Opera Chic

Funding Cuts + A Slap From Riccardo Muti; La Scala's Bad Week

We're not sayin' there's a connection between these two events, mind you. We report.

1 - La Scala's legal counsel requires Opera Chic to change her logo and to remove a bunch of pictures taken inside the theatre from her blog. She bravely caves in.

A few days later,

2 - Milan's Mayor cuts the city's funding to La Scala; and Riccardo Muti, as a guest of the MiTo Festival (really cool roster: Ian Bostridge, Yuri Temirkanov,  Riccardo Chailly, Fabio Luisi, Gianandrea Noseda, Hèlène Grimaud, Kent Nagano, George Pehlivanian, Maxim Vengerov, Charles Dutoit and many others, full program in .pdf here) will conduct in nearby Turin the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in September but has refused to conduct at la Scala, letting it be known -- thru art critic and Culture Secretary of Milan's city govt Vittorio Sgarbi quoted in today's Repubblica, story not online -- that "he'll be back when Donna Elvira does not appear on la Scala's stage riding a moped" (last year's Don Giovanni, directed by Peter Mussbach, famously featured a scene where Donna Elvira joyrides on a vintage Lambretta moped: we'd show you the photo but then we'd hear from la Scala's lawyers again, no thx bi, we'll wait until Berlin's Staatsoper makes those images available to all bloggers, not only to the bloggers they like).   

Milan mayor Letizia Moratti explained that la Scala "receives 6.3 million euros a year and another 1 to 3 million euros from the central government in Rome". Some of those city funds will be instead given to other smaller theatres and orchestras. Not to la Scala. "We have 33 institutions that receive a total sum of 300,000 euros; Pomeriggi Musicali receives 250,000 euros, Orchestra Verdi 300,000. The lack of balance is self evident".

What does it mean?

It means: All that government cash? Some of it ain't coming next year!

Since the possibility of downsizing the already-bloated personnel of la Scala (four times as large as the Metropolitan Opera's, according to Italian newspaper Il Foglio) is not going to happen (ditto for the upper echelon of the opera house reducing their own salaries), OC fears that the already expensive Scala tickets will. Just. Cost. More.

vvvvvvv HUGE ARTICLE UPDATE vvvvvvvv

Here's the round-up from the Italian news:

Il Giornale Below:

Il Giornale Below:

Corierre della Sera Below:

La Repubblica Below:

OMGDZ0RD TEH OPERA HAX0RZ

So you’re a sweet, innocent youth opera company that pines away the seasons by singing Carmen and Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the senior citizens, raising money for local charities, making your parents proud, and hoping that one day, someone will notice your struggling, modest productions.

The Central Pennsylvania Youth Orchestra finally got the attention they were looking for, but for all the wrong reasons. A radical Turkish group as of yesterday hax0rd the youth opera’s website, dropping a manifesto screed on their home page. The CPYO (dead link here: www.cpyo.com, but with a redirect) went under attack (for apparently arbitrary reasons – the group doesn’t really have a beef with dead European composers) by script kiddies MDX, a Turkish Islamic extremist group vying for the Islamification of Turkey. The CPYO website is now hosting a generic page as they struggle to find more secure hosting.

Thanks to google image cache (we ♥ u google cache), you can see what their website looks like normally here, and the hax0rd version here. Nothing too exciting, but hey, it's a slow news day.

-->pwz0rd by @p3r4 Ch1x0r

Like a Rock Star (Without the Drugs or Shooting Myself in the Head)

While we're reminiscing on the late 80s with the Bobby McFerrin La Scala invasion (well, really the 90s), Opera Chic wants to flaunt the latest idea she had to honor of Piermarini.

(click for bigger...or don't -- if you're easily offended by tattoos or lol butts lol or butt tattoos.)

i'm gonna put a little ink on my skin 2 remind myself why i ♥ la scala.

