Tag Archives: netrebko

Distorted mirrors

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Watching the recently released recording of the 2017 production of Giodarno’s Andrea Chénier from La Scala had me wondering why this piece isn’t done more often.  If it had been written by Puccini, and it might well have been, it would get done as often as Tosca, with which it has many similarities.  In the conscience stricken revolutionary Gérard it has one of the few multi-dimensional characters in verismo opera and the music, for Chénier in particular, has all the qualities that people listen to Puccini for.  I guess perhaps one needs at least a rough understanding of the events of the French revolution to really follow the plot as Giodarno, unlike Puccini, roots his work in actual history but still.  Opera fashion is very odd.(*)

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Spectacular Trovatore

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Regular readers of this blog would probably expect that, faced with a Zeffirelli production of Il Trovatore from the Verona Arena, I would run screaming for the hills.  The 2019 recording though piqued my interest.  The geek in me wanted to see how much difference 4K ultra HD made, having only so far been able to get my paws on a couple of such recordings.  I was also aware that it’s quite some time since I’ve heard Anna Netrebko and here she heads up a very appealing looking cast.  So I succumbed.

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Netrebko’s Manon

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manonlescautNot too many CDs of new opera recordings, at least of mainstream repertoire, come my way these days.  Studio recordings have become rare and the usual medium is a video recording, itself a spin off from a live broadcast; TV, cinema or web, of a live performance.  This makes sense to me.  Just listening to an opera has always seemed a second best.  Anyway, that’s all by way of saying that I was a bit surprised to find myself listening to a CD edition of a live recording of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut from the 2016 Salzburg Festival.  How did this recording happen you ask?  The answer is on the box, where Anna Netrebko in the title role, gets top billing, even over the composer.

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The week in prospect and other news

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There’s a lot on today.  Handel’s Ariodante opens at the COC at 2.30pm.  There’s also a concert featuring Russell Braun with the Amici Ensemble at 3pm in the Mazzoleni Concert Hall at the Conservatory.  The Elmer Iseler Singers and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir also have concerts.  Thursday sees the opening of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Opera Atelier with Wallis Giunta and Chris Enns as the lovers which promises both eye and ear candy.  That’s at the Elgin at 7.30pm.  Then on Saturday there’s Singing Stars of Tomorrow, the result of a Sondra Radvanovsky intensive, at the Alliance Française at 7.30 pm.  The line up is Valerie Belanger,soprano; Stephanie De Ciantis, soprano; Natalya Gennadi, soprano; Beth Hagerman, soprano; Jessica Scarlato, soprano; Sara Schabas, soprano; Caitlin Wood, soprano; Danielle MacMillan, mezzo-soprano; Marjorie Maltais, mezzo-soprano; Asitha Tennekoon, tenor.  Quite a mix, from people I’ve never heard of to one who has already made her COC debut.

In other news, the COC and Show One Productions have announced a gala concert to take place at the Four Seasons Centre on April 25th next year.  It’s billed (modestly) as Trio Magnifico: The Ultimate Opera Gala and the big draw is the Canadian debut of Anna Netrebko.  She will appear with  her husband tenor Yusif Eyazov and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  They will be accompanied by the COC Orchestra conducted by Jader Bignamini.  Given that Dima alone turned Koerner Hall into a frenzy of screaming Russian grannies, this could get interesting.

ROH cinema screenings return to Bloor Hotdocs

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15830210743_c7a53486abRoyal Opera House cinema screenings are back at the Bloor Cinema and it seems that the full season will be available.  ENO are you watching or is your sense of Ontario gepography akin to your business acumen?

First up, tomorrow, at noon they’re screening Giordano’s Andrea Chenier directed by David McVicar with Jonas Kaufmann and Eva-Maria Westbroek.

March 22nd sees Tim Albery’s production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer with Adrienne Pieczonka and Bryn Terfel.  Ms. Pieczonka will be on hand to introduce the piece.

On June 28th we get a new John Fulljames production of Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with Anne Sofie von Otter.

