Opera Chic

The Duke of Mantua Gets His Filth On: Screenshots from Dresden Rigoletto

If you've ever fantasized about a mulleted Juan Diego Flórez fondling (fondueing) the bewbs of a topless young lady who happens to be naked aside from black spandex bottoms and a giant eagle head, you've come to the right place. Thanks to the 8-bottles-of-Robotussin-induced direction for the Staatsoper Dresden's Rigoletto, Nikolaus Lehnhoff begins Verdi's timeless masterpiece with a Hieronymus Bosch bang, which by Scene II, dies back down to a barely audible LeRoy Neiman fizz.

~*OC*~ made two flickr sets of plasma screen shots from the ARTE "live" broadcast of the June 21, 2008 Rigoletto at Staatsoper Dresden to satisfy all your Flórez needs.

 

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Go here for the Safe For Work set of 50ish images from the opera.

Go here for the Not Safe For Work set...JDF cupping Act I bewbs.

Too Much Love Will Kill You: Diana Damrau Shows You How It's Done

Ignore that silly baby blue house of dolls the director has trapped her in; nevermind those zany ninjas waiting to kidnap her. Just listen to her phrasing, witness her colors come alive. And watch her fall asleep, safe in the arms in love. To steal the show from the greatest tenore di grazia of this age on the night of his first big Duke of Mantua, you need a voice like this, and this kind of dramatic truth. Opera Chic is awed by the brilliance of Diana Damrau's star, even in that darkest night of Regietheater.

The Duke Of Mantua Is A Chubby Chaser: JDF in Dresden, "Bella Figlia Dell'Amore"

**** La Donna E' Mobile, Hells Yeah:

Live Aus Dresden: Juan Diego Florez's Duke Of Mantua, Finally -- On Arte TV

Just a teaser because it's late; and until tomorrow, enjoy the photos and just a few words -- tonight at 7PM Juan Diego Florez debuted in Europe his Duke of Mantua, his first big Verdi role (unitl now he had steered clear of all Verdi except for his delicious Fenton) that he had introduced to the world in Peru two months ago.

At 9PM -- just the time to crudely edit out all intermissions and the big ovations after the big arias -- Arte Tv has broadcast the entire show via satellite. Here are some images from the insanely bad production -- whose director thought a good idea to burden JDF with a terrifying mullet, a tragic ponytail in Act II, 1970s dinner jackets, leather trench coats, leather vests (revealing not-so-toned upper arms -- el mejor tenor del mundo needs to hit the gym a bit because, for once, we'd like our opera legends of today and tomorrow and of the day after tomorrow to be ripped, if at all possible) -- the Duke of Mantua in the Dresden production was in fact the Duke of Star Trek, presiding over a court of devils, lizards, crows, space aliens with grey metallic skin, topless girls with giant pigeon heads.

How was his Duke, ignoring the visual horror of the production? Juan Diego created a nervous, capricious monster of egotism with a hidden romantic, sweet streak -- whose lighter tenor voice cannot obviously match the greatest, thuggish Dukes of the past, but whose beautiful phrasing, warmth and clarity -- oh the sheer beauty of Florez's voice -- can make us understand not the Duke, but Gilda better.

Because it makes us understand how is it even possible to die for his lies -- even his "dear name", of course, is as phony as everything else about him. The fact that Gilda was Diana Damrau -- not simply the queen of the night but one of the very few queens of nowadays opera, really at the top of the game -- only made the night more special. And it was difficult not to swoon for the Staatskapelle's sound, thanks to Fabio Luisi's intelligent reading of the score -- a dark, burnished hearbeat pulsing through the night, with a wonderful transparency of sound, rich of German depth and Italianate warmth.

Of course, with a different, saner director in Niki Lehnhoff's place and Leo Nucci as Rigoletto we'd be able to call tonight's Rigoletto "the Dresden Rigoletto" the same way we say, fer example, "the Lisbon Traviata". But since the only true giant of this impossible role, il maestro Leo Nucci, wasn't part of the cast, we can only say that, yes, Zeljko Lucic's Rigoletto was vocally correct, if dramatically inert. Much more, of course, tomorrow.

There Is Too Much Fabulousness in Here: A Peelk Into Natalie Dessay's Life

Save it: "Peelk" is a typo of mashed keys, but it's so super kewl, so sit on it!  Suck it dot com. Sometime in the not so distant past, one of the artsy-fartsy channels aired a short French documentary, "Une Rencontre avec Natalie Dessay", on our favorite petite opera diva, Natalie Dessay. We say the documentary was short...not because the five-footish singer is so pocket-sized, but because one hour of Dessay fabulousness is just not enuff!!11! Just when you're finishing your second glass of Brunello di Montalcino, she rips it from your hand, throws you your Brioni cape, calls you a taxi, and slams the front door in your face. That Dessay is shameless!!

The documentary followed la Dessay through a handful of performances, from an d'Aix-en-Provence recital to her 2004 Santa Fe debut in la Sonnambula. She spoke about her inflamed nodes, her kids, her religion, and all the rewards and sacrifices of being an ^*artist*^. Below we ripped the screencaps so you, too, can bathe in the glory of Dessay.

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(^^^^above: omg so fierce!)

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(^^^^above: a close-up of her make-up artist's secksay Magen David)

(^^^^above: her cute little mousie kids!)

(above: looking very J-Lo circa 1996 in L.A. Lakers t-shirt and silver hoops)

*~* (above and below is her adorable little daughter)

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omg, heweyll yaes!

Trittico Gets The Plasma Treatment

(above: Barabara Frittoli in Suor Angelica on top of Ronconi's scary dead Madonna from Scala's Il Trittico)

Classica broadcast via satellite a live transmission from the Thursday night performance at La Scala of Puccini's Il Trittico. OC endured it once again so she could bring you legal shots of the performance via her Canon camera and Samsung plasma. Chailly's conducting remained heavenly even through the canning and compression of live sound to media, although Team Ronconi's odd set designs appeared much darker on screen. The key singers, of course, were much more emotive, with Suor Angelica's Barbara Frittoli even admitting in a post-performance interview that the music moved her so much that she was crying just before one of her arias. suffering for art and all. 

The performance was hosted by Classica tv host Gianandrea Gavazzeni's son, he of oddly-composed facial hemispheres, who coolly interviewed both Barbara Frittoli and Leo Nucci (Nucci in full costume and makeup and fake nose, relaxed as a lamby only minutes before getting on stage for his Schicchi) in his II ordine palco between intermissions. There was also a small pre-recorded piece on both Maestro Chailly (who masterfully dissected the evolution of Puccini's style, more on this in a later post) and director Luca Ronconi.

Oddly enough, it was also the first out of the previous three performances where Mariana Lipovšek as Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica wasn't booed loudly at the curtain call. Ronconi didn't show up at curtain call. no boos? a weird coincidence, since the loggione had booed after every previous performance (they didn't like the staging). were they absent?  diplomatically silent? good faith? bad? hmmmmm.

Puccini's Trittico will be rebroadcast on Classica a few times next month: April 19 (9pm), 21 (8am), 23 (1:30pm), 27 (10:15am), and 29 (11am). Dayuuum.

OC made a niiiice leetel photo album of a few dozen screenshots, which you can enjoy here. Below are a few of the highlights.

(above: Juan Pons strangles Miroslav Dvorsky in the finale of Il Tabarro.)

(above: The nuns of Suor Angelica walk all over the giant plastic Madonna)

(above: Barbara Frittoli takes her curtain call with her immortalized son)

(above: Leo Nucci in Dante garb as Gianni Schicchi with a prosthetic nose)

(above: Vittorio Grigolo takes a curtain call for Gianni Schicchi: well-deserved applause)

La Dame aux Camélias @ La Scala Revisited

While Opera Chic was laying low last month, she took in a documentary on the making of the La Scala ballet production of John Neumeier’s La Dame aux Camélias from April, 2007. OC was lucky to be in the audience last Spring for one of the performances, documented here and here.

The documentary interviewed both stars Roberto Bolle and Alessandra Ferri, spoke with choreographyer John Neumeier, and showed clips from rehearsals. Below you can catch some plasmariffic screenshots of Alessandra Ferri’s Marguerite and Roberto Bolle’s Armand Duval.

 

Wagner: The TV Movie -- No One is Safe!

Although this one isn't in the imdb's top 50 music movies of all time [not officially categorized as a movie; rather a "TV Series"], it was greatly lauded in its day (a bit before OC's time...back in 1983), and clocks in at a tedious nine hours.

Tony Palmer’s "Wagner", written as a biographical landscape of the life and times of the self-titled nineteenth century composer, was recently resurrected from the broadcasting dead on Italy's Classica satellite channel ::vary nice:: The film epic was orchestrated with the “Greatest Hits” of Wagner’s career, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Sir Georg Solti.

The original nine-hour epic bio-pic has been edited and abridged by Tony Palmer into a more manageable four-hour version, but every bit still packed with cameo appearances from classic Hollywood stars. Richard Burton, in one of his last performances ev4r, nails his presentation as Richard Wagner, making him every bit egotistical and haughty as legend had it. Vanessa Redgrave plays Cosima, with Wagner-patron Ludwig II's advisers played by John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. Filmed in authentic locations around Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, the movie was awarded for its stunning and vivid production.

The whole production (or the brief hour that I was able to stomach) seemed a little too self-congratulatory, a wank-fest of German nationalism, with no true engagement of Wagner's rabid anti-Semitism, misogyny and general d0uchebaggery. What a kitschy, tragic mess. It’s ironic that a man who wrote such long-winded operas was treated justly to an interminable marathon of a motion picture. hay im the guy everyones ♥ ♥, im wanger, worrship meeeee!

Juan Diego Flórez Documentary Screenshots

Discussed in the post below, here are some screenshots from the Flórez documentary:

Below: Flórez singing.

Below: Flórez's father speaking of his son.

Below: Flórez and his father duet, with his father singing.

Below: Flórez's father singing when he was a young man.

Below: Flórez speaking about the piano bar he used to play at when a teen.

Below: Flórez and his mother.

Below: Flórez and his sister when they were teens.

A "new" Traviata for La Festa Della Donna

Today, in recognition of "La Festa della Donna", (the lamest of lame holidays in all of Italy) you will be able to get your itchy little opera-loving hands on a brand new collector's edition DVD boxset of the Zubin Mehta-conducted film La Traviata à Paris, directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, and starring Eteri Gvazava, José Cura, and Rolando Panerai.

This La Traviata was originally broadcast live (in four parts over the span of two days) on European television during the summer of 2000 (omg RUN its teh y2k millennium bug), where the singers and gigantic load of extras (numbered at 1,500) were dropped into actual locations around Paris (the opening scene takes place at L'Hôtel de Boisgelin) and the countryside. This new format allowed the opera unbridled, naturalistic expression and a 360-degree scope of acting/filming, but left many (Opera Chic included) with the distinct impression of perplexity. È strano, indeed.

This new boxset DVD comes with a book, and a 44-page libretto with special images from director-of-photagraphy Vittorio Storaro. Nicknamed "La Traviata del Terzo Millennio", it was also the winner of Four Emmy Awards and of the Prix Italia. Verdi's score is played by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

It runs a bit over three hours, with lots of extras, including promos (witness the sickest, palest Violetta ev4r), outtakes (um, yeah, were going to need u 2 cough harder), historical location guides (welcome to our humble cottage, now plz remove ur riding boots tnx), and an hour-long "Making Of", which apparently took seven years to prepare from the mind of producer Andrea Andermann.

<spoiler>Guys, I have the leaked copy: VIOLETTA DIES!</spoiler>

heh.

ok, but can I just ask what is going on during the final scene? omg, we have filthy pornography here! WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED??!

(I SWEAR ON THE GHOST OF COUNT CHOCOLA AND BOO BERRY THAT THIS ABOVE IS A SCREENCAP FROM THE LA TRAVIATA À PARIS!!)

O RLY? YES RLY: "The Magic Flute" Screencaps

As promised here, I've uploaded 64 (sixty-four) (SIXTY-FOUR) (six-four) screencaps from the English-language version of Mozart/Schkikaneder's Die Zauberflöte (English version, okay, whatevs...The Magic Flute) (with Julie Taymor's direction) at the NYC Metropolitan Opera House, part of PBS's "Great Performances at the MET" series.

Go here to find the new set on the Opera Chic flickr page. Enjoy!

Great Performances at the MET: Die Zauberflöte

Thanks to La Cieca's gentle reminder, this unashamed Opera Nerd stayed in last night and caught the condensed/bastardized version of Mozart/Schkikaneder's Die Zauberflöte at the MET, as part of PBS's "Great Performances at the MET" series. Opera Chic saw this live in NYC during it's inaugural run (albeit in the original German-language), and forgot what a delight it was...with Julie "Lion King" Taymor's direction of giant puppet-bears, floating feasts, skeletal birds, and a boom-box glockenspiel.

High def screenshots were taken (this time on the inferior panel of an LCD) of Nathan Gunn's hammy (but gorgeous) face, Morris Robinson's latex breasts, and Isabel Bayrakdarian's pancaked face. And Rene Pape. Thank you Toll [house cookie] Brothers!!

A few screenshots for now (and much more later), as Opera Chic has a full day of musical adventures awaiting, and therefore must jump!

Old but Good: Renée Fleming sings Strauss

Late last night the plasma and I were treated to a Renée Fleming concerto from October 2006 on Rai Tre. It was the Richard Strauss-heavy repertoire concerto from a few months ago at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, with Antonio Pappano conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Well conducted, well sung...and Renée was, of course, well frocked. She sang for the encore Strauss' Lieder Opus 27, No. 2 Cacilie, which I uploaded to YouTube (see below). Fellow bloggernaut "Of The Kosmos" was lucky to attend this live performance, and wrote all about the experience here.

i am teh highlander. there can only be one. Carlo Maria Giulini Still RulZ Milan

(If you are looking for the latest-breaking Teatro alla Scala news, go here  and here for the most recent thang: Robert Carsen's production of Lenny's Candide ousted from its future billing at Teatro alla Scala.)

My dear lovely readers, how I've missed you all! I shall nev4r abandon you again!

This Christmas holiday, Opera Chic found herself among gracious company in Cortina, Italy, high on the fresh and frigid Dolomite air, wrapped in the warmest of warm M. Bardelli cashmere, and practicing her (horribly rusty) German.

I hope that everyone's holiday wishes came true and you were all treated to a lovely end-of-the-year orgy of food and gifts. My Xmas gifts were pretty :coal: because I got a wii, an xbox 360 *and* a ps3. ha ha j/k.

One of my actual, IRL, for real gifts was the Fall CD release (from BBC Legends) of Giulini's London Philharmonic performances of Hindemith, Dvorak, and Beethoven. After just one listen, it was apparent that Giulini successfully washed each performance in that dark, creamy, emo sound that only he was capable of mastering. And while I enjoy Giulini's embrace of symphony, I am more about his opera, and his recordings get heavy rotation in the Opera Chic house. Favorites? Giulini's 1961 EMI Le Nozze di Figaro with Taddei, Moffo, Schwarzkopf, and Cappuccilli; his 1955 EMI Live La Traviata with Callas and Di Stefano; and his 1982 Deutsche Grammophon Live Falstaff with Bruson, Nucci, and Ricciarelli.

Giulini's presence remains palpable throughout Milan (especially nella zona where I live, which is coincidentally where Giulini himself lived for decades), and his reputation as an enormously talented and distinguished gentleman continues. After Giulini retired, he devoted his leisure time to instructing the young musicians of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, which is comprised of the student orchestra that hails from Conservatorio di Milano. He doted on them sweetly with rehearsals and master classes. His care towards nurturing the students was lauded and recognized.

One of the stories from the witnesses who were with Giulini during his later years is that during his very last rehearsal with the laVerdi Orchestra (before he passed away in the summer of 2005), he took more than twenty minutes to individually tune each players' instrument within the orchestra. Aside from watching Barenboim with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (I was at the September 1, 2006 concerto at La Scala, where Barenboim individually congratulated each and every player for close to fifteen minutes during the final applause), there is no other conductor that doted so lovingly and with such great patience on their orchestra.

Giulini perpetuates an honorable legacy throughout the music scene in Milan, where he has been duly sanctified; and if you have the occasion to go to Auditorium di Milano, you can find in the lobby, both his first violin (it's so tiny!), along with one of his treasured batons that he donated (and then came back to the foundation via auction) to the Auditorium. Here's an image of his baton from the lobby, which I took almost one year ago, while I was in attendance of the Capodanno concerto at Auditorium on Largo Gustav Mahler for the Blomstedt Beethoven's Ninth.

Giulini wrote: Ho sempre avuto un legame affettivo e scaramantico con le mie bacchette. Ne ho possedute poche, ma le ho custodite con grande cura ed attenzione. Questa è una di esse.

Ne faccio dono all’Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi con l’augurio di continuare l’importante lavoro di divulgazione musicale in questa Città e nel mondo.

C M Giulini, Marzo 2004

Translation: I have always had a link of love/affection towards my batons, as well as attributing to them the power of lucky charms. I have only had a small amount [of batons], but I have kept them each with great care and attention. This is one of those.

I give it to the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi with the wish that they continue the important work of spreading music in both this city and in the world.

C M Giulini, Marzo 2004

How kewl is that? Here is a picture of his violin, but the quality is pretty shady. But nevermind that...I will be returning to Auditorium this upcoming Capodanno concerto to hear Maestro Slatkin conduct Beethoven's Ninth, and will snap a better picture...

Anyway, before I left Milan for the holiday, I made a trek down to the Teatro alla Scala bookstore, and witnessed that lo spirito musicale of Giulini still thrives.

The La Scala bookstore contains two large albums, filled with 8x10 glossy press-shots of the musical geniuses that have graced the La Scala stage, that one can buy and frame. Between the portfolios, filled with popular artists, conductors, and ballet dancers, there remained only one photograph that had been sold out. That glossy was the capture of Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini. FINITA!

Another marvelous trinket this holiday season was a gift subscription to Classica satellite channel so during this long, grey, cold winter, I can watch awesome things on the plasma. Already, the channel is teh r0x0r.

But they've been looping Nikolaus Harnoncourt's conducting of Nozze di Figaro from earlier this year at the Salzburg Festival, and aside from Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Anna Netrebko, it's an embarrassing disaster. Tommasini panned it in a NY Times review, as did every music critic in Italy when it ran. And I can bear witness that it really does suck.

Before I embarked on the journey to the heart of the Dolomites, I caught the ending of a HD Renée Fleming holiday special, and she's all decked-out in festive gear. She was singing among a nativity scene, but I was too lazy to check the credits. Here's a screenshot:

Okay, luckily during my holiday, Alagna didn't show up in Milan playing his tiny little violin that weeps canzonette about his low blood pressure and conspiracy theories. I returned to Milan full of frico, crespelle, and stinky truffles. And a new pair of puma kicks to herald a newly-invoked (and much needed) schedule of exercise.

ALAGNA "DOMENICA IN" SCREENSHOTS

Update: a new Opera Chic flickr set of fifteen additional screen-shots have been added, including three-year-old Alanga holding a guitar.)

MY MOST FAVORITE TWO IMAGES VVVVVVV

F**K Shakespeare. help me find my bush baby

This past weekend in Milan, the weather continued to cover the city in a grey, rainy and cold pall, which found me inside, snuggled next to our lovely plasma.

During my fervent channel-flipping, I stumbled onto a few illuminating programs, including an interview with Franco Zeffirelli (a.k.a “frengo”) and a sweet documentary on Claudio Abbado.

First up was Rai Tre's "Che tempo che fa", with host Fabio Fazio, where he conducted an interview with Franco Zeffirelli, in order to draw hype for his new autobiography, which will be available from Mondadori later this week.

Fazio simply asked for reiteration of the previous anecdotes that Franco divulged in last Sunday’s Corriere della Sera article. Franco obliged, but this time with a bit more detail: For instance, do you remember the story about when Visconti sent Franco to Paris, and upon meeting Mademoiselle Coco Chanel, she gave to him twelve original, signed Matisse drawings? Well, Zeffirelli divulged to Fazio that he sold eight of the twelve, and the other four were stolen. um, okay, frengo...i believe you.

However, new to the anecdotes was a narration about Franco visiting Dublin with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for the filming of “The Taming of the Shrew", when pandemonium erupted, and Franco played the hero during a very tense, but comical standoff between the culprit of Liz Taylor’s penchant for exotic rodents and the incompetence of drunken husbands. The story, which involves Franco, Liz, Richard Burton, and Liz's mutinous bush baby escaping from its cage, can only be retold with the true authority of Mr. Zeffirelli himself. My favorite part?:

"Liz's maid had withdrawn with a scratched face, Richard was angrily trying to get everybody to shut up, and Liz could clearly think of nothing but the rescue of the poor little animal."

Zeffirelli retold the magnificent story with a sense of mischievous wonder and vibrancy, with his eyes sparkling in an affable manner. He was a true pleasure to watch during the interview, and at eighty-three, he still has loads of charisma and charm.

Next up was a lovely one-hour documentary on Rai Due with the Milan-born Maestro Claudio Abbado and his youthful brigade of Bologna's Orchestra Mozart. The documentary from 2006 shows interviews with the frail Abbado and his robust youth orchestra, and details the lasting impressions of Abbado that have been left with the young musicians. The documentary "Allegro con Spirito: Claudio Abbado e l’Orchestra Mozart" provided to be a nice reward for staying-in during a totally un-fab weekend. /not a loser.

(I made a photo album of a few select screen-shots, which you can find here.)