Devia's Masterclass @ La Scala: Angela Gets Pwnd From 400 Miles Away

 

Tonight Opera Chic (wearing black & blue & masculine in deference to the new Campioni d'Italia: black Tod's ballerina shoes, black Costume National slacks, blue Gentry Comini blouse, black Miyake silky cotton jacket, red/white/emerald vintage Balenciaga silk scarf, Zenitissimo vintage watch, and swag in my vintage midollino Gucci black bag) has witnessed an event of extraordinary importance...a magic trick: Rome's unlucky Violetta, Angela Gheorghiu, has been srsly long-distance pwz0rd by Mariella Devia.

Devia's recital tonight at Teato alla Scala, until the last aria, had been a textbook case of jarring contrast: the frumpiest, lamest style (circa 1988 long red silk junior prom dress with sheer red sleeves like a figure-sk8ing outfit, bad reddish dye-job ...and no costume change during intermission omg), and very limited acting, almost constant stiff delivery, back-brace posture but with the cleanest, most flawless singing one is likely to hear in any opera house in this decade.

The decidedly uncharismatic Devia sang as if her sound had already been equalized, corrected, and digitally cleaned-up & amped in a studio: her delivery was so inhumanly flawless that, closing your eyes, you'd think that somebody had turned on the sound system and the lady (accompanied by a pretty plodding, uninspired pianist, Ms. Rosetta Cucchi) was just lip-synching.

It was a master class for the public, an overt "hay guys *this* is how you're supposed to sing opera" moment that would put most singers to shame  -- a singing lesson for contemporaries and, if anybody had the good sense to record this evening, for posterity.

Somewhat cold? Yeah, the way a Kubrick film can be cold -- the coldness of the "I'm so good at this I can do it blindfolded" master, or, in Devia's case, "I can do it with a bad case of laryngitis like what3vs".

After she tore through Rossini's Pensées Musicales as if they were a stick of half-melted buttah, she then proceeded to kill the second part of the recital as if simply singing the notes was the easiest thing in the world, without breaking a sweat or flashing a nervous smile. She enjoyed the monster ovation from the crowd, and it was the time for encores (keep in mind, she's been singing for almost one hour and 45 minutes at this point).

The piano lady (which btw, OC thinks is pretty kicka$$ to have female accompaniment...especially dressed in "screw-u-&-ur-dresscode" slack,s nonetheless) started playing a bare-bones Casta Diva, and you're like, no frkking way, kip, back it up. But it's on!! and Devia blows-up that soprano-killing-aria like it's a videogame and she's playing the L4MER level just for practice.

More cheering, clapping, people going insane, bis bis bis, elderly gentlemen yelling until they dropped their programs, society ladies clapping so hard the many pounds of gold and (blood) diamonds they're wearing around their wrists and their malnourished bones clash like bells.

And then -- around 10:15 pm Milan time -- Devia, who must have read lately how Opera di Roma has been selling Gheorghiu's Traviata as if the twin fighting ghosts of Callas and Tebaldi have been finally put to rest -- decided to send Angela a little txt message, something like, "cara angela listen 2 h0w violetta is s'posed 2 sound kthxbi xoxoxo to roburto".

So she starts "Addio del passato", and she (after almost two hours of singing) starts acting, and even if the pianist is plodding like mad, she attaches little pieces of lead to every note so that Verdi becomes Black Sabbath slowed down 10x and played backwards to try to evoke Satan or Rene Pape or something, and now she's acting, and she's getting all emo on us, and she's dying alone on that stage, it's almost unbearable -- Non croce col nome che copra quest'ossa -- and it becomes clear once again (like it does only when the very best ones are on the stage) Verdi is Shakespeare, inventor of the human, and you're all like, holy f4ck, Gheorghiu has been pwnd. Once again.

Angela -- the most hyped soprano in the last 20 years with the exception of younger, prettier (not necessarily more talented) Netrebko got served, twice in three days; first, live on-stage by a 71-year-old gramps who's as spent as William Holden in the last five minutes of The Wild Bunch. Then, 400 miles away, by a frumpster whose sublime technique and gilded voice managed to make a Steinway concert grand sound in comparison like the most garish, discordant instrument evar, and leaves the La Scala audience clamoring for encore after encore, which Devia gladly delivered.

Renato Bruson: All Hail the Eighth King of Rome; Angela's pi$$ed; Zeffirelli's revenge?

