasi: a super-learned scholar, sure. And baritone voices are so fascinating. It gives me a sense of calm."
When Lincoln opens in Italy in February 2013, he'll most likely be dubbed in gravely baritone, just like Tom Selleck's whine was knocked two octaves lower for the Italian-dubbed Magnum P.I. We're still feeling it.
OC swapped leather for cashmere last week during a quick dip from chilly Milan to mild Tuscany to meet 34-year-old brother tenor Friar Alessandro, the first of his kind to secure a record deal, from Decca Records, for his round, warm lyric tenor.
OC chatted with the brown-robed friar from the Last Supper-fresco refectory of Assisi's Santa Maria degli Angeli in his gregarious, native Italian. Citing musical influences as diverse as Johann Sebastian Bach and Michael Jackson, Friar Alessandro calls his voice, "a gift from God to share with everyone," and sings out of pure devotion.
Read the full interview here on Grazia.it, or if your Italian's rusty, the English translation (and a couple photos) are below the cut!
Continue reading "Hey Brother! Friar Alessandro Live from Assisi" »
Two nights ago, the Royal Albert Hall barely contained the fabulousness of British classical music royalty such as Hayley Westenra, Nicola Benedetti (Female artist of the year, above and below, in a change of dress), Benjamin Grosvenor (Critic's Award), Andre Rieu (Album Of The Year) and Bocelli (who snagged a Lifetime Achievement award) for the 2012 Classical Brit Awards.
La Scala needs to cough up 4.2 million euros ($5.43 USD) to balance its books before the end of the year. Over the summer, Milan's mayor Pisapia had warned the opera house of its creeping debt after it was awarded a 1.9 million euro contribution by the Italian state.
If Scala breaks even, its workers will be awarded (coincidentally) four million euro in bonuses. If not, a much smaller bonus will be extended. Budget woes come on the heels of [denied] rumors that Scala GM Lissner will soon jump ship to the Paris Opera before his contract expires in 2017.
Loads of first row celebrities across the runways of New York, Milan, London and Paris are the swan-like offspring of famous parents, but Chiara Muti's got more street cred than her fellow Geldofs, Brandts, Casiraghis and Courtin-Clarins'. C'mon...her dad's the man!
Chiara was spotted at yesterday's Valentino S/S 2013 show at Espace Ephemere Tuileries wearing a Valentino gown and Rockstud clutch, both from the designer's F/W 2012 collection, pictured above.
Those persistent rumors (see today's Dagospia) about Scala GM Stephane Lissner being on his way to Paris Opera to replace Nicolas Joel in 2015?
Lissner said earlier today in Milan that it's not going to happen.
Lissner's Scala very comfortable contract expires in 2017.
Still, despite today's remarks, the smart money seems to remain on Lissner leaving; by January 2013 the French government will have to announce the name of the new Opéra GM. If it's Lissner, as it seems to be increasingly likely, expect all hell to break loose in Milan.