Opera Chic

Villazón Sketches La bohème for Sinfini Music

In its 200+ year history, La bohème has been retold, like, a million times, which is why the latest narrative by Rolando Villazón gets the gold. In a new series, Villazón Toons, the Mexican tenor sketches & Sinfini Music animates Puccini's timeless love story. 

OC & Grazia.it: Viva México! Ailyn Pérez & Rolando Villazón

OC's stateside, pacing big-a$$ museums and evenly-kerned sidewalks and nibbling pumpkin spice versions of every food & beverage that exists. For Grazia.it, we're all about Mexicans -- Rolando Villazón & Ailyn Pérez -- who both recently-celebrated NYC performances.

Rolando was one of four soloists (with Marina Poplavskaya, Christine Rice & Mikhail Petrenko) who made this Milan-x-Jersey girl happy with Verdi's Requiem Mass (which premiered at San Marco church, blocks from OC's Brera home) to usher-in Yannick Nézet-Séguin's successful Carnegie Hall debut with his Philadelphia Orchestra. You can read about it, in Italian, on Grazia.it here. 

Then we slammed back an interview with Ailyn Pérez from Miami, where she had been preparing to sing the La bohème lead at the Florida Grand Opera (which opened earlier tonight). Between gown fittings and jewelry-curating (at Cartier #diva4lyfe) she chatted about preparations for the 2012 Annual Richard Tucker Gala that bowed on November 11 as the first Latina winner to scoop-up the award, shadows of Hollywood's and opera's great Latina & Latino stars. Read about it here on Grazia.it, but sure, click below for the English translation and look up at her stunning gown.

Villazón's Verdi for Verdi

Verdi's turning 200. What do you get him? A Caribbean cruise? A Brookstone massage chair? An AARP membership? Rolando's gone the "gift for the guy who has everything" route and made Verdi a mix tape! On November 19, the Mexican tenor drops his new CD, Villazón Verdi, of assorted arias spanning from Verdi minore to the maestro's Top 40 hits of the 1850s.

Here's Rolando doing Rolando doing Verrrrrrdi. //Coming up on six years in Milan and OC still can't roll her Rs like that.

Rolando's Lucky Boxer Briefs

Rolando shows-off his package to his adoring fans [VIA]

Villazón Babysits Damrau's Bebbe in Japan

(Photo: Lee Abrahamian/Met Opera)

Out of the 350 travelling members of The Metropolitan Opera (which includes singers, orchestra, chorus, ballet, and staff) it's Diana Damrau’s eight-month-old son Alexander that is the biggest star of the company's current Japan tour. The New York City opera company touched down in Japan on May 30 for three weeks of concerts and operas (Lucia di Lammermoor, La Bohème, and Don Carlo) from June 4 - 19 in Tokyo and Nagoya. It's The Met's seventh Japan tour, and this year is chaperoned by Italian conducting super-powers Fabio Luisi and Gianandrea Noseda.

Soprano Marina Poplavskaya, tenor Marcelo Álvarez, tenor Rolando Villazón, and tenor Alexey Dolgov all came to the resque of the casting department when Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja pulled out of the tour at the last minute, citing radiation fears despite the all-clear from a team of scientists.

Other principals on the tour are Diana Damrau, Barbara Frittoli, Ildar Abdrazakov, Piotr Beczala, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Mariusz Kwiecien, Yonghoon Lee, Željko Lučić, and René Pape.

Follow The Met's Japan tour through photo here and here!

Jenkins and Villazon Tease Freddie Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody

Rolando's Huge Heart: Ein Herz für Kinder

No matter how many times he's cancelled shows, no matter how many fans he's pissed off, and no matter how many floperas© he's pulled, he's got a huge heart. Rolando Villazon made an appearance in Berlin for the Ein Herz für Kinder (A Heart for Children) charity telethon. Won't somebody please think of the children?! Ahhhhhhh ok cool -- Rolando's called shotgun on that. (photos Reuters)

The Ghost of Rolando Past: L'Elisir d'Amore at La Scala

Last night at la Scala saw the sixth spettacolo of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore (premiered on October 2nd), a forgettable pastiche of directing duo sensation Laurent Pelly's & Chantal Thomas' take on bucolic kitsch that was presented with lackluster, uneven singing and underwhelming conducting. OC is on the record as a Pelly/Thomas cheerleader (really, consider their Florez/Dessay La fille du régiment -- does it get any better than that? WE DONT THINK SO!) but this entire new production was burdened with Jupiter's gravity, a draggy night that detracted from the Rolando Villazon comeback hype that should have made this run (sadly in the past) memorable.

Sandwiched between Anna Bolena and Lucrezia Borgia, Donizetti's L'elisir d'Amore is a sparkling-sweet landscape of love and misunderstanding ripe for comedy set to a libretto by Felice Romani. At its premiere in Milan's Teatro alla Canobbiana in 1832 it was an instant hit, celebrated for Donizetti's succulent score set to a lollersome comedic plot all wrapped-up in a happy ending -- it remains to this day one of opera's most audience-friendly blockbusters.