If Rome's Traviata were a videogame -- and frankly, why not -- we'd say that Renato Bruson 0wned Angela Gheorghiu at Halo using just the keyboard -- Angela was all made up with big hair and all, fresh from a diet that made her as svelte as mean ol' Frengo likes his leading ladies to be, and she was all like, "here's my big titanium wi-fi prototype remote controller my hawt husband (may i introduce you to my hawt husband?) got me in Tokyo, made to measure on my hand's plaster cast measurements".

And then old gray glum Bruson shows up with an old grody Atari 1981 joystick that falls apart immediately so that he has to use a Commodore 64 keyboard and there are some keys missing to boot, and he still PWNS her big time, and it's 'game over' before she even realizes what hit her.

All those people standing up, screaming "Bis! Bis!", asking for an encore at the top of their lungs. And Bruson -- grudgingly lol -- giving that encore, as Angela watched the horror unfold in front of her eyes.

He didn't waste time spelling it out, but Bruson's encore was a very clear way to say:

"I am an old baritone in Rome, and you're not. I give encores at Opera di Roma, and you don't."

//we like him, unsurprisingly.

We don't mind Angela; Angela needs a cookie: here's a cookie:

 

Anyway.

What was I just saying? Oh yes, the old-skool: because that's how the old-skool works: the new kids have all the hype and DVDs and recitals lined up until 2035 and the sycophantic journalists and the classical music record executives (who cannot distinguish the sound of a viola from that of a harpsicord because they used to work for a cellphone company). And that's, you know, Angela.

Then the old-skoolly-old singers like Bruson show up, and they don't l00k so hot now, and their voices have seen better times: but they have the skillz of a lifetime of hard work and hard study. And they've sung opposite all the greats, the ones that singers of Angela's generation only listen to on CDs on their Bang & Olufsen sound systems.

Next week, it'll be the 45th -- yes yes...forty-fifth -- anniversary of Bruson's debut at Opera di Roma,  in a 1962 Puritani. Coincidentally, and the irony is too delicious to behold, we're told that Angela's actual birthdate (the official biographies say she was born in 1965) is really 1962.

So this old cranky dude actually debuted there when Angela just a baybay -- or wasn't even (barely) born!

No wonder that he let her belt out a few choice arias, and then when the second act was going at full steam, right before Angela's huge arias of the third, tragic act, he decided to crank up the awesome just a little bit. And swiftly went for the kill.

We're told Angela really never knew what hit her.

We also hear that Opera di Roma is probably going to rename the opera Germont.

It's pretty easy:

ANGELA GHEORGHIU RENATO BRUSON IS TRAVIATA GERMONT

Looks good to me!

//(more on Zeffirelli's revenge later: it's the weekend & we're also redesigning the blawg, and you're not)

^^^update^^^

Rome's Il Messaggero writes that Angela didn't start very well, and neither did Grigolo in a lackluster first act:

Destava però qualche perplessità la limitata potenza della voce: quattro anni fa, quando la Gheorghiu debuttò a Roma, al Teatro Argentina, nello stesso titolo, sembrava più grande.

The translation: The limited power of her voice was somewhat perplexing: four years ago, when Gheorghiu debuted in Rome, at Teatro Argentina, in the same opera, (her voice) appeared to be bigger.

But then after Bruson's triumph in the second act things warmed up, and the third was the best, thanks to the voices and Gelmetti's conducting. Flowers and bunnies and ovations and all.

art brut

Joshua Bell gets pwnz0rd

The Barenboim X-Factor; and the Wiener Boys Club Boycott

The New York Times analyzes the Barenboim X-Factor (which is pretty easy to analyze: he's a brave, unapologetic humanist dude with an unimpeachable resume & an impressive one-man brass section).

And our caro signor Alex Ross, one of Opera Chic's first readers and dearest friend,  agrees with the anti-Wiener Philharmoniker stance of Newsday (the paper goes so far as to boycott -- huh, OK, w-evs -- the effectively all-male orchestra).