July 26th sees John Copley’s venerable production of Puccini’s La Bohème.  This production is almost as old as I am.  Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja play Mimi and Rodolfo.

Finally, on August 30th  we can see a new production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell directed by Damiano Michieletto with Antonio Pappano conducting. The cast includes Gerry Finley and Malin Bystrom.

1649 And All That

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Bellini’s I Puritani is one of those 19th century operas that dishes out a version of 16th or 17th century English history that’s all but unrecognisable to anyone with any actual knowledge of the subject.  In this case we are in Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the nasty Puritans want to off anyone with a Stuart connection including the widowed queen Henrietta.  Various implausibly named Puritan colonels (everyone in the New Model apparently holds that rank) feature as well as a Royalist earl who is, of course, in love with the Roundhead commander’s daughter.  Immediately prior to marrying her though he decides to save Henrietta from execution and escapes with her thus triggering the obligatory mad scene, which is probably the main reason for watching this thing at all.  Finally Arturo (the earl) returns, is captured and, inevitably, sentenced to death.  As he is being led to the block Cromwell’s messenger arrives with the second most improbable reprieve in all of opera.  The Stuarts have been defeated and everyone is pardoned.  A happy ending with fortissimo soprano high notes ensues.

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Babes in bodices

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After a less than satisfactory introduction to Donizetti’s Anna Bolena in a MetHD broadcast last year it was with some trepidation that I approached the DVD version recorded at the Wiener Staatsoper and also starring Anna Netrebko.  I need not have worried because it’s very good indeed.  It has a stronger cast, Eric Genovese’s relatively simple production trumps David McVicar’s overstuffed effort and Evelino Pido doesn’t try and make the orchestra sound like it’s playing Wagner.  The sound on the DVD is also way better than it was on that broadcast.

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L’Elisir di Steakhouse

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Today was the first MetHD broadcast of the season and we got Bartlett Sher’s new production of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore.  It’s what I would call a “steakhouse production”.  It’s like a meal in a top end steakhouse.  Your steak is a fine piece of meat, they don’t mess it up and ditto your baked potato.  And it’s all served in luxurious surroundings with attentive service.  It’s a terrific steak dinner but it costs the same as the tasting menu at a place with two Michelin stars and it’s still just a steak dinner.

So, a brilliant cast; Netrebko, Polenzani, Kwiecien and Maestri, singing and acting up a storm in a production that was pretty much devoid of ideas beyond a few odd costuming choices.  Since when did Italian peasant girls get to dress like they are attending a ball in a Jane Austen novel?  Still the girl singing Nanetta was cute and had the best dress.  Gary Halvorson’s video direction was about par for the course in terms of virtually incessant close-ups.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon but ultimately forgettable.

Maybe opera is not made for film… shit!

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So says Rolando Villazón towards the end of the “Making of” documentary that accompanies Robert Dornhelm’s 2008 film of Puccini’s La Bohème.  Fortunately for us Dornhelm, Villazón and the rest of those involved provide another piece of evidence that films of operas can indeed be made, and made very successfully.  This one is a curious hybrid.  It uses just about every technique that I’ve seen used in such a venture.  The whole thing was originally recorded in the studio and most of the film is lip-synched using a mixture of the singers and actors who weren’t art of the singing cast but some of the arias were sung on set to a taped orchestral track.  I’m not sure why and I couldn’t tell which was what.  It all works pretty well anyway.

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Netrebko and Villazon in Manon

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Massenet’s Manon is a glitzy 19th century set piece. It’s very French and very much a star vehicle.  In this 2007 production from the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, director Vincent Paterson’s decides to to stage it in the 1950s and make Manon somewhat cinema obsessed, in a narcissistic way, which works rather well.  It’s a self consciously glitzy affair with a bright gold curtain and technicians with Klieg lights following Manon much of the time.  Even the “squalid” bits are treated with glamour.  The only jarring element, deliberately I guess, is the use of giant reproductions of 19th century paintings as backdrops; notably Liberty Leading the People in Act 3.

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