Opera Chic

I am the Parma and the Omega: Terre Verdiane Powered by Emilia-Romagna

...and culatello. So Upper Saxony went a little crazy late spring to celebrate the bicentennial birth year of its hometown hero, Richard Wagner, with concerts and conferences luring Wagner-fetishists to Dresden and Leipzig. Now it's Emilia-Romagna's turn for the Giuseppe Verdi war-shippers. In the autumn run-up to the Busseto-born maestro's 200th birthday on October 10, the rustic cities that dot the Northern Italian region (crowned by capital Bologna) bow month-long festivities devoted to its native son.

Monday night, Teatro Regio di Parma inaugurates the 2013 Festival Verdi, a month-long playbill of concerts and roundtables of Verdi music and protagonists. Away-team Filarmonica della Scala will sway under Riccardo Chailly in Verdi symphonic treats such as Oberto, Un giorno di regno, Jérusalem and I Vespri siciliani. This year, special guests include Carlo Bergonzi, Mirella Freni, Raina Kabaivanska, Bruno Bartoletti [ed: event scheduled for 31 October will be memories of the late maestro by Gian Paolo Minardi], Leo Nucci and Fiorenza Cossotto. Operas include Boccanegra, Falstaff and I masnadieri.

The opera house, with Verdi snobs so fierce that they could make La Scala's loggionisti cry, christens its new intendant Carlo Fontana on October 1, elected to re-haul the theater's structure/funds under the current economic crisis arts/culture crunch, whose experience runs deep & thorny as GM at La Scala from 1990 - 2005, dismissed by the board over #words with then-MD, Riccardo Muti.

We arrived a night early since we were impatient for the Emilia-Romagna early fall harvest (and its awesomely-titled wine harvest, vendemmia) -- ticklish Malvasia and Lambrusco local bubbly wines, hand-made eggy-pasta blistering with sweet pumpkin filling and crumbly-tart Parmigiano Reggiano. And Verdi's favorites -- culatello and spalla cotta -- served up in downtown Tratoria Corrieri. The well-loved 213-year-old restaurant was bumping on a Sunday night. Tomorrow we'll revisit Verdi's old haunts, hopefully walking-off some of that buttery tortelli di zucca that we polished-off.

Open kitchen at Trattoria Corrieri (Giuseppe Verdi bust in the foreground)

 

There was an aperitif called Otellon'ice: black Lambrusco spumante wtih ice. (Get it?)

 

Pumpkiny

 

Parma's downtown stores decorate windows in a Festival Verdi theme.

 

Great American Soprano Does Letterman Top Ten

With a charming flick of her Bergdorf blonde lowlights, good sport Renée Fleming pulled an Opera Man and sang, without sheet music, the Late Show with David Letterman Top Ten for Wednesday, September 25.

Begin the Onegin: Curtain Up for The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14

Tonight bows the Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season in an off-trend Verdi/Britten/Wagner Tchaikovsky Onegin -- although most of the red carpet-treading celebrities won't care/don't know, so win/win for the Russian power ménage à trois of Tchaikovsky, Netrebko and Gergiev.

The Met flexes its microblogging skills with an Instagram account where live celebrity fly-fishing has hooked Dan Stevens, Mischa Barton/Heather Graham and Patrick Stewart, who's fresh from the NYCO Anna Nicole Opera. Fat over lean brings Domigno, Sondra Radvanovsky and Isabel Leonard, but now that HBIC Austin Scarlett has arrived on a cloud of black satin with groomed-to-perfection brows, everyone else can just phone it in. Track. Wall. C-YA.

In anticipation of leaflet-wielding LGBT activists (in the end, they came to the party), GM Peter Gelb defended his decision to not turn The Met into a socio-political rights circus in protest of Russia’s anti-gay laws (and from the RUSALGBT twitter, a copy of the statement has been included in the opening night program). For centuries, opera has spirited subversion into roars, but silence is golden for house admin. Now, let's begin the Oneguine with Deborah Warner's coolly-aloof enchantments.

UPDATE:

Domingo and the family

Patti Smith

Misha Barton

HBIC Austin Scarlett

Heather Graham

Diane Kruger and Pabal Gurung

Dan Stevens

Brooke Shields

Milan Fashion Week Star (Tenor) Vittorio Grigolo at La Scala

(Photo: Vogue Italia)

This is how you dress for La Scala. Last night, in a super-exclusive event organized by Condé Nast and Vogue Italia -- surely one of the Milan Fashion Week highlights -- Vittorio Grigolo won a standing ovation from fashion's most powerful VIPs at La Scala -- magazine editors, Made in Italy ceos and founders including the Missonis, the Cavallis, the Ferragamos, the Ferrettis, the Marzottos, the Zegnas, Stefano Pilati, Frida Giannini, Donatella Versace, Graydon Carter and Condé Nast ceo, Charles H. Townsend.

