Opera Chic

There's a Puccini Glitch in The Matrix

Kia's out for an elitist-luxury rebrand via its K900 model with a big budget commercial/Turandot remix to run during this weekend's NFL Super Bowl XLVIII.

In the 1.33 minute spot, Larry Fishburne reprises his role as Morpheus from The Matrix, rebooted as a car salesman/tenor. He belts Puccini's chestnut 'Nessun Dorma' aria in the backseat of a car, melting spoons (a Matrix reference) and exploding lights. A+ for everyone strapped into seatbelts, but it needs more sad Keanu.

Filarmonica della Scala's Final Abbado Farewell to Thousands

About two hours ago in Piazza della Scala, the small courtyard that bridges Teatro alla Scala with Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in downtown Milan, eight thousand penitent (including OC) gathered to bear witness to Claudio Abbado's brilliant legacy -- an elegant, humble gentleman who shaped with great care forthcoming generations of mini-maestri.

Lissner, Pereira and Milan's mayor Pisapia held down the theater's facade while Riccardo Chailly humbly bowed his head among the adoring hoi polloi (and many Scala employees) fringed by via Filodrammatici. The concert was streamed live on Corriere della Sera's and the Comune di Milano's websites. OC captured four minutes for the curious, clip above, photos from Corriere below.

It was a very dignified send-off for a beloved maestro.

Filarmonica della Scala's Final Abbado Farewell to Thousands

About two hours ago in Piazza della Scala, the small courtyard that bridges Teatro alla Scala with Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in downtown Milan, eight thousand penitent (including OC) gathered to bear witness to Claudio Abbado's brilliant legacy -- an elegant, humble gentleman who shaped with great care forthcoming generations of mini-maestri.

Lissner, Pereira and Milan's mayor Pisapia held down the theater's facade while Riccardo Chailly humbly bowed his head among the adoring hoi polloi (and many Scala employees) fringed by via Filodrammatici. The concert was streamed live on Corriere della Sera's and the Comune di Milano's websites. OC captured four minutes for the curious, clip above, photos from Corriere below.

It was a very dignified send-off for a beloved maestro.

Grammy Fashion Hits all the Right Notes

In bespoke Giorgio Armani, Lang(x2) peacocked the red carpet earlier tonight in Los Angeles at the 56th Grammy Awards. Later, he'll team-up with the heavy metal rockers who proudly killed Napster in a piano accompaniment to 'One', a +7 minute track from their 1988 CD '...And Justice for All.'

Here's the Langer doing his thanger:

Katy Perry wore Valentino Spring 2014 Couture collection that showed last week in Paris, stamped with Verdi's La Traviata.

At Valentino in Paris, on beauty, the Pat McGath/Guido Palau hair-maquillage dream team gave models a low-hung, center-part worthy of a diva. 'Operatic' said Palau to WWD, but we spy a Maria Callas Traviata throwback.

(backstage photos courtesy of Delphine Achard)

HBIC

Winter Recapitulation

Back like Moriarity, byotches. Winterreise passed with close-flung travel, like in Venice, where we danced by moonlight on a superyacht (FYI Onassis' Christina O had barstools covered in 'an ultrasoft pelt, made from the foreskin of minke whales'), skied glaciers in Kitzbühel and nipped four-course champagne breakfasts in Cortina.

Our menswear appetite was sated on Men's Fashion Week Milan runways, which played to Made in Italy strengths (and Pina Bausch as muse to Miuccia Prada) -- lustrous textiles, meticulous craftsmanship and tailoring savoire-faire -- like we wrote about in a recent cover story feature on Gildo Zegna for Swiss Style magazine. For backstory, we wrote about the recent Milan Fashion Week rehaul here.

We checked out the Museo del Risorgimento exhibition 'Verdi Architetto', photographs by conductor Francesco Maria Colombo of Verdi's old haunts (below) -- Villa Verdi Sant’Agata, Villanova sull’Arda and his tomb at la Casa di Riposo per Musicisti on display through March.

