Opera Chic

Richard Bonynge in British Columbia! Get Your Bonynge on with the Vancouver Opera

 

Vancouver Opera will host Richard Bonynge! To conduct Norma! As part of its 2009/10 Golden Anniversary season, where the VO looks back on 50 years of performances, the Australian conductor saddles up the podium with a delicious, refreshing Bellini. Norma opens on Saturday, November 28, and breaks a 20-year stretch when it was last heard by the VO audiences. Bonynge conducted Norma for the VO 46 years ago in 1963, with Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne filling-out the cast (his first performance with the VO was Faust from earlier that same year) and led as the VO's Artistic Director during the 1970s.

This time, the Tazewell Thompson production boasts Armenian soprano Hasmik Papian as Norma, Canadian tenor Richard Margison as Pollione (hopefully recovered from his NYC cooties), and American mezzo-soprano Kate Aldrich as Adalgisa (who stunned the Italian audiences Teatro Comunale di Bologna, OC included, where she appeared alongside Daniela Dessì & Fabio Armiliato). The Golden Anniversary season also offers Nixon in China, The Marriage of Figaro, and Madama Butterfly.

If you can't wait for opening night, Bonynge will be reminiscing live at the Vancouver Public Library on Monday, November 9 in a free, public forum.

Ailing Luciano Pavarotti's Hommage To La Stupenda

Dame Joan Sutherland, accompanied by her husband Mr. Joan Sutherland, the conductor and musicologist (a much better musicologist than a conductor, by the way), has just visited Bologna where she has been awarded the «Siòla d'oro», the opera prize given to outstanding singers and named after the great soprano Lina Pagliughi, born exactly 100 years ago (she passed away in 1980).

Musicologists, singers, critics have spoken, during the ceremony, about Dame Joan's genius: but the real big moment came when she was suprised by a video sent by a faraway friend, Luciano Pavarotti.

Our dear sweet "Big Luciano", still ailing from his fight against a terrible illness, could not obviously participate but sent a video. Where, still pale and haggard after the treatments, bravely downplayed his health problems with a smiling "these days I'm not very well, non sto tanto bene", joked about his partnership with the Dame "we were a golden couple, golden in every sense", and explained how Sutherland and her hubby Richard Bonynge, "Joan and Ricky", "will be forever in my heart: and I still think about all the fun we had together, since our very first tour together, in Australia. Brava Joan, bravissima: all the world knows how much your talent deserves this award. And if I may add something, you set a standard of professional behavior and dedication to your work".

Cue the Thunderous applause.

Sutherland, always cool, explained that "nowadays I don't do much, I am an old lady", but hasn't lost her gift for the cutting remark.

Her favorite performances? "Norma and Esclarmonde".

Does she listen to her records? "Not when I was still singing. Now, I do, occasionally. And I ask myself: how did I manage to hit that acuto?"

Why, if she admires Rossini so, did she only sing in Semiramide? "Unfortunately a singer's willingness to do an opera has to be accompanied by a opera house's proposal to sing in that opera".

Why doesn't she give masterclasses? "I'm 80, I don't wanto to have anything to do with opera anymore. I only work occasionally as a judge in singing contests".

What about young singers then? "Young singers do not have the appropriate technique".

She doesn't go to the opera much: "In my days, every cast had at least three or four excellent voices. Nowadays, you're lucky to hear one. And anyway in today's opera houses they have too many microphones and too many absurd directors".

Triple yay!

I'm goin' out first class...ain't goin' out coach

As promised, a few production shots of the Florida Grand Opera from the Saturday February 10, 2007 la prima of the Renata Scotto-directed, Richard Bonynge-conducted Bellini's La Sonnambula. All can be clicked for larger.

vvv Below vvv: Looking-up towards the ceiling of the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida. Snow peas!

vvv Below vvv: Super-titles above the stage flashing in both English and Spanish.

vvv Below vvv: Confetti rains-down onto the audience during the final scene. 

vvv Below vvv: Curtain Call, with Carlo Diappi's sets and costumes.