(Photo: Vogue Italia)

Grigolo, with Vincenzo Scalera on the piano, sang a "One Night One Voice" concert that included Donizetti, Verdi (La donna è mobile), Puccini (Che gelida manina) and Ernesto de Curtis, encoring with Una furtiva lacrima, Schubert Ave Maria, O sole mio and O paese d' 'o sole, to which he removed his jacket to whistles and applause.

Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief of American Vogue) sat front and center between Giorgio Armani and Patrizio Bertelli (ceo of Prada) joined by Franca Sozzani (editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia) and Diego Della Valle (Tod's president and ceo).

WWD reports and Vogue Italia has a huge photo gallery here, reportage to come...


Roberta and Giorgio Armani (Davide Maestri/WWD)

Anna Wintour (Davide Maestri/WWD)

One Night, One Voice: Grigolo at La Scala for Milan Fashion Week

Photographer: Oliver Schaper

On the eve of Milan Fashion Week, it's almost 2 am (please be gentle) and the city still hasn't gone to sleep, as earlier tonight, the fifth edition of Vogue Fashion's Night Out unofficially inaugurated the next six days of runway shows, presentations, boutique openings and cocktails that makes us dip into arsenals of Touche Éclat and Japanese Sencha, super vitamins and Chanel ballet flats. 

Between the agenda-bulging events of MFW, Vittorio Grigolo jets from Paris mid-run (as Edgardo in Lucia) for a special, one-off concert tomorrow night, "One Night, One Voice" at Teatro alla Scala, organized by Vogue Italia/Condé Nast.

Fashion-friendly Grigolo was spotted this past January front row at Giorgio Armani Men's Fall/Winter 2013-14 collections between Ray Chen and Franca Sozzani, the editor in chief of Vogue Italia, and he partied with Sozzani and her son, photographer Francesco Carrozzini, in February in Paris at a private dinner at the home of Azzedine Alaia. 

Tomorrow night, we're figuring that Grigolo will be in a total Armani look, right down to his underwear.

Wendy, I'm an Opera! Stephen King's The Shining for the Minnesota Opera

 

We've always been baffled at Stephen King's notorious, public hatred of Stanley Kubric's 1980 cinematic adaption of his 1977 thriller, The Shining. After all, the spooky masterpiece full of Nicholson dramz, blood rivers and Diane Arbusesque twins has inspired dissertations and theses from its vast cult of fan-boys, rightfully so. 

So we can only imagine King's reaction to The Minnesota Opera's news of its latest opera commission, which bows The Shining for a May 2016 world premiere at Ordway in Saint Paul, Minnesota with composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell on score & quill.

It's the second time that Stephen King's novels have been Beaumarchais'd, as the San Francisco Opera readies the curtain of an auto-commissioned Tobias Picker/J.D. McClatchy world premiere Dolores Claiborne on September 18 with Patricia Racette in the title role.

We're psyched for this new project but we beg Moravec to hang the Bartók mantle heavily on his shoulders -- Bartók's iconic Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste that Kubric wove behind the film's most chilling moments (our favorites, above and below) converged the film's most eerie flights of psychological-thriller fancy.

Tastemakers on Tastemaking: Renée Fleming & Lang Lang's Fall NYC Picks

Renée Fleming and Lang Lang (among other artists/administrators) share their NYC Fall highlights with the WSJ, which makes us wish that we could be there this season.

American Comedy Legend does Italian Verismo: Carl Reiner's Pagliacci on Coco

Those historic, professional house debuts -- Juan Diego Flórez's 1996 Pesaro Matilde di Shabran; Bryn Terfel's 1989 Welsh National Opera Cosi fan Tutte; Renée Fleming's 1986 Salzburger Landestheater Die Entführung --but none were as cool as Carl Reiner's 2013 Pagliacci on Conan.

Last week, the 91-year-old comedian/producer/writer stopped by Conan and said that he had always wanted to be an opera singer, but never had the chance.

Carl Reiner: When I was a kid, my father had these red seal records, all of the great singers and I wanted to be an opera singer. I had a voice, when I got older, I had a good octave, a full octave range. I was missing two things to be an opera singer: pitch and timing. I never became one.

Embedding disabled, click here for the video. We're guessing that Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza were the golden voices behind Reiner's Leoncavallo imprints as he debuted an excerpt of 'Vesti la giubba' to a full house.