A technically perfect orchestra under the direction of Donato Renzetti slowed down the manuscript to an underwater pace, ploddingly thick at times, unrecognizable at its worst. The slow motion strategy was made obvious when Rolando Villazon l a a a u u n c h e d into his arias, taking everything at a safe pace. During the Second Act's Quartetto the tempo and direction was so lackluster that it came close to collapsing in sluggish inertia. Una Furtiva Lagrima, that breath-holding aria that shows Donizetti's remarkable skill of turning the thrills of love into melancholy/heartbreak -- in less time than a Ferrari Scaglietti takes to get from 0 to 60 -- was slowed down to the paces of a Hyundai lawnmower. It wasn’t a bad effort from Villazon, but one decent aria after a slew of mediocre ones doesn't mark the success of an entire performance.       

Villazon started the night off at a low point with Quanto è bella, a mess of chaotic breathing, broken phrasing, and scooping -- at times like a vintage 78 being played back on the wrong speed, especially during Nemorino and Adina's duet Chiedi all’aura lusinghiera. His voice lacked nuance while preoccupied tackling the passages. He still has all of that charisma and energy from the Rolando of Villazon Past, but the voice is mismatched.   

The overall effective costumes and scenes from the usually flawless Laurent Pelly and Chantal Thomas flaunted Italian countrysides (with a Midwestern flair) of Q-bert haystacks and Bramantean perspective-keen backgrounds and chorus dressed in late 1950s style. OC loves Pelly and Thomas for their effortless melding of hyperrealism with comic book/graphic art sauciness. But this time the stagnant, unimaginative direction was the biggest antagonist of the production and even normally-cool gimmicks that were blended with such an admirable light hand (fire, fireworks, vespas, a tractor, a schnauzer dog, etc.) sank under the weight of derivative direction and slow paces.

Unmemorable interpretations of each character vacillated from blah to meh in a skimmed misreading of Donizetti's protagonists. Vocally everyone was keen (Giorgio Caoduro's Belcore, Barbara Bargnesi's Giannetta, and Renato Girolami's Dulcamara) but character sketches were uninteresting. Irina Lungu's Adina was also fine, marked with a rich, sold voice and a good dramatic flair, but Lungu included, no one was memorable.  

Uneven conducting, singing (even Chorus Master Bruno Casoni's insanely excellent La Scala chorus was uneven), and direction marred Donizetti’s comic masterpiece, turning a witty, sparkling multilayered sitcom into a provincial windbaggy narrative. And for their sixth night of this show at La Scala, there can't be any excuses.

Scala's Elisir, Opening Night: Villazon & Machaidze Booed

The good news is that Rolando Villazon made it to the end of L'Elisr d'Amore at la Scala last night.

The bad news is that he, together with Nino Machaidze, got booed pretty harshly, especially from the loggione, but not only from there.

Rolando Villazón's Solitary, Underground Flash Mob

V for Villazon! Mein Mexiko!

Rolando, we don't care if sometimes you leave the toilet seat up or you forget to pick up the dry cleaning or buy the wrong kind of Skippy (ummmmm we wrote "extra chunky" on the grocery list hellooooo?) We will love you forever and ever and ever and ever. 

The Comeback Kid Came Back: Rolando Villazón in Salzburg

Above and below, ORF's coverage of Rolando Villazón's Sunday night Salzburger Festspiele recital with pianist Gerold Huber. The Mexican tenor's (reportedly triumphant) return to the stage after whatever the hell went down in Copenhagen (~seven minutes to heaven~) earlier this month. Villazón sang Schumann's Dichterliebe woven after a program of Duparc, Tosti, Faure, Massenet, and Obradors.

Photos here, thanks to El Blog Villazonista (also for the linkage).

Skandalekoncert! Roland Pisses-off Denmark in a Half-A$$ed Concert

 

Rolando Villazón's Danish fans dropped Kroners & love last night at Copenhagen's Tivoli Koncertsalen, where the Mexican tenor (sort of) sang a sold-out concert with French soprano Stéphanie Degout-Loris and mezzo Audrey Kessedjian.

Things were off to a bad start when Tivoli's new Music Director, Henrik Engelbrecht, came out on stage at the beginning of the evening to announce that the tenor was suffering from a cold.

Rolando then hacked his cold-inflamed throat through three numbers and left the stage. While his fans waited patiently through the songs of his two female companions for his return, the singer reportedly went back to his hotel. ~Something is rotten in the state of Denmark~ With tickets starting at 500 DKK ($90 USD) and running up to 1250 DKK ($222 USD), the tenor reportedly sang a total of seven minutes.

Rolando Villazón, "La Cucaracha", México City, 06/17/2010

Villazon's Post-Op Alfredo: The Video Evidence

Video evidence from the other night's Traviata in Zurich:

Villazon's Alfredo, Last Night In Zurich

The Rolando Villazon fan blog has photos, videos and more about Rolando Villazon's performance last night in Zurich as Alfredo (Leo Nucci, above with RV, was Germont and Eva Mei was Violetta).