   

vvv Below vvv: Looking-out over the balcony of the grand auditorium.

omg:: Bellini's La Sonnambula at the Florida Grand Opera ::omg

(A view of the Florida Grand Opera at night.)

Just fifteen minutes from the pastel-stained waterfront of Miami’s Collins Avenue…in a vacant, concrete sprawl of a South Beach after-thought, awaits a promising contender: The Florida Grand Opera. Florida? Grand opera house? Oh yes. Yes indeed.

At Miami’s newly-erected Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, Opera Chic heard something quite sublime at last night's breathtaking la prima of the Renata Scotto-directed, Richard Bonynge-conducted Bellini's La Sonnambula.

Upon exiting the busy loops of highway that circle Miami, an auspicious auditorium beckons impressively: the façade is a gorgeous mix of clean, green-blue glass, white slabs of pure concrete, luminous and warm marble, and kinetic, golden fountains. The lobby promises even more: stark-white, exposed skeletal structures of the towering construction gleam and entwine towards the enormous ceiling. Unfortunately, after the mind wraps around it all, the interior morphs into that of a giant cruise-ship, and you can’t help but feel like you are embarking on an adventure aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line.

(all aboard! The interior of the Florida Opera House: Miami, Florida, USA.)

The interior auditorium is well thought-out, with clear visibility from all areas, including spatial “partial view” balcony boxes (which officially hold four seats, but you could easily crowd a family of twenty). The only problem is that I seriously think the interior auditorium was designed by the same guy who did the monolith McMansion Manhattan Mormon Temple in Columbus Circle (this heathen visited a few summers ago before it was ordained). It’s covered in ersatz cherry-wood paneling, and then covered again in swaths of coffee-colored, patterned fabric...like a giant Marriot conference room or something. The centered ceiling design resembles giant snow peas (pics coming).

(More interior of the Florida Opera House.)

Luckily, the performance was strong enough to ferry me away from the nouveau riche interior: Mr. Dame Joan Sutherland's conducting was lovely and with excellent structure, providing the perfect accompaniment for the excellent bel canto of soprano Leah Partridge’s Amina. Her clear, sweet, and precise voice strongly reflected the practiced, skilled tone of the entire cast (go Renata go)! Her coloratura and legato stayed warm and beautiful, even through to her last aria, "Ah, non credea mirarti si presto estinto, o fiore," (which is also carved on Bellini’s tomb – and btw, Rossini and Cherubini both held the funeral shroud at the death of the beloved 33-year-old composer in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery.)

Bruce Sledge's Elvino was well-matched to Partridge's gorgeous color – and although he is no JDF – his tenor was a pleasure. David Pittsinger’s Count Rodolfo was also well-executed, with great coherence and anchoring.

The pint-sized Renata Scotto (who sat front row center, and was all smiles during the final curtain call *pictures coming tomorrow*) teamed with Carlo Diappi for sets and costume production, which were minimal, however perfect.

A papier-mâché-esque, giant apple tree was the only scenery for the opening act, to suggest the bucolic, idyllic Swiss village square. Later, it was swapped with a huge, limbed tree for the final sleepwalking scene, where Amina’s stunt double (i saw what u did there) precariously walked the high limb above the stage. A sweet touch during the final wedding scene was confetti released from cavities in the ceiling...showering the audience with bits of colored paper.

It was a flawless evening, and will remain wedged as one of the most memorable opera events. This jaded girl (who rubs shoulders with old European snobbery at La Scala almost weekly) found something quite transcendent in the provincial suburbs of Miami, with super-titles above the stage flashing in both English and Spanish.

(exterior of the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami, Florida, USA.)

Now Opera Chic must return to the lush beds of her South Beach hotel, so tomorrow she can enjoying her last morning of splayed palm trees, warm February sun (ok ok today was a little overcast and tomorrow is supposed to drizzle but whatevs I'm golden), and café cubano before heading back to NYC. Tomorrow OC also promises exciting additional images from the La Sonnambula la prima.