The only way it could have been better was if Reiner's BFF Mel Brooks joined in a duet. (If you happen to have missed the boys' appearance on Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, it's probably the most touching view of enduring male friendship since Pressburger/Powell Colonel Blimp.)

NYCO Kickstarter: Opera for the People, Campaign for the People

The post-Lincoln Center era for the New York City Opera hasn't been easy, and while it's not OC's style of raising funds, she's not judgmental about their latest fundraising experiment on Kickstarter, nor is she critical of the cash-flush high-rollers who've turned to crowd-funding (Zach Braff got $3 million, Veronica Mars got $5 million, etc.) Don't hate the player, hate the idiots who line their wallets.

So when NYC's volkstheater sent around a PR blast yesterday announcing its latest fundraising project -- a kickstarter campaign asking for a $1 million donation* from its adoring (and not-so-adoring) public -- we weighted means vs. ends.

The arts & culture funding landscape has drastically changed over the past decade and we support NYCO's fearless dive into the murky, crowd-funding waters, which could very well become part of future fundraising strategies for opera/symphony organizations. Only time will tell. But unless we've missed something in print or post, NYCO's initiative was announced in a bare-bones email blast with anemic, folded-in Steel quotes -- no heartfelt, personally-penned appeal letter that could have been splashed across a full-page NY Times ad (estimated at $55k - $100k [5.5% to 10% of the final $1 million goal], a fraction of the salaries amassed by Steel & Co. or of its advertising campaign budget like the NYC MTA package). New etiquette for a new fundraising model? We wouldn't be offended if you called us old fashioned.

Still, even for NYCO detractors, in a world where Kickstarter can help raise $1 million to fund a sweatshirt (a sweatshirt!?), its a compelling reason to help them match their goal.

*NYCO needs $20 million total by the end of the year: $7 million by the end of September to ensure the 2013-14 season of four operas and $13 million by the end of the year to ensure future seasons.

Opera Chic & Sinfini Music: Ott Sisters Besties (with all of the Perks)

(Credit: Oliver Killig)

Take a good look. Catch Halley's Comet by the tail because you never know when she's coming back around (ok: astronomers). These Japanese-German pianist sisters are rarely together, so when we caught them at Jan Vogler's family-style chamber music festival in Moritzburg in late August, we had to get the scoop for Sinfini Music on their sisterly bond (which, like all of the best sisters, includes swapping wardrobes and hand-me-downs).

We were there when, halfway through the two week festival, twenty-five-year old Alice Sara slayed Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps with twenty-two-year old Mona Asuka on page-turning duty. Read about what went down at the opulent Monströsensaal at Schloss Moritzburg, how the girls manage to stay so close and the best perks of being sisters -- double wardrobes included.

What Does Ballet Smell Like? Penhaligon's Thinks it Nose

Wait -- don't answer that. The kids from the English National Ballet have (thankfully) answered for you.

Penhaligon's, the 19th century English perfume house whose classic Hammam Bouquet makes us think of rosin-warmed strings and marble Turkish baths, readies for the launch its newest scent, Iris Prima, created by Spanish nose Alberto Morillas in collaboration with the English National Ballet.

The Royal Opera House's own scent can't be too far off now.

We'll Drink to That: La Scala Ballet's Newest Sponsor, Vitasnella Water

Water brand Acqua Vitasnella, owned by Ferrarelle SpA, has announced its official sponsorship with Teatro alla Scala's ballet company in a press conference today.

The partnership kicks off with a DIY video contest 'In forma con eleganza' (loosely translated to Keeping Fit with Elegance/In Shape with Elegance. Choose one, we're not picky.

Your mission is to create a short video, scored to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, that shows how mortals, unblessed with ballerina DNA, stay fit. Although not stated in the rules, perhaps a strategically-placed VitaSnella water bottle will seal you into the final round.

The deadline is on an unmercifully-soon September 27, with more details on the Facebook pages for Acqua Vitasnella and Teatro alla Scala. Winners spend an entire day running around La Scala's backstage labyrinths with the ballerinas -- and we're guessing all the Vitasnella they can drink.

Dame Kiri on Downton: First Look

 Within the fourth season trailer of Julian Fellowes' cult British period drama, Downton Abbey, comes a 2-second snip of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa as Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba (grabbed as screenshots).

The Kiwi soprano joins the grand dames of Downton in the role of Melba, who's been invited by the Earl of Grantham for a private party performance, which kicks off on episode one, airing in the UK on September 22 and in America on January 5, 2014.