Now, it's certainly funny that in the year 5767 (aka 2007 for various infidels) a bunch of silly-looking middle-aged Austrian dorks is still against letting girls play with them (literally), because they have too much fun singing old yodel in their locker room and don't want to build for-her restrooms in their underground social club facilities and on their beloved tree houses. And they like to tell dirty jokes and stuff like that.

But then, let dorks be dorks if they like it so -- their unique sound is impossibly beautiful, and even if it's clear that they're giving up the chance of hiring so many great female musicians, it's also true that the VPO sound is exactly that sound -- an oldskool sound of a lost era that manages to survive into the 21st Century. It is certainly not the sound of politically correctness, of equal opportunities and of sensitivity-trained musicians. Music -- well, classical music at least -- is not a democracy. And invoking  the need for "a dynamic cultural organization", nevermind the sound they make, like Newsday does? Pointing out that the Weeners "fetishize(s) sound at the expense of spirit"? We're opening the proverbial can of worms, guys.

"Spirit"?

Opera Chic doesn't really know about the "spirit" of Oswald Kabasta -- tho she knows that the sublime conductor of the German repertoire, a man whose Bruckner is so devastating that he will change your entire outlook on the composer, was also a enthusiastic Nazi supporter who signed all his post-1933 letters with a "Heil Hitler" (and, we like to imagine, a smiley face too).

Opera Chic also has doubts about the "spirit" of Gino Marinuzzi, very possibly the greatest conductor of all -- at least that what Richard Strauss thought, he considered Marinuzzi to be better than Von Bulow -- and Maestro Marinuzzi was just SO comfy and toasty in Mussolini's Italy.

So many examples -- we've been recently listening to a preternaturally beautiful concert of religious music --- a truly transcendent moment -- conducted by a world-famous conductor who -- we hear -- is also one of the world's most dedicated brothelgoers.

We'd like to keep our Kabasta records and our Marinuzzi (so terribly few) cds and we generally like to listen to the beautiful music of awful human beings (except Wagner -- Opera Chic follows her dear Uncle Normy -- aka Norman Lebrecht -- boycott of the Bayreuth Gang -- we all have our pet peeves don't we).

So let the Vienna dorks be dorks -- you know, they're also the ones who managed to trick the famously  greedy conductors  into accepting a nominal, laughable fee -- 2,000 euros, barely enough for one night in a Sacher Hotel suite plus minibar and tips -- for the honor of conducting the biggest, dorkiest, most happily misogynistic boys club in the history of classical music.   

Dontdatehimgirl.com: Exposing the seedy underbelly of philandering philanthropists.

For those uninitiated, dontdatehimgirl.com is a website that routinely gets passed-around various forums, for the sheer hilarity that it can provide for the masses of terribly bored internauts. It is an interactive website; a haven for bitter, jilted women, who congregate to create profiles outing/slandering their former womanizing, philandering playas and cheaters, and to warn prospective dates about their myriad unfaithful ways.

Although dontdatehimgirl is filled to the brim with dubious tales of predictable playas with a knack for neglecting, cheating, lying, and drugging...if one is so boldly inclined, a search for conductors and/or semi-professional musicians can yield quite a bevy of matches.

One such notable entry is that of a certain American conductor [""Orchestra Conductor""], currently employed by almost half a dozen American regional symphonies around the country, including the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Since the web is a truly kinetic thing, and the nature of these websites is highly indiscreet/unsubstantiated, Niezen’s profile from last week was pulled. This google cache shows his entry, which at one time simply stated from a jilted lover:

""Orchestra Conductor"":

He's a "hit and run" guy.

Potential casualty: your heart. He will treat you like a disposable object once he has "scored."

lol “scored” lol get it?!

The outed conductor is an unabashed target of someone’s scornful insanity, and although his profile has disappeared, he gets compiled with others cheating musicians on various lists throughout the site. The lists explain:

"The following are names of those profiled up here, who either are musicians or who are alleged to have used music to con/woo women, or are in the entertainment industry, alleged to use them up, alleged to use sex and attention the wrong way to hurt women, or have allegedly called women by disrespectful names…basically who allegedly use musicianship (via ‘male bonding’) to disrespect women, or who might be in the ‘music industry’, or who project the ‘groupie’ mentality on them, even if they are not groupies."