Palazzo Morando hosted 'VENI VIDI VERDI. La donna è mobile', a (sophomoric -- sorry!) play on Verdi's Rigoletto aria through installations and *meh* mash-ups, Verdi prints layered over the museum's permanent collections (below).

We slid into nostalgia with the la Fenice Concerto di Capodanno -- Carmen Giannattasio and Lawrence Brownlee dueling Verdi medley, the former peacocking three, lush wardrobe changes merit to Italian fashion designer Antonio Rivas, complete with matching fascinators (Hershey's Kisses version below).

The Wiener Philharmoniker New Year's Concert set couture against custom, ballerinas in Vivienne Westwood. At the traditional Radtzky March, spirited Barenboim snatched brass from one of the Wieners.

Back in Milan, we sipped Callas Crustas at the Grand Hotel et de Milan -- brandy, cointreau, maraschino, lemon and bitters.

We found a twee mini-lego violin at Milan's +century old music store, Mitarotonda.

We lolled at Justin Bieber's new tat:

And we fell in love again with the interwebz for sweet dreams made like these:

In Cinque Terre between mountain hikes, we regretted not buying this Turandot DVD performed by the Levanto young'uns academy, as advertised at a local bar.

 And not eating in this restaurant...

Or buying this hotplate with Claudio Abbado from the Teatro alla Scala shop:

January sweeps on...

Mourning the Maestro: Abbado's Passing in Milan

The Italian/EU flags have been lowered at Teatro alla Scala's austere facade today in remembrance of Claudio Abbado, the Milanese maestro who passed away in Bologna yesterday morning at 80-years-old. Italy's newspapers have cleared front page property to detail the heartbreaking news, along with multi-page features and editorials bearing witness to Italy's beloved and cherished maestro.

From his four children and a longtime friend-of-the-cloth: "He's departed for the mysterious voyage but he'll remain with us always."

The last couple months, following cancellations, he had been resting at his Bologna home, surrounded by his family and friends. His family decided against a public funeral and his ashes will most likely be scattered in the garden of his adored seaside home in Alghero. In Bologna, until tomorrow at noon, mourners have been gathering at his Bologna church, Basilica di Santo Stefano, including musicians from his Orchestra Mozart.

Milan honors Abbado with a concert of the Funeral March from Beethoven's Eroica with Barenboim and the Filarmonica della Scala on Monday at 6pm. The auditorium will be kept empty with doors open to the streets -- a message that would have been supported by Abbado, who was always on the public's side and carried a deep sense of social responsibility. It's a La Scala tradition as well, reserved for ex-musical directors, as Abbado served from 1968-1996. The last time was in 2005 for the passing of Carlo Maria Giulini.

Through elegance, wisdom and temperance, Abbado impressed emerging generations of talented conductors. Remembrance pours forth from colleagues and friends such as Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Antonio Pappano and Riccardo Muti (we'll get to that in a bit).

Some sweet Abbado anecdotes are from Correrie della Sera:

At ten-years-old, while WWII brought on a resurgence of "Viva Verdi" patriotism, Abbado was crazy for Bartok and was caught writing "Viva Bartok" with chalk on his house in Via Fogazzaro, which began an inquest by the Nazis who read the graffiti as a partisan message.

During the war, Abbado's mother adopted the son of Jewish friends who were hiding-out in Switzerland, under the guise of a long-lost 'cousin'. He was eventually caught but saved by an Italian SS who was trained by Claudio's Sicilian grandfather.

Abbado, who held Furtwaengler in the highest esteem, treasured his Berlin years as von Karajan's successor. With the Berliner, he was regarded as a 'father figure'. Because of his taciturn, sage-like calm and his deep spirituality, many colleagues turned to him with personal problems and advice -- 'the psychologist' they called him.

Growing up with impressions of Furtwaenger was a dream. The most moving moment in those years was when Furtwaengler's widow Elisabeth had attended a Lucerne concert, and in anticipation of an upcoming Geneva concert, she wrote Abbado a letter. "As the successor of my husband, I invite you to live in my house." To see himself addressed as "the successor of Furtwaengler" written by Elisabeth was a proud moment.
 
Young Abbado played with a chamber orchestra founded by his violinist father. His parents went often to Toscanini's house in Milan (on via Durini) because his father's teacher was Enrico Polo, an in-law of Toscanini and the pupil of Brahms' most loyal friend, Joachim. One night, Claudio played at Toscanini's house, conducting from the piano while playing a Bach concerto. Afterwards, Toscanini wrote him a note, "You will be very successful.".

Abbado would go to Scala to catch Toscanini rehearsals: "I remember rehearsals were really tough and he treated the orchestra terribly. 'Dogs' was the reoccurring phrase that he used often. Toscanini had a really strong personality, he knew how to discipline an orchestra. But already I had more appreciation for Furthwaenger, who gave deeper significance to every note, and knew how to elicit a more democratic participation."

In addition to recounting Abbado's greatest anecdotes, no one's forgotten about the circus of Abbado's first bid for a Milano-Scala comeback in 2010 after his last appearance with the Vienna Phil in 1986. In exchange for the two 2010 summer dates, he asked Milan's then-current mayor, Letizia Moratti, for approval to plant 90k trees around the city as a gift of green sustainability backed by the seasoned blueprints of Renzo Piano, a longtime friend. It was totally shot down. The two dates were cancelled but Abbado eventually made his comeback concert in October 2012 with Chopin and Mahler. Grey Milan still has its green pockets but there's no living memorial to Abbado.

Claudio Abbado, 1933 - 2014

Claudio Abbado has passed away this morning in Bologna at 81-years-old. Uttterly elegant and exuberant on the podium, he recalled his first moment hearing live opera as, "the discovery of new magic".

The Milanese maestro, a man of deep humanity and artistry, leaves a legacy that rivals heavyweights Furtwaengler, Karajan and Kleiber. We'll be forever charmed by his immense Beethoven, Berg and Mozart, his eternal Verdi Boccanegra and his spellbinding Mahler symphonies -- especially the Ninth, below, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Sustainability and solidarity. Abbado, who beat stomach cancer in 2000, was a gentle-mannered maestro who supported numerous outreach programs but never used the podium as a soapbox. He fostered young musicians in Cuba and Venezuela, and had an intuition for tappingg young talent, like Daniel Harding and Gustavo Dudamel. He treated his musicians with deep respect and founded numerous youth orchestras to train young musicians, such as the Bologna-based Orchestra Mozart in 2004 and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in 1997.

Before social responsibility was a marketing tool, he carved deeply into environmental advocacy. In 2010, in anticipation of a La Scala concert after a 16-year-absence (he was fired by the orchestra in 1986 and prior to 2010, his last performance at Scala was in 1993 with the Berliner Philharmoniker), he squared-off with Milan over a tree-planting proposal in lieu of a paycheck. With architect Renzo Piano, he sought to seed 90,000 trees across Milan, which was pitifully shot down by then-mayor, Letizia Moratti.

He led a music directorship at La Scala from 1968 to 1986 and founded the Filarmonica della Scala in 1982, then led the Wiener Staatsoper from 1986 to 1991. He also served high ranks at the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Philharmoniker.

Post-Karajan wth the Berliner Philharmoniker, Abbado's open framework and selflessness redefined the conception of modern maestro. 

His death follows recent 2013 cancellations, which included an October Japan tour with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and November concerts with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Mozart. Last year he was granted Senator for Life by the President of the Italian Republic for his significant contributions to classical music.

In the twilight of the most elegant maestri -- one shade from Von Bulow and Kleiber and de Sabata -- may Abbado's best lessons endure for the young lions roaring around the hallowed concert halls.

We can only hope that Abbado finds peace in 'the silence that follows the music'.

Here's a a great two-hour documentary on Abbado, in Italian.