Thank you. I just had it hung. Los Angeles mixed media artist Pae White's mesmerizing, crumpled tinfoil curtain at the Oslo Opera House fractures the traditional red velvet curtain and kind of beats the pants off of Hockney's iPad-sketched textile for the Wiener Staatsoper (below). From this month's AD.
You pose topless for an erotic photo and you get canned from your job. It's happened to the best of us. Last August, Russian ballerina Karina Sarkissova posed for secks magazine Wiener (oh the punny) and was fired a short time later by Director of Wiener Staatsballett, Dominique Meyer.
German soprano Diana Damrau covers her sweet goldilocks with an angsty razor cut for Jules Massenet's Manon, which opened at the Wiener Staatsoper last week. Conducted by Betrand de Billy, Damrau is in the title role as Ms. Lescaut vs. Ramón Vargas's Des Grieux. New Yorkers barely have to waitfor Damrau to sing again in NYC because she kicks-off her Big Apple takeover on January 24 at Carnegie Hall, where she's singing against James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for Beethoven's 5th and a Strauss/Schubert program.
Damn-Wow continues in February at NYC's Metropolitan Opera as Marie for Fille du Régiment(with Juan Diego Flórez as Tonio and Kiri Te Kanawa as the Duchess) and Rosina in Barbiere.
OC's still not over a missed Damn-Wow performance at La Scala early Fall 2009 when her friends reported back to her in NYC with tales of smelling salts and tears.
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin @ Vienna's State Opera (in the cast, Nadia Krasteva, Tamar Iveri, Simon Keenlyside) conducted by Seiji Ozawa and directed by Falk Richter, premieres on March 7 and marks the debut on the operatic stage of Jennifer Aniston (Opera Chic, once upon a time, had come out in favor of Team Aniston basically in a lesser-of-two-evils choice over the appalling Mlle Jolie).
La Jen appears on the cover of an old Russian GQ magazine, for reasons better left unsaid by Herr Doktor Richter.
Shafted again! Angela Gheorghiu plays hooky tonight. Come 7:00 pm local Vienna time, Gheorghiu will be nowhere near Staatsoper Wien for her appearance as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust with IRL hubby Roberto Alagna as scheduled.
'Tho the secondary cast is Piotr Beczala for Alagna's Faust and Soile Isokoski for Gheorghiu's Marguerite, soprano Alexandra Reinprecht has been called in tonight to sub as the jeweled lady.
The terrible twosome ~Clan Alagna~ have lately been streaking through cancellations left and right. First a double walkout on a live radio program in Vienna, then Roberto Alagna canceled his scheduled appearance at the Pavarotti Tribute Concert in Petra, Jordan (as so kindly pointed out by la Diva herself, Cynthia Lawrence). Now it's Angela's turn for a solo bounce. We're wondering if she ate undercooked Mansaf in Jordan? Or is she just playing hard to get?
We found her chillaxing at the Sacher Spa, and really, who can blame her? Here she is channeling Celine Dion, rehearsing her upcoming role as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust for the Wiener Staatsoper (premiering October 11, 2008) with chubby hubby Roberto Alagna.
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Opera's unflappable duo is getting ready to unleash their vocal terror on the unsuspecting Viennese, as seen in rehearsal for the October 11, 2008 premiere of Gounod's Faust at the Wiener Staatsoper. Roberto Alagna will sing the title role, partnered with Marguerite sung by Angela Gheorghiu. Korean singer Kwangchul Youn rounds out the duo singing Méphistopélès. Bertrand de Billy conducts, and we'll sit back and wait for the reviews. Where's Angela? Your guess is as good as ours.
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(Kwangchul Youn...doing his thang)
Captioning this dress rehearsal image of Siegfried at Vienna's Staatsoper almost melted our MacBook Air's delicate aluminum shell, so we kind of give up.
Juha Uusitalo is Der Terminator Wanderer and Herwig Pecoraro is the Mime, and Sven-Eric Bechtolf directs. Opens on April 27, 2008 at a slaughterhouse near you.
Carlos Alvarez, Nina Stemme, Salvatore Licitra, Nadia Krasteva et al. in La forza del destino on stage at the Vienna opera house. Conducted by Zubin Mehta, directed by David Pountney, premieres March 1, 2008. Come one, come all to the drrrtiest little wh0arhaUs in Hornachuelos.
It's unusual to see such public vitriol at such high levels, even in the famously snarky world of opera.
A few days ago Scala GM Stéphane Lissner had snarked, in the press, Vienna and Munich, "where they don't rehearse as much and this has recently been the cause of substandard shows", in Italian "spettacoli di basso livello", literally translated as "low-level shows". "A Vienna ho visto un Don Giovanni di assoluta routine. Per il signor Holender non è mai troppo tardi per imparare", Lissner told Italian paper La Stampa: "In Vienna I saw a substandard Don Giovanni. For Mr. Holender is never too late to learn".
Yesterday Ioan Holender, Vienna's Staatsoper director has shot back with surprising vitriol, as reported in today's papers.