Other notables include musicians in professional orchestras around the USA. One jilted lover writes:

"I found out luckily not too late that this jerk cheats on every girlfriend he has including his current. He plays bass in the minn orchestra. We met and he told me he was single. I got excited because he seems to good to be true. Noticed that he didn't introduce me to any friends [...] He's a charmer though. Very sweet and pretends to be caring like your the only girl for him and he doesn't think that you'd ever go for a nobody like him. He's not particularly hot but when he pulls mister sensitive, he knows what he's doing. That's the hook. Be careful!!!!!!!"

Dishing the dirt never got more insane. Opera Chic doesn't particularly care if these are legit or not; and regardless of trolling, they are pretty entertaining.

But whatever happened to the good ol' days when conductors (Furtwängler, Toscanini, et al) could go about their licentious ways without being targeted?

 

Here are a few of my additions:

• Big Willy "Er furtwänglert" Furtwängler: Didn't want to date him in tha 1st place cuz he didn't have n e hawt friends or a hawt brother or even a kewl car. Then he wouldnt stop pming me and asking me to go to bayreuth with him. When we got back to Berlin, i found out he wuz cheating tHA WHOLE TIME!!!!! whatevs. i downloaded a leaked copy of his beethoven's 5th and it sucked ne way. He was all like, 'Wars in foreign places dont bother me'. Then he wanted me to go to Switzerland with him and was like ooookay no tnx cya l8r. Ladies stay away!!!

• Karl "zzzzzzz" Böhm: Not hawt. Prides himself on his high scores of Wii Guitar Hero. He's all like 'HAY I'm awezzom with the chix0rs. I'm like a predator, but with teh secks. I'm like a s3xual predator.' He had to break-down all social situations into conducting statistics because it was the only way he could ocmprehend ne thing. Girls, u'v been warned. A giant bore!!!!11!!!

• Georg "Call me George" Jochum: Said he wuz loaded, with like a 10-digit salary. I believed him and then he took me to his apartment (HE LIVES IN BASEMENT W/ HIS MOTHER), and he drove a (eeewwwww) honda civic dx. Gave me a glass of boxed wine. His mobile was on silent the WHOLE TIME /shady. The next day, I did'nt answer his 50 txts. He finally got the message and was like: sry, i dont date hoes i play 'em. Run the otha way, ladies!!!!

/O_____O\

^^^OMG update OMG^^^

a BIG post-Valentine kiss to Jessica Duchen!

Roberto Alagna: Pure Comedy Gold

Two of Opera Chic's favorite readers (la cucciola Donna Anna and il cucciolo fignaz) alerted me (sry :a few days ago: sry) to pure comic gold that has surfaced in the Italian media regarding the Roberto Alagna La Scala Aida walk-off.

Produced from a RAI Radio show called Viva Radio 2 Revolution, there was staged a series of six phony phone-calls [fignaz predicts nine total in this post's comments!!] to a fictitious "Casa Alagna". One of the show's personalities pretends to be our very own Tato, and is presented à la Adam Sandler's "Opera Man" from the 1990s SNL (YouTube link) "Weekend Update", singing his responses to the interviewer in a hilarious, operatic tenor.

One of the half-dozen phone calls has made it to YouTube in the form of audio, and can be found below along with Opera Chic's translation. Thanks again to fignaz and Donna Anna for the scoop!

Fiorello: We are going to call the house of Alagna to see if he is there. (phone ringing in background) I think this is the house...let's see if he's here...[blah blah blah nothing important].

Fiorello: Hello?

**The first responder is a bit character, and answers [OC isn't familiar with the format of the show] and they're all like, no way! It can't be so! Omg it's you again?! And then the bit character says he was just joking around, and he'll go find Alagna, to which are the replies from Fiorello stuff like, "Thank god, let's get on with it..."

[Update/note: reader fignaz left a comment elucidating the "bit character", and writes, "The stock character at the beginning is supposed to be the switchboard operator at the Quirinale (the residence of Italy's president, for those who don't know). This is Fiorello & Baldini's running joke on the vagaries of the state-run telecommunications system. Since fake phone calls to celebrities (whom Fiorello imitates) are their stock in trade, they often reach the Quirinale."] [thanks, fignaz!]

