Deborah Voigt has seen the future:
And, BING! the proverbial lightbulb a$$ploded over the heads of a hundred impresarios: Nicole Cabell as Norma, Danielle de Niese as Brunnhilde, Angela Alagna as Isolde.
Just get a decent sound system in those old opera houses, add some reverb, maybe opt for a little tracheostomy to get that little mike in the ideal position, and you're in business.
We've got exclusive photos st8 from London's Royal Opera House showing la Deborah Voigt rawking that little black dress for Christof Loy's production of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos.
As this post goes up, la Voigt is simultaneously strutting her stuff around the Covent Garden stage in that black dress for tonight's anticipated premiere.
Ummmm, w8 a sec...is *that* "the dress"? It's like from a Saks off-the-rack sale. Let's at least hope they sent it to the dry cleaners in the 4-year absence.
Voigt, 47, insists that the Ariadne incident made little difference.
Jessica Duchen profiles the "Svelter Belter" for the Independent.
Suddendly.
Eventually.
All together now:
Tell me this feeling lasts till foreveeeeeeeeer
Tell me the bad times are clean washed awayyyyyyyy
(with excuses to Messrs. Menken and Ashman)
omg the drama llama pewped all over the Metropolitan Opera stage last night at the performance of Tristan und Isolde, as soprano Deborah Voigt as Isolde was forced from the stage mid act from a sudden bout of nausea. A$$Press reports and La Cieca was there, and NYTimes is all over it.
It's cooties galore @ the shatteringly bright Dieter Dorn production, which has been problematic from the inception, with tenor Ben Heppner earlier bowing-out of the first four performances (citing a hardy virus), replaced first by John Mac Master and then last night's Gary Lehman.
At around 9:30 pm last night, Voigt was reported to have fled offstage, leaving Levine and the orchestra in the lurch. Voigt's cover was OC aficionada, big-voiced Strauss and Berg and Wagner girl and all-out milf (I mean, check out those bikini pix) Janice Baird -- Queen Janice was thankfully was on hand, as Voigt had confided in Gelb earlier that day of stomach issues. Baird donned Voigt's costume and finished the five-hour opera without incident. Baird in Voigt's costume? In 48 hours, she'll be down on the bathroom floor! It's like having intimate relations with every singer that ever wore it! Ewwww!
*
We wish Voigt a speedy recovery and congratulate Baird for rushing to the rescue.
* (Mrs. Baird photo via www.janicebaird.com)
Christine Brewer is not only a talented singer, a tolerant woman (she didn't kill the criminally insane costume designer of this most unfortunate production, and who wouldn't have, seriously) but she can also be basically omnipresent: first she replaced Opera Chic's beloved Renèe Fleming (@ the gala of the first Festival del Sole in the Napa Valley), Deborah Voigt (Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with our Jimbo Levine and the BSO) and now she's going to sub for Karita Mattila, again with Levine and the BSO, in Fidelio.
We were seriously thinking to hire an intern to sub for us during the Easter holidays (Opera Chic is going to Cortina d'Ampezzo and you're not), but we're thinking of calling La Brewer instead.
“I think a lot about air. Singing in opera you look for safety, something to hang onto. Some singers try to hold onto notes, but you need to let the air swell and release, swell and release the way it does in a bellows, so that the tone can swell that way too.”
Our Debbie Voigt talks about her forthcoming Ägyptische Helena (“Helen of Egypt”, premieres Friday at the Met), Richard Strauss rarely-staged (the last time at the Met, only 79 years ago) opera. The New York Times page holds some .mp3s, too.
It's a shame that Strauss' Helena doesn't seem to get teh love from opera houses and conductors, because it's so clearly a masterpiece that it isn't even funnay -- only Guntram is more forgotten, among Strauss' works. That funny Clemens Krauss even reported that Strauss himself cosidered his Helena kinda a$$y, but the reasons for its lack of success in recent years, Opera Chic is afraid, lies in the very complicated nature of the orchestration -- and the totally unforgiving vocal parts.
It's a deceptively simple -- and shockingly modern -- work. OC is very happy that Voigt is attacking -- just another Debbie's revenge against those st00pid fatty-h8rs. Yay for Voigt!