"This (attack) is unprecedented between opera houses: it is very embarrassing to engage in a dispute with someone who cannot read music but I understand Lissner needs to distract the Italian press from what is happening -- or better yet, not happening -- at la Scala".
"To cancel a new production (ed: the Andrea Chenier Opera Chic wrote extensively about) because the director and almost all of the cast have vanished is quite unusual and unbelievable for a opera house. With such attacks against my work Lissner disqualified himself, since he knows that I have been leading for 16 years the glorious Vienna opera with more than 60 operas in repertoire and more than 300 shows every season. Monsieur Lissner's envy is understandable when one sees that these days on the Vienna podium we have Christian Thielemann, Seji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta, who are among the world's greatest conductors. They are not at la Scala where, unfortunately, there is only Lissner: this is sad".
If we were Brits, we'd totally say: Blimey Guv'nor!
(click me click me yeah, everyone is waiting.)
Although we've already covered it extensively (here, too), we came across another video from the 2008 Vienna Opernball that we rilly rilly wanted to share. The raisin? A clip of José Carreras singing at the ball (unfortunately under some vary v a r y bad lighting), and then dancing a lovely waltz with Anna Netrebko in the Emperor's box.
Direct linking of the media is basically impossible, but you can try your luck here. If that didn't work, start here, and look for the video link called, "Video: Walzer und Fußball beim Wiener Opernball" in the middle of the page. Below are some screen shots for souvenirs, and OC included an idiot's guide to finding the easter egg below.
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Before Opera Chic decyphers her notes (hastily written in the back of a seriously chocolate-stained napkin from Demel), just a quick roundup – the review is coming later – on tonight’s production of Manon Lescaut at Vienna’s Staatsoper. We’ll write extensively tomorrow about the awesomeness of Fabio Armiliato’s and Daniela Dessì’s voices, but tonight we want to explain how, well, impressively not good the ideas Robert Carsen had for this staging, his second Manon Lescaut already, were.
We consider Carsen – together with David McVicar, Graham Vick, Nigel Lowery and a very few brilliant others who are mercifully under 70-years-old – the great hope for opera fans who hope to watch – and not just to listen – to some great shows in the future decades – Carsen is one of the kids whose responsibility it is to allow us not to go to the opera house wearing sleep masks to block out the sheer stupidity of the staging.
But, tonight we really wished we had kept one of those sweet green Alitalia sleep masks we wore last week coming back from the US (and not only because Alitalia’s imminent going out of business will turn them into cool retro memorabilia pretty soon).
Because Carsen is like one of those TV cops with a bad attitude and a lot of street smarts: all instincts and chutzpah, and when they get it right they crack the case before the next commercials appear; when they’re wrong, they’re like totally sending an innocent man to the chair because they’ve made themselves certain that he’s guilty, even when he’s clearly not.
Because when Carsen gets it the kicks major a$$ the way he did with his ethereal Dialogues des Carmelites and his otherworldly Iphigenie, to name just two, that are among the best productions we have ever seen; when he gets it wrong he either hammers already delicate material like Bernstein’s Candide into submission turning into something else and really damaging the piece in the process, or he simply ruins a perfectly good opera the way he did tonight with Manon Lescaut.
A first act where the students are dressed up in contemporary, GAP-style lam4r clothes and dance just like in one of those old GAP ads, only not as well, in a clap-ur-hands-say-yea fashion; where the action takes place in a mall where the women’s fashion is from the 1950s and the big props are shopping bags from Chanel and Gucci (big Puccini message: shopping bad, clapping hands like a moron good); Manon is decked out in a man’s shirt and navy trench coat just like those big stars from the DDR realist films from the 1950s (a sin especially unforgivable when the soprano is as milfatuation-worthy as Daniela Dessì, who’d really deserve better from her director and costume designer). Des Grieux instead wears an appalling black fake-leather coat over a sleeveless greenish hoodie (and good luck with that when the tenor isn’t as tall and slender and young-looking as Fabio Armiliato).
In the second act all hell breaks loose – it starts with Manon dressed out badly even as a rich woman, in a shapeless long black nightie that’s supposed to be a dress, we fear, underneath a premaman-like loose flowing purple jacket – evidently all the shopping didn’t help much since she’s made to look like a tree trunk, a good idea when the soprano weighs more than 200 pounds, a major sin when you have a soprano as attractive as Dessì. Impromptu photo shoots (with horribly stereotypical gay makeup artists prancing in various teapot stances and stealing Manon’s makeup in ways that make those black porters and maids from 1930s Hollywood movies look like models of sensitivity) follow; Manon and her chambermaids end the act gang-raped by Geronte and a bunch of soldiers dressed as the bad guys in the Matrix.
The third act’s best idea is a perp-walk of models that turns into a fashion show’s catwalk, with Paris Hilton-style celebrity justice and paparazzi shooting their flashlights like crazy, over and over, as the singers try to go on with the opera Puccini went to the trouble of writing.
In the final act, well, the desert is that same mall, with used-up shopping bags everywhere, and tons of money thrown everywhere (all the money in the world won’t buy you water, get it? Get it?? Get IT????).
In all this chaos, Dessi’s and Armiliato's singing was the usual wonder, as always, as if their voices come out of their throats already filtered and equalized and corrected by a sound engineer – they sound better live than most opera singers in studio recordings.
When in doubt, if they’re up on stage and the director is losing his pewp the way Carsen did tonight, just close your eyes. Or purchase score desk, partial view seats. (They’ll certainly beat our 70-dollars a pop seats at the Staatsoper – the least you see, the better in this case. Just listen, and dream.
In the historic picture above, Ioan Holender (left) and his designated successor Dominique Meyer organize an impromptu fashion show on the stairs of the glorious Vienna State Opera.
Even if the Staatsoper, like a certain Milanese institution, is at the present time long on chaos -- and on below-par performances -- but often short on present-day awesomeness, the victory of the black knee-hi sox over the terrible calzini corti is something to be cherished.
It's a good start.
(The prohibition of short-sleeved shirts -- with tie! -- is also another painful but necessary step that just had to be taken).
Exploring an off-season Salzburg turned-up a few destinations worthy of sharing with all of Opera Chic's music<3'ing readers. Stumbling upon CD store, musikhaus katholnigg, on Sigmund-Haffner-Gasse 16 (pictured above), gave the impression of who exactly holds popularity with the Salzburg crowd.
Browsing the stacks revealed a giant selection of Magdalena Kožená, Ceci Bartoli, Thomas Hampson, Natalie Dessay, Bryn Terfel, and Rolando Villazón. However, golden-boy Juan Diego Flórez held just one single CD spot, and Fleming just had two. However, they did have a few copies of the NTA Hampson & Ramey CD, so this store frikkin rules.
Autographed, signed 8x10s of famous singers and conductors flank the walls (image above), from Leontyne Price to Nicolai Ghiaurov to Mirella Freni to James Levine.
Now here are a few other images from the weekend in Salzburg.
^^^^^ (above) Oh hay there: Herbert von Karajan Platz, Salzburg.
^^^^(above) Mozart Platz, Salzburg.
^^^^^(above) Gigant0r Muti poster at the Großes Festspielhaus for his May Salzburger Pfingstfestspiele performance.
^^^^(above) Mozart Geburtshaus, Getreidegaße 9, Salzburg. teh bebbah mozart!
(Don't be fooled by his take-me-home-to-meet-your-parents smile. He's a playa!)
From Heldenplatz to the Hofburg Neue Burg to the Burggarten to Stephansplatz to Kartnerstrasse, they plague and stalk tourists as high potential cash-cows. They are the dreaded Vienna Mozart-men. Like how dogs and bees smell fear, the Vienna Mozart-men can sniff-out tourists from a mere trace of sweat alone.
I don't know how they do it -- these magic Mozart-men -- judging your tourist status from a subtle turn of the cuff, or a minimal sweep of hairstyle, or the make of a shoe. But they know instantly that you just tumbled from your high-thread-count Hotel Sacher piume comforter, and they race after you spewing more languages then you ever knew existed. If captured, their goal is to convince you into buying tickets for the Wiener Staatsoper, or any other secondary venue event for your visit. I usually beat them over the head with a rolled-up copy of my Kleine Zeitung.
For the WIENER MOZARTJAHR 2006, which marked the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth, twenty-eight well-known filmmakers living and working in Austria (entire list here and here) were commissioned to create one-minute films on the subject of Mozart. The output was diverse, and Opera Chic caught one of these "Mozart Minutes" during a screening of the documentary "Shadowing the Third Man" at the Burg Kino cinema on Opernring.
However, to my horror, just when I thought I had escaped those crafty Mozart-men stalkers in the safe darkness of the theater, there they were! Looming on the screen as part as one of those pre-feature commercial segments!1!!!!!11!!! omg!
The "Mozart Minute" playing on screen featured a mélange of nine of those ubiquitous Mozart-men relaying their names (Limani Mozart, Amari Mozart, Jordansky Mozart, Alin Mozart, etc.). Titled lol "Die Mozarts" lol ("The Mozarts"), the one-minute segment was created by "Deutsch.Schimek", which is a combination name of both Vienna-born, 60-something filmmakers Gustav Deutsch and collaborator Hanna Schimek. From the website comes the description of those crafty Mozart-men:
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - the advertising icon for the country of Austria - is brought to life in Vienna’s urban space every day by a multiethnic group of actors. Sellers of concert tickets in historic costumes and wigs stand around St. Stephan’s Square, at the State Opera House, at the Mozart monument, in front of the Burgtheater, trying to convince passing tourists to buy one."
Opera Chic was there for her readers (even before she had any)! On-the-fly, I captured the segment, and uploaded it to YouTube. Enjoy!
Clock's ticking for "clockwork tenor" Roberto Alagna: on Saturday night he's supposed to be on stage at the Vienna Staatsoper, for the Manon prima with Paris Hilton sidekick Anna Netrebko.
Slide show is here.