Roberto Alagna then gets on the line, and sings his opening greeting, which is met with much laughter from Fiorello, who begins the interview:

Fiorello [gathering strength]: I'll try to go ahead, and do this. [To Alagna]: Maestro! Hello/Good Morning. Listen, can you explain to me what happened? [Referring to the December 10, 2006 Aida walk-off.]

Alagna: Those sh*ts!

Fiorello [to the audience]: All in all, it [the interview] began well, eh?...[To Alagna]: Sorry, but do you always talk like this?!

Alagna: No, only in public.

Fiorello: There we are. Instead, [how do you do it] in private, then?

Alagna: In mezzo soprano.

Fiorello: I get it. Listen, when you go to the super-market, how do you speak?!

Alagna: Normal.

Fiorello: Okay, I get it. But can you give us an example, please?

Alagna then pretends he's at the deli counter in the super-market, and sings instructions for the deli guy to give him "un etto di prosciutto", and goes on to sing instructions, like, "I recommend you to slice it thinly, under the fat, and close to the bone. Y'ah ha ha ha ha!"

Fiorello: Let's see. Why did you leave last night? [speaking again of the La Scala Aida December 10th walk-out].

Alagna (acting all torn-up): The loggioni guys whistled at me. I sang the aria, but it wasn't my fault! h0 h0 h0 h0 h0!

Fiorello: Okay, listen, but you went [off the stage], and were substituted by a man, but he was in jeans.

Alagna: NO NO NO!

Fiorello: Okay! What, you don't know who it was?

Alagna: The substitute wasn't my replacement!

Fiorello: Who was it then?

Alagna: He was one of those guys who sells bonbonniere [candy] and coca cola. Y0 h0 h0 h0 h0.

Alagna: But I don't care. I'm going to San Remo. We'll be the three tenors. The three of us.

Fiorello: Sorry, the three of you? Who are the other two [tenors], then?

Alagna: "Zeroassoluto" [a really crappy Italian pop band]. We'll sing something like this, here's a piece of it:

Then Alagna starts singing a lame proverb, "Il buongiorno si vede dal mattino." ["You see the good day in the morning"].

***END SCENE***

I HAD TO POST IT
I JUST HAD TO

i dont know about you guys but i am lollerskating over here.

vvvvvvUPDATEvvvvvv

(fignaz [again] with teh supar sexay superfluous nfo, posts a rapidshare link...to grab six of the nine Alagna spoofs.)

CHAILLY SLAMS ALAGNA: "SAVED BY SOUND ENGINEERS"!!!111 OMG

In today's Italian newspapers, Corriere della Sera and Repubblica (how sweet to be able to buy them in New York, too, OC is now addicted!) Riccardo Chailly, conductor of last December's unlucky Aida at La Scala, slams tenor Roberto Alagna. Here are the most damaging quotes:

"Yesterday I watched the Aida DVD that RAI will broadcast and Decca will soon sell in music stores...and it was a luminous, beautiful show, with excellent singers. Alagna also performed convincingly, and he gave life to a convincing Radames. But now he will say that he was right; He will say that he was a perfect Radames. Instead he should thank the sound engineers: because they performed a miracle, working on such little material they had in their hands and fixing all the defects in an astounding manner. Watching the DVD, one sees that it was a good idea. We worked well, and what happened seems even more painful now. He should have gone ahead with the show. It was a matter of respect".

So, no matter what Alagna said last month in one of his more unhinged moments ("Decca said they only make the Aida DVD if I am the protagonist in this production"), the DVD is indeed coming out! w00t!

0H N03S U F0UND M3 0UT!

I’ve been pnwnd by the mos def La Cieca and her Encyclopedia-Brownific detective $kill$!!

Betrayed by my own reflection in the Teatro alla Scala locandina’s shiny glass! I surrender! I surrender! At least I can say that I’ve been xxposed by the best in the business…

Hay guys, okay here I am…

LIL’ OLE ME! (In this publicity picture, I still hadn’t grown my massive beard where several types of vermin currently reside.) *scratches furiously*