Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.
Posted by John Schultz on 03 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
For a mere 49 euros, you will be able to watch and download this year’s Bayreuth performance of “Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg.” But there’s only 10,000 “tickets” available.
Someone please tell them you don’t need a “ticket” to watch on the Internet…
Posted by John Schultz on 03 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: News
Would you rather run the Metropolitan Opera, or be the Master Carpenter?
It turns out both are making some crazy cash.
The Met’s General Manager pulled down $1,000,000 last year.
The Met’s Master Carpenter pulled down $533,450.
That’s alot of wood.
Posted by John Schultz on 03 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: News
This doen’t sound like a crossover artist. It sounds like a drive-by shooting.
An NHS dentist has just been signed up in a £1m record deal by SonyBMG, it was announced today. Andrew Bain, 34, who had worked in a North London dental practice for ten years, was noticed by Sony executives after he send in a demo tape containing his operatic interpretation of Prince’s pop classic, ‘Purple Rain’. …the whole thing
Posted by John Schultz on 02 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: Great Recordings, News
That headline sounds like a bad children’s book. And Alagna’s tantrum after getting booed in the opening minutes of Aida at La Scala is the kind of thing that you’d see in one.
Listen for yourself - it’s not a great ending to “Celeste Aida,” and it certainly doesn’t sound like the rest of the performance is going to be good. Alagna has supertenor status in Europe, but that can’t shield him from a mediocre live performance in the land where opera was born. And it looks like he won’t be going back to La Scala any time soon.
Alagna at his best are recordings like these:
Sacred Songs with a wonderful O Holy Night track (in french of course) and the obscure “La Procession” by Cesar Franck - a piece that is beautiful and quintessentially Catholic.
His opera arias CD is excellent too.
Posted by John Schultz on 02 Jul 2008 | Tagged as: News
A smart cookie, that Ben Heppner: try out one of the most difficult roles in the heldentenor repertoire in a Wagnerian backwater.
Heppner trying on Siegfried in Aix-en-Provence
His performance at Saturday night’s premiere was in some respects a triumph and in others a work in progress.
For sheer visceral excitement, nothing beats the sound of Heppner’s lean, muscular high notes cutting through the orchestra at full volume _ and this orchestra was the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the finest in the world. The freshness and vigor of his declaration of love to Bruennhilde near the end of Act 3, “Sei mein, sei mein, sei mein!” (”Be mine!”) resonated through the Grand Theatre de Provence with thrilling clarity and punch.
That this came at the end of a long night _ three acts, each lasting more than an hour, with his character rarely off stage _ made it even more remarkable.
Heppner showed his newness to the part a few times: too much eye contact with the conductor early on, one or two missed entrances, a bit of holding back in the sword-forging scene. In Act 3 there were a few rough patches in the middle register when he had to sing softly, the only hint of vocal fatigue.
It’s ironic that Wagner wrote the role of his young superhero with such strenuous vocal demands that it can be sung only by a tenor whose voice has fully matured, typically in early middle age. Heppner, a 52-year-old Canadian with a bulky physique, is not going to make anyone think he’s a teenager, but he runs about the stage energetically and assumes a wide-eyed innocence that helps make him believable.
Posted by John Schultz on 25 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Since being a tenor is not all about the high C, this is not my cup of tea. Still, tenor voyeurs and opera enthusiasts may enjoy this from YouTube: Guess the tenor by the High C.
Posted by John Schultz on 05 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: Videos
Who doesn’t like Dmitri Hvorostovsky? He even makes this noisy Mussorgsky song enjoyable.
Posted by John Schultz on 01 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: Great Recordings
Domingo is by far the best of the three tenors - and the proof is in listening to live recordings like this one from Act III of Massenet’s Werther with a young Domingo and Brigette Fassbaender.
Posted by John Schultz on 30 May 2008 | Tagged as: Videos
Anne Sofie von Otter does a wonderful job, even without the tenor.
And for those of you who want to hear with the tenor, here’s the amazing James King and Karan Armstrong. Somebody tell me where I can buy this on DVD…
Posted by John Schultz on 30 May 2008 | Tagged as: News
Desperate times led to a remarkable solution in Verdi’s “Aida” at the Benedum Center last night: The conductor stepped in to sing for an ailing tenor.
That would be amazing enough, except that Antony Walker, the Pittsburgh Opera’s music director, didn’t leave the podium. In a rare occurrence indeed in the opera world, Mr. Walker conducted and sang the role of Radames in the final act of the opera while the tenor acted the role on stage.
“I trained as a singer for seven years and sometimes it comes in handy,” Mr. Walker said after the performance. “I never had to sing and conduct before and I hope I never have to do it again!”
Yesterday, tenor Vladimir Kuzmenko, cast as Radames, came down with the same bug that has sidelined mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe. Pittsburgh Opera management yesterday decided to fly in a tenor to sing the role if Mr. Kuzmenko couldn’t make it through the performance. But Eduardo Villa’s flight was delayed and Mr. Kuzmenko lost his voice by the end of the third of four acts.
Panic? No. Not when you have a tenor in the pit. Christopher Hahn, the Opera’s artistic director, knocked on Mr. Walker’s door and said, “Can you do it”?
“Act 4 is light and lyrical; It was feasible;” said Mr. Walker, who already had been steeling himself for the possibility. “It was the only way we could continue the opera.” …full article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette