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Trotsky did you hear about La Traviata?
Topic Started: Jan 3 2014, 12:42 PM (216 Views)
Alli
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Mistress, House of Cats
La Scala Opera in Milan opened another season with a revamped version of La Traviata.. At the end of the Opera when the stars came out for the final curtain call the tenor Piotr Beczala was boooed...... it was awful Seems the tradionalists hated the modern version of this opera and especially disliked Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov,
I did see some of the opera on you tube and I have to say La Traviata should have been left alone. Not every Opera has to be modernized and to make matters worse there was our tenor kneading bread and cutting up veggies for soup when he is supposed to be living off the avails off the heroine..... it was stupid there was a write up in another article going a little further into the debaucle.... But never mind the nonsense he has such a beautiful tenor voice smooth like honey and deserves far more respect given him by the snobbish elite opera crowd of La Scala.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt3AYTCHip4

THE ARTICLE RE:: LA SCALA's TRAVIATA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN7PyhTKyzg

Edited by Alli, Jan 3 2014, 12:43 PM.
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Trotsky
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Big City Boy
Thanks for the head up Alli and the links. I hadn't heard about the kerfuffle

Best chaos evening at the Met was back in the 1970's when Anna Moffo stood in for someone perhaps in Rigoletto and while still lovely to look at had no voice left. She croaked her way through the first scene and then hit a big aria, perhaps Caro nome and midway the audience started booing THOUSANDS of them. THe aria was stopped and the director came out and apologized saying Miss Moffo had a cold but is TRYING. Then out she came again even WORSE and the audience was on their feet booing her until she left.


LONG LONG pause and they got another young up and coming soprano in, at least 8 months pregnant, who finished the opera very nicely. Even YESTERDAY I remembered the replacement's name but it went POOF. If it comes to me in the next week, I'll let you know.
Now THAT was a night not to forget. I think Moffo never sang another opera.

The Met's audiences have become more sedate of late and nobody boos anymore, they just snooze. But then maybe the Met management has learned from the mistake of putting on former stars who can no longer sing.

p.s. I'm holding out for the ultimate LA TRAVIATA on the Starship Enterprise with Juan Diego Florez on the bridge and Renee Fleming dying of consumption kept only alive though the efforts of Doctor Scott (Dmitri Hvorostovsky.)

I'm not fond of jazzed up performances with few exceptiongs, like the current brilliant RING staging. It is so much better than the old one with papier mâché rocks and cheesy Styrofoam castles made to look real, but only looked cheap.
But yeah, who needs an AIDA set in a Chicago diner?


In my heart of hearts I think opera may die with our generation.
Edited by Trotsky, Jan 4 2014, 03:20 AM.
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Alli
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Mistress, House of Cats
I agree about the Ring Cycle a friend of mine went to the Byrueth festival when it was being performed and he hated it, did not like any of the modern scenes or making the Cycle digestible for everyone to enjoy of course if that's possible for a Wagnerian opera. I loved Manon Lescaut in the newer opera

Posted Image

Anna is stunning in anything she performs.....

Quote:
 
p.s. I'm holding out for the ultimate LA TRAVIATA on the Starship Enterprise with Juan Diego Florez on the bridge and Renee Fleming dying of consumption kept only alive though the efforts of Doctor Scott (Dmitri Hvorostovsky.)


That would be hilarious. laugh123 It is bad enough that Dmitri Hvorostovsky is playing in the "new" version of travatore...ughhh That anvil scene with all these clownish people running around horrible... Though if you close your eyes throughout the entire Opera you might enjoy it more.
I certainly hope Opera doesn't die with our generation. A few years ago I met a young woman with a friend of mine, she was an up and coming Opera singer from Australia. Her name Jessica Pratt I remember her because she too was a "Cat Lady" she loved her cats.... She was then modest lovely and i thought with a full career ahead of her. she has sung all over Europe and I love watching how far she has come!! Here are a couple of you tube. One with Leo Nucci from Riggeletto
The other a write up from Opera Today.

Listen to the end when she hits those high notes Beautiful....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvPWmIMZxv0

Bel-Canto Queen Jessica Pratt! read here

I think what will destroy opera are these large egotist producers who are trying to embark on something in their view unique in opera by tearing apart the classics infusing their own versions that Verdi or Puccinni or Rossini would be desperately trying to exit their graves and taking a good shot at them this Russian director with Traviata apparently has tried to modernize other operas but people just are not having it. What surprises me most though are artists like Placido Domingo would go along with some of the insane ideas. I would watch Dimitri prance around the stage in his underwear because he is stunning to look at in general...... laugh123 but Domingo wearing what looks like a tutu and stockings period costume just didn't do the eyes any good......yeah I know it's all about the voice , but the voice is starting to dim a little.....

The only chaos I can recall was going to see the soprano Teresa Stratas in concert at an Italian function in Toronto to where I was forced by my mother where she was the featured singer. My mother had the "weird" idea children should be exposed to all forms of music including the classics.. (Smart mom I did the same) They had other local vocalists and a very large woman wearing a very tight dress , she looked like an overly stuffed Calzone sausage laugh123 She went to curtesy at the end of her number the dress at the back exploded her ass broke through and of course the silence was deafening except for my brother snickering. oooh 02 laugh123
I have never forgotten that , poor lady but that's what you get trying to wear a size 2 when you are a 22 laugh123

I truly hope Opera is here for a very long time. What I would like to see done in traditional costume is La Rondine! One of my favourites but least done....

My favourite.......i just love her voice...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7EFmC4tQ7I

(you have to excuse all the spelling errors I am going through a bad day of chemo brain and can hardly remember how to spell my own name.) oooh 02
Edited by Alli, Jan 4 2014, 05:53 AM.
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Trotsky
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Big City Boy
I would like a Boris Gudonov with a Vladimir Putin type in the lead. Of course someone with his stature could never get the low notes.

Do you like the newer stuff like NIXON IN CHINA, TROUBLE IN TAHITI, SATYAGRAHA, EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH, THE PHOTOGRAPHER (last 3 all Glass?)
I think the world is ready for a revival of Operetta...everything except G&S. But yes to Candide, anything by Romberg, most of Friml. Need special voices though, half musical, half operatic. Even the Les Miserable and Phantom stuff could qualify.
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