Opera Chic

Great Puccini's Ghost! Party Party Like It's Your 150th Birthday!

December 22, 1858: Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini arrives on this planet.

And opera has never been the same, not just because he could do verismo (Il Tabarro), comedy (Gianni Schicchi), tragedy (Butterfly, Manon Lescaut), western (La Fanciulla del West), and he conceived what is arguably the most successful and influential opera ever staged (La Bohème). Not just because he created some of the most famous tunes the world has ever heard, period (O mio babbino caro, Nessun dorma). Not just because his genius for orchestration has very few peers in the history of classical music. Not even because, as Riccardo Chailly -- a splendid Puccini conductor -- is fond to say, when you analyze Puccini's drafts for the Turandot ending he didn't have enough time to finish, you can see sequences of ten notes that, Chailly says, indicate Puccini was getting close to inventing the twelve-tone model.

No, the reason today is a big day for all those who love opera is that, even if you don't like Puccini and you're just sick of going to see just another Bohème (OC shares that feeling), just remember that if your local opera house -- government subsidized or not .. is still standing there, well, it's probably thanks to that cigar-chomping womanizing hunter from Lucca who was born 150 years ago today.

Oh, and Madame Kabaivanska says happy birthday, too.

It's That Time Again! One Year Older, Opera Chic Enters Her Terrible Twos...

♥ Exactly 2 years ago?
♥ Exactly 1 year ago?

Opera Chic blog today turns two years old (and almost two thousand posts old).

So nice I did it twice!

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July 4

Parade - Hoboken, New Jersey, 1955, Robert Frank

Land Sakes Alive, Juan Diego Flórez Turns 35

Don't worry baybee, we didn't forget about u...Last year we extended our happiest birthday wishes to Juan Diego Flórez, and this year we can't break the chain. Señor Flórez turns 35 today, el 13 de enero, and we'll make sure to wish him belated birthday cheer in person, when we see him two weeks from now at his La Scala recital (he's also touching Kansas City in the JDF Infinito World Tour). Tanti auguri di buon compleanno! Yee-haw!

Triple Birthday Treat

What do Daniel Harding, Alma Mahler and Amilcare Ponchielli have in common? (besides the fact that Alma, may the Lord bless her skanky heart, would have soooo organized a threesome with them)

It's their birthday!

Today the young conductor (and Manchester United striker) turns 32; Alma, 128; good old Amilcare is today a massive 173 years old (but his music is still so amazing).

Buon Compleanno a tutti!

Happy Birthday Shirley Verrett!!!

Today Opera Chic celebrates the birthday of Professor Shirley Verrett: tanti auguri di buon compleanno to the statuesque Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres & Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (how sad that the French have given her more recognition than her own country did, by the way). So, let's all start carving that big rock at Mount Rushmore and add her beautiful visage to that company of surly old d00ds, ok?

As Professor Verrettt's own University of Michigan page says, Verrett "has performed and recorded as soloist with conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Colin Davis, Carlo Maria Guilini, Bernard Haitink, Herbert von Karajan, Josef Krips, Rafael Kubelik, Erich Leinsdorf, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy, Seiji Ozawa, Georges Pretre, Thomas Schippers, Georg Solti, and Leopold Stokowski".

Opera Chic's not wearing her Yankee cap now, but she ideally tips her hat at that awesome list -- what a career, signora Shirley!

Happy Birthday Rolando Villazon.

Brindiamo!!!

Juan Diego Florez's triumph at La Scala did not make us forget our other boyfriend (sorry guys!), the universe's sexiest unibrow, the deliciousness that is Rolando Villazon.

We quote here the perfect comment from one of Opera Chic's dearest, Donna Anna:

FELICES CUMPLEANOS A ROLANDO!!! MAS ANOS DE CANCION, SONRISAS Y EXITO!!!!!

Buon San Valentino!

And, fittingly:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RENEE!!!111

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Obligatory shoutout to opera's secksiest couple, Dessì+Armiliato

יום הולדת שמח Happy 70, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra!

...Bernstein disappeared from view in the middle of a concert. "He jumped up into the air to punctuate a particularly forceful part of a symphony," says Mishori, "but he then vanished. He'd fallen off the podium. Two of the musicians helped him regain his feet and the rest of us carried on regardless.