Rolando & Kiri To Teach (On TV) What Makes an Opera Singer Great

 

Villazon's new TV career:

Opera stars Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Rolando Villazon have been lined up to take part in a wide-ranging BBC opera season.

They join the likes of Stephen Fry, Rick Stein and Katie Derham for Opera On The BBC, which starts on TV and radio and launches online this week.

(...)

Tenor and Popstar To Operastar judge Villazon will look at what makes a great tenor for BBC Four, while Dame Kiri will find out what makes a superb soprano for BBC Two.

Cheery Sunday Times: "Villazon's Voice Has Broken"

The Sunday Times did not particularly like the recent Rolando Villazon concert in London; the British paper thinks the Mexican tenor's voice is, well, gone:

All took him uncomfortably low — to the point of inaudibility from Row K of the stalls — and, even though this music never takes a tenor to the “money notes” that make big careers, the top of Villazon’s voice now sounds detached from its centre, nasal and pinched. He looked uncomfortable, and compensated with unnerving gestural quirks...

But this isn’t comedy. It’s a tragedy playing out before our ears and eyes.  Clearly, the problems his recent operation was supposed to resolve remain. The technical issues are legion: the shortness of his range, the disparity of colour between his registers and the sagging pitch...

The review actually gets worse -- it's an epic takedown. If people still cared about critics, Villazon's career -- well, his career as an unamplified singer -- would be in trouble.

[Ro]lando [Calrissian]: It Works Every Time!

 

Photos of Rolando Villazon's Monday night Vienna comeback performance in L'elisir. This dude has in-the-house performance pictures.

(Rolando with Ekatarina Siurina)

Click for one more...

Fingers Crossed for Rolando

 

Despite all his mistakes, all his bad choices, he deserves another shot. And opera needs 2005's Rolando -- opera needs that passion, and that heart.

Villazon is attempting a comeback tomorrow in Vienna.

In the opera world, all eyes will be on Austrian capital on Monday when Mexican star tenor Rolando Villazon makes his stage comeback at the Vienna State Opera.

Villazon, 37, who has now had to put his career on ice twice due to problems with his vocal chords, will sing the role of Nemorino in a one-off performance of Donzetti's best-loved comic opera, "L'elisir d'amore".

He is then due to sing the role of Lensky in Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" in Berlin later this month.

Villazon: "I Had a Health Problem, Not a Vocal Problem"

Villazon talks about his surgery and his new TV career as a puppet:

...the 38-year-old Mexican recently popped up on Harry Hill’s TV Burp as an excitable woollen puppet.

“It’s super funny,” beams Villazón in his bouncy, happy-go-lucky way, though he struggles to remember Harry Hill’s correct name, or indeed the other ITV show on which he appeared last month, this time in his flesh and blood incarnation. “Lost in Women . . . no ... Loosed on Women?”

A Voice Lesson With Rolando Villazon, Katherine Jenkins

(Darius Campbell sings "Non Più Andrai", Popstar to Opera Star)

Rolando Villazon & Katherine Jenkins: "Funiculì Funiculà", From Popstar To Operastar

(via)

Rolando v Rupert

It's unusual to see an opera singer, either still active on the stage or retired, who takes the time to write a rebuke (and an impressively humorless, passive-aggressive one at that) to a critic's review.

Rolando Villazon did just that.

To recap:

"Popstar to Operastar makes me sick",

argued Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph.

"'Popstar to Operastar' is only a television show",

answers Rolando Villazon today in the same paper. 

Opera Chic's take? The problem here is that, quite simply, you shouldn't answer your critic in writing, but on the stage, by singing. Villazon can't do that at the present time; he's therefore stranded on the island of bad reality TV. He can rationalize all he wants his presence on that show, but he really shouldn't waste time answering his critics in writing: unless he wants to kickstart a crossover career because he knows that, for medical reasons, he won't be able to sing unamplified anymore -- or for much longer, after his comeback -- that's one thing.

To act all offended because one critic slapped him around a bit, is entirely another.

If Pavarotti could take the critical heat for his crossover initiatives, Villazon -- whose major career lasted all 4 years before it came to a grinding halt, unlike Pavarotti's, because the Big Man moved to the big Three Tenors extravaganzas after three decades of solid work on stage -- should be able to take the heat, also.

A Voice Lesson with Katherine Jenkins

As reported here, ~opera star~ Katherine Jenkins is all over her new role as vocal coach, teaching eight pop stars how to sing opera in a reality show for British television. The challenge will turn the pop stars "into accomplished opera singers in the space of six weeks" and we're dying at the irony of Kay-Jay saddled with the role as mentor. Below is a clip from a short interview where Jenkins gives a few singing tips. That's right, Bergonzi, you can just go ahead and close your school, Accademia Verdiana. Jenkins will skool you on Verdi.

Now check out the HUGE 'FRO that Rolando Villazon is sporting in the show's official trailer: