Opera Chic

Classical Ballers Daniel Harding & Amos Bocelli (& Bocelli) at Sanremo Finale

Whenever people talk about the Sanremo Festival, we zone out and think about things like petting a dog the wrong way or what high school would have been like if Jose Canseco was our sex ed instructor until there's awkward silence. Since this year's festival drafted classical music swerve in the form of Barenboim and Harding, we'll stand down.

In the end, Harding made it, Barenboim didn't. La Scala's MD was scheduled to play Chopin on the third night but cancelled due to back problems which he said made it impossible to board the plane to Sanremo, so they invited 19-year-old Italian pianist Leonora Armellini in his place.

Tonight's finale rolled out 007 Harding's Wagner/Verdi love with Ride of the Valkyries and Marcia Trionfale and then Andrea Bocelli (in bespoke Corneliani) did a sweet "Love Me Tender" duet with his 18-year-old son Amos on piano (video below!) Aaaaand we're back to thinking about how to pet a dog the wrong way.

lol hells yes to this

[email protected]djharding is not amused. Staring into the sanremo abyss twitter.com/operachic/stat…

— operachic (@operachic) February 16, 2013

Barenboim on that Upcoming San Remo Appearance

When it was announced last week that Barenboim and Harding would make appearances at this year's Festival di San Remo, we were baffled. And we weren't alone. Today La Repubblica published an interview with Barenboim, who will appear Thursday on the San Remo stage to play a Chopin waltz and nocturne while Harding goes live on Saturday to do what he does best. Which is that thing. That he does best.

San Remo organizers explained that Barenboim (and his Harding proxy) were invited to power-up cultural bragging rights and facilitate this year's theme of sobriety/centrality.

Barenboim explains that he accepted the invitation because he likes to break down barriers between classical music and pop, and cites successful concerts he's played for classically-caught-unawares audiences in the Middle East and Africa.

He says that he doesn't really know much pop music but learned it from his older son, who he says is a hip hop artist best known in Germany.

Young Barenboim met The Beatles and they quizzed him on Beethoven, which was as exciting as when he met Stravinsky in Rome in 1952.

Asked about the classical music crisis he said that it started when classical music stopped being taught in schools. The economic crisis has rendered art as a complete luxury, not a necessity. He thinks the key to saving classical music is instituting a radical change through investments in the younger generations.  

He also talked about being a pianist vs. a conductor ("I'm not a pianist because I can simply be one, but because I must be one"); working at La Scala under the tough Italian financial crisis ("La Scala reflects the Latin temperaments of the country -- impatient, lively and unruly, but there's an enthusiasm that other opera houses don't have.");  and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra ("We're legendary but we're not allowed to play in Palestine, Israel, Iran, Libya or Syria because the governments won't accept the spirit of the orchestra.")

Nessun Dorma: Italian Chanteuse Mina Puts Festival di Sanremo To Sleep

It's that time of the year, again: the 2009 Festival di Sanremo is raging this week on Italian TV -- like Eurovision only much, much cheesier. If anything, it's a show that succeeds in lowering the already appalling standards of Italian TV (as previously reported, soprano Daniela Dessì will appear later this week in a duet with pop singer Renga).

And last night, Italian chanteuse Mina -- in the 1960s, a huge celebrity of Italian pop who has since the 1970s pretty much disappeared from public view, regularly publishing new records -- then CDs -- but always careful to withhold from a still adoring public her actual physical presence (over the decades, the weight of the once-curvy singer has ballooned to Caballé-esque poundage).

The 68-year-old Mina opened this year's festival last night, with a video of her singing, of all things, "Nessun Dorma".

Surprisingly, people here loved it.

The video evidence:

Crossover Blues: Daniela Dessì To Appear @ Festival di Sanremo

The yearly rendez vous with Sanremo Festival, a depressingly cheesy pop music extravaganza that ranks high among Italy's most embarrassing TV broadcasts -- like Eurovision, only worse -- begins next week and will feature a pretty scary duet: soprano Daniela Dessì, wonderful Puccini and Cilea interpreter of many vocal wonders, will appear in Sanremo for a duet with Italian pop singer Francesco Renga.

Videos after the jump!

At Sanremo, you are all losers winn4rs!!

The judgement of the 57th Sanremo Festival has been finalized, and first place was handed to Simone Cristicchi (pictured above) for singing/rapping "ti regalero' una rosa". For those curious, Youtube link here. 

Piero Mazzocchetti also worked it hard this past week, and won third place for his presentation of "Schiavo d'Amore" (Youtube link here), which was song originally written for Roberto Alagna.

And then we heard that, um, whaaaa........zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

No Geneva Convention Allowed: Hell Is Sanremo

Imagine dying and going to a place where particularly bad episodes of American Idol are on 24 hours a day, for all eternity.

Well, that's Paradise.

Hell is not other people, Hell is Festival di Sanremo. And I am in Hell.

Opera Chic -- so that you don't have to -- is trying to watch as much as she can of the whole sorry singing mess (ie, about 10 minutes a night, but YouTube helps).

In a nutshell: it's the 30 lamest singers in Italy, fighting each other to the death in a Eurovision-style (actually the formula was born at Sanremo and exported to Eurovision), 5 nights of nightmare. The TV audience at home votes via txt message or whatever. On Saturday night, an especially bad singer wins.

Suffice to say that these two dorks, apparently, have a standing chance of winning the Festival -- they're a tuneless, voiceless duo where only one remotely even tries to sing and the other isn't even that cute. Italian teenagers apparently go nuts for the two pimply-faced Roman twentysomethings -- they're emo + Peter Gabriel on a morphine drip, so bad that their record company enlisted Nelly "Sono In Retardo" Furtado to accompany them in a trio that is as ill-advised as it sounds, AND SHE MANAGED TO MAKE THE SONG BETTER.

Appropriately, they're named "Zero Assoluto", Absolute Zero. We give them a "0", and get us an Absolut, please (Opera Chic is partial to Grey Goose, but whatevs).

Another catastrophically bad specimen we've had to endure is this lady -- a weird, dragqueenerrific Cabaret/Lounge Singer/TripHop act whose only impressive talent seems to be the ability to solicit catty comments (unprintable here) by Opera Chic's friends for her Cirque De Amneris looks and weirdykins unibrow.

Here she is.

Tomorrow night, then, the "Finale", and the winners. I'll have to watch.

Now I really need a drink.

Mazzocchetti is all like, "TOP THAT, ALAGNA!"

Opera Chic was busy re-reading Goethe's Götz von Berlichingen (löl ich bin eine löllercoaster löl) when a sms came ringing on her Samsung BlackJack to quickly turn the SKY satellite to Rai Uno.

Oh gawd.

I had tried to forget: The Sanremo Festival had started this evening! There on the screen, dressed all in black, was the Roberto Alagna Sanremo replacement Mr. Piero Mazzocchetti, belting-out the song that was originally commissioned for the Aida-walk-off tenor to premiere live, "Schiavo d'Amore".

   

Mazzocchetti, one of the twenty other singers currently crooning lame Italian pop at the 57th Sanremo Festival, deftly premiered the song a little while ago, which was promised to be sung by Alagna before the predictable cancellation on January 7, 2007.

Although many Milanese have wiped their hands of Alagna forever after his Aida walk-off, we all agree that at least Alagna saved his last, dying shred of dignity by cancelling participation in the painfully lame Sanremo.

Also, like Shannen Doherty and Paris Hilton before him, one of Mazzocchetti eyes are slowly fighting their way off his face. That is all.

Alagna's Replacement (NOT FRACC-OMBI)

When he left Teatro alla Scala's stage in a huff because the loggionisti had dared boo him, Roberto Alagna was replaced (in supercrazy circumstances that Opera Chic described here) by tenor Antonello Palombi.

Now that the Wiener Staatsoper has not agreed to enable the tenor's crazy cross-over plan (travelling to Sanremo, close to the Italian/French border, on the day before his Manon la prima in Vienna, to take part in super lame Sanremo pop music festival), Opera Chic is honored to announce thet Roberto Alagna's replacement in Sanremo will be...

PIERO MAZZOCCHETTI!

WHO?

Exactly...

A 28-year-old Italian singer unknown here, but apparently popular among the Italian immigrant community in Germany, Mazzocchetti will sing Schiavo d'Amore (aka "Slave to Love"), the very song that Sanremo General Manager and MC, Pippo Baudo, had commissioned via two Italian songwriters specifically for Roberto Alagna.

Let's have a listen to Alagna's replacement, shall we?

NO U

U R TEH SUPARSTAR!

BREAKING NEWS! ALAGNA OUT OF SANREMO FESTIVAL

BREAKING ALAGNA NEWS! PLEASE CREDIT OPERA CHIC!

Opera Chic has just learned that Roberto Alagna has bowed-out of his upcoming appearance at the Sanremo festival.