Priceless.

A big fat huge warm HAPPY 70th to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, now engaged in a tour of the US! You all make Opera Chic's very proud.

It's OC's duty to remember the brave maestro who conducted the first-ever performance of the IPO, in the terrible year of 1936: Arturo Toscanini.

And in closing, let's hear it from two of Opera Chic's favorite maestri and humanitarians:

"For two and a half hours every evening, we have peace." -- Zubin Mehta

"...in an orchestra you learn to hear one another." -- Daniel Barenboim

יום הולדת שמח

(OK, the serious post is over: Opera Chic will now return to her usual pointless ways.)

Happy Birthday Philip Glass

Opera Chic joins Alex Ross's Lunar Park in a big, minimalist (?) Happy Happy Birthday to Maestro Philip Glass, who turns 70 today. A nice golden Oscar would be  a perfectly fine, if late-coming, gift from the Hollywood community.

^^^update^^^

Ciao e grazie to ionarts!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Wilhelm Furtwängler!

Today would have been the 121st birthday of Wilhelm Furtwängler (if he had been born a superman or robot that lived forever). The German conductor, born January 25, 1886, was memorable for his spastic puppet-like idiosyncrasies on the podium, but even more memorable for his sublime symphony recordings along with a rare smattering of opera.

Favorite Furtwängler recordings in the Opera Chic household? The 1954 Vienna Don Giovanni with Schwarzkopf, and all of his Beethoven Ninth recordings, especially his ethereal Ninth of the Philharmonia Lucerne Festival recording from August 22, 1954.

Fun fact: In some circles of Milanese music critics, Furtwängler (in the party hat) affectionately goes by the sobriquet "Foofie".

Merci, Henri

The dear Jessica Duchen and I and, we hope, many other music lovers, are still hungover after the big Chausson birthday parties we threw last night. And the music of chance is sometimes so funny that today, just one day later, we celebrate the birthday of the great, half-forgotten giant to whom Maestro Chausson dedicated his Poème de l'amour et de la mer: Joyeux Anniversaire to Monsieur Henri Duparc.

No funny hat, for once, because Opera Chic thinks that the late maestro's life has been too unhappy already and he doesn't really need the indignity. He just needs our thanks, once again.

Joyeux Anniversaire, Maestro Chausson

This is a day of great joy Chez Opéra Chic: at OC headquarters the party is on. The Krug's flowing to celebrate the birthday of a great maestro -- and the author of one of Opera Chic's favorite pieces, the Poème de l'Amour et de la Mer: so give it up for Ernest Chausson. Send a shoutout to Maestro Barbirolli and la divina Ferrier, because it's right. And then party like it's (Jan 20) 1855.

^^^^^UPDATE^^^^^

I forgot to add that the excellent Chausson essay in the Andante link above is written by the mighty Jessica Duchen, novelist/journalist/critic/operalover/catlover, always present in Opera Chic's blogroll, in her FireFox's History, and in her thoughts.

auguri di buon compleanno a Juan Diego Flórez

Tanti auguri to Juan Diego Flórez as he celebrates his 34th birthday! Born on January 13, 1973, you can leave your birthday wishes for the tenor in his entertaining Decca guestbook. My birthday hat is off to you Flórez...okay, now it's back on.

My favorite plagiarist turns 80

Joyeux Anniversaire pour Maurice Béjart, born January 1, 1927; founder and director of like, a million ballet companies.

w00t! Q celebrates <3 <3!

Tanti Auguri to Thomas Quasthoff, who turns 47 today!

I present to you a lovely synopsis of Mr. Q from the excellent NY Times Magazine article on Quasthoff, “A Transcendent Voice”. Btw, if the NY Times claimes this story as an unfortunate casualty of their archives in the next few days, this week only (from November 6-12, 2006) is, “Free Access Week,” and you can test-drive their TimesSelect premium $$$ package for free, and catch-up on all the tawdry NYC tales since 1851.

(Oh yeah, it’s also Bryn Terfel’s birthday today, too, but I have a message for him: Bryn, put down that damn piece of cake! It’s going to go straight to your hips!) :(((

(btw, am I the only one who thinks Bryn Terfel and Mario Batali were separated at birth?)