More in a sec...

vvvvvv UPDATE vvvvvv

Link here, which is Pippo Baudo's official roll-call for the Sanremo festival, and doesn't mention Alagna. Go on: Control+F for the "A-word". Good luck finding it! 

In addition to the entire cast/crew of the recent La Scala Aida, Alagna has clearly burned his existing bridges with Pippo "ex-husband of Katia Ricciarelli who beats-up hecklers outside of the opera house" Baudo, Director and M.C. of the entire Sanremo Festival. Alagna has also burned his bridges with songwriters Guido Morra and Maurizio Fabrizio, who specifically wrote Alagna an original song ("Schiavo d'Amore") that he was supposed to live-debut at the festival.

The affair comes down purely to scheduling, which Alagna flubbed, and just doesn't have capacity for.

His opening night at the Vienna Staatsoper for Massenet’s Manon is on Saturday, March 3, 2007, which is coincidentally the climax and closing-night of the Sanremo festival. Therefore, the only feasible slot for Alagna's Sanremo appearance would have been on Friday, March 2, 2007, which is designated for all the super-stars.

One can only guess that Vienna was all like AW HELL NAW when they realized that Alagna wouldn't be present for the final, general rehearsal the night before their Manon la prima.

Can someone gift this boy a filo-fax or something?

IMAGE MACRO TIME!!!

It is important to remember that Alagna was the one who asked Baudo to appear in the 2007 Sanremo Festival. NOT the other way around. Baudo's old quote states:

"'Esprimo grande solidarieta' nei confronti del tenore Alberto Alagna per quanto accaduto alla Scala. Confermo che Alagna mi ha chiesto di partecipare al prossimo Festival. [Trans: I confirm that Alagna asked me to participate in the next Festival] E' una candidatura eccezionale che dara' prestigio internazionale alla manifestazione"'

ALAGNA! What lies are these?!

D-Day for Alagna's Sanremo Decision

One of the most bizarre moments in the off-the-charts bizarre Roberto Alagna saga, i.e. Alagna's apparent plan to sing a pop song at the horribly lowbrow pop music Sanremo festival will be confirmed in the next few hours, so stay tuned for more breaking news tomorrow.

Now, even if you blind yourself to the obvious lameness of the Festival itself -- no rational opera star of Alagna's stature would appear there unless they willfully decide to jump that crossover shark, like, 4evar -- Alagna's problem is that he has, for the same week in March, a slightly more pressing engagement: he's also scheduled to appear at the Wiener Staatsoper for la prima of Massenet’s Manon, as Opera Chic reported here and here.

Hmmmm. Tough decision there. As a "super-star" lol, Alagna would obviously be asked by the Sanremo producers to appear on the super-popular slot for the evening of Saturday, March 3, 2007, live, smack in the middle of prime time.

However, that is the opening night of the Vienna Manon. It seems as if our good ol' Sicilian boy has overbooked himself (again), and will either piss-off the Viennese or the Sanremesi. As Opera Chic reported last month:

Interviewer: “You accepted the offer to sing at Sanremo, but it will happen the same day of your la prima in Vienna Manon Lescaut [sic: here the Il Giorno journalist makes a mistake: she writes Manon Lescaut, but it’s really Massenet's Manon], and how will you manage to do that?’”

Alagna: “’We shall see: Everything is possible, if one wants…or I can go to Sanremo as a special guest.’”

Make sure to visit Opera Chic tomorrow for the answer to these pressing (well, all is relative) questions.

The curse of Alagna strikes Opera Chic again!

I promise I will post about Muti’s Don Pasquale later, but first I must report now on two interviews that have been published in today’s Italian press.

First, from La Stampa, “singer” Andrea Bocelli goes on the record, defending Alagna’s actions and calling him a great musician, with the headline, "Andrea Bocelli defends his friend Alanga”. Here Opera Chic translated a few choice quotes.

Question: "Pippo Baudo, who has been your mentor in Sanremo, has invited you to the Sanremo festival again this year."

Bocelli: "No, I won’t go. And anyway, Alagna will be there, and that’s enough [of a star presence for one festival]."

Question: "What do you think of Alagna leaving the stage at La Scala during Aida?"

Bocelli: "I suffer deeply when such things happen. Alagna is right. Singers are not protected anymore. The world that boos them is a very sad world. When an artist has studied, has trained, and has been green-lighted by a conductor like Chailly, they should not be afraid of anything. Maybe Alagna was sick that night. It’s just not civilized behavior to boo. But I don’t know what I would have done had I been in his shoes."

Question: "But is the right thing to do to leave the stage?"

Bocelli: "We all react in our own personal way. To leave may simply mean that you don’t feel like going on anymore. Behind what appears, there is always much more. Alagna is a great singer. In the United States, I have even bought one of his albums. I am quite positive that he did not deserve those boos."

Question:" What about the cancellation of Alagna’s following commitments for Aida?"

Bocelli: "Those cancellations stemmed from purely political issues."

Also in today's Corriere della Sera is a long interview with Franco Zeffirelli, that asks again for the director to speak about Alagna’s behavior the night of his booing at Teatro alla Scala. Here are some quotes:

Zeffirelli says, “Alagna’s coup de théâtre? It has really been a grave folly on his part. He is impossible to defend. It is useless that he blames other situations on his failure. Maria Callas once left Norma because she had a very high fever, and her voice was just not there. But she completed the Act anyway, and loggionisti were screaming things like, ‘You are a hen, and you get paid for it!’”

“Boos belong inherently to the history of musical theater, and almost all singers have been booed at least once. Even Carlo Bergonzi, one of the greatest Radames was booed. Radames is a terrible role, and it’s just not ideal for Alagna, who managed to pulled it off very well regardless. But some sort of dissent must always be accepted. What a shame, really.”

“In April in Rome, I will direct La Traviata with Alagna and his wife Angela. I have always loved them both, even now after everything.”

“In the meantime, Alagna will go to Sanremo where, after his sceneggiata [ed: Zeffirelli uses this word to describe Alagna’s poor actions at La Scala; the Italian word is a very popular, low-brow Neapolitan traditional, sentimental theater for the average working guy] at La Scala, he will really enjoy a triumph. But that is a different profession. If he wants to gain his credibility back in the world of opera, he will have to commit very seriously.”

“La Traviata could be the perfect occasion. I’m thinking of staging a very erotic La Traviata. It will be like the one that Verdi certainly imagined, but was not able to make explicit living in his historical times.”

“Violetta suffers from tuberculosis/consumption, and those who suffer from that sickness are famously over-sexed people. I would like Eros to be palpable on stage, and since I have two very beautiful singers who really love each other in real life, there is no better occasion to do it.”

Oh great. Now that I have washed my hands of the Alagnas, I can't wait for the Rome La Traviata.

What if they boo him in Sanremo, too?

Now that the fiasco at La Scala has left us in the chaotic aftermath of Alagna's hasty decisions, what remains is the mess of scheduling that he will undoubtedly have to cleanse. One of the many diplomatic mistakes that Alagna committed, even before shunning his crew and colleagues at the traditional aperitivo with the media the Saturday afternoon before La Prima (as Opera Chic had previously reported here), is his frankly baffling decision to go to the horribly low-brow pop music festival Sanremo (as Opera Chic previously reported here).

What's even more baffling is that even though Pippo Baudo (the super-lame Director/MC of the festival and the ex-husband of Katia Ricciarelli) wanted Alagna to perform in the hottest slot of the festival (which falls on Saturday, March 3, 2007), Alagna's schedule betrays him, and states that he is disposed. Disappointing for the Sanremo staff, seeing that for the occasion of Alagna agreeing to sing at the festival, two lamer songwriters Guido Morra and Maurizio Fabrizio had agreed to write him an original song, which Alagna promises to sing on the show: "Schiavo d'Amore", (Slave to Love). ewww, lame.

Well, that special slot that Alagna has overbooked, happens to be the *same* night that he has committed himself to a slightly more important appointment: Interpreting Chevalier Des Grieux for opening night of at Massenet’s Manon (with Anna Netrebko) at the Wiener Staatsoper.

No doubt, Alagna will have to appease both his ego and the Sanremo staff, and graciously decline the huge bonus super-star spotlight on Saturday, March 3, 2007, and instead, defer to an earlier, less-glamorous appearance Thursday or Friday.

Regardless, I can’t imagine that the Vienna State Opera management will be pleased with the tenor’s decision to be in transit the night before he is to be singing at opening night: flying back and forth from Vienna to Italy and then having to be driven to the small, airport-lacking Italian-town close to the French border? To you, Opera Chic readers, the answer.

And now please allow Opera Chic to get a few precious hours of sleep before waking-up tomorrow morning; she needs to be awake early to confirm a wild rumor she has received by SMS message around midnight...see you laters, Alagna-haters! v(º_o)v