My beloved venticinque lettori, I apologize for the thin postings of late. vilaine fille is in a strange place.
I am feeling very crotchety. (Example: Fed up with shoddy modern technology, I purchased a corded, rotary telephone.) I decided to cancel cable service upon realizing that the happiest and most productive times of my life were when I had no television. (Okay, I’m going to wait until after you-know-what to pull the plug. Allez les Bleus! Forza Azzurri!)
I’ve (uncharacteristically) taken to doing my own baking, drinking jet-fuel espresso, and using a bracingly sharp-and-rotund old-world fragrance.
I’m also kashering my kitchen. This has involved flinging cherished items I’ve had for decades, buying lots of new stuff (yay!), big-time scrubbing, much sloshing of boiling water… No blowtorching yet, but we’re getting there, and somehow my candy-ass self isn’t remotely panicked. What’s going on?
No answers for now, but here’s the stuff you’re really interested in reading.
- I didn’t attend the Volpe gala, sensing that it would be a bore. Based on what I heard on the radio, I made the right call. The only performances that struck me as gala-worthy were Pape’s “Ella giammai m’amò”—like buttah (but why in Italian?) and Zajick’s grand, elemental “O mon Fernand.”
Hvorostovsky was admirably long-breathed but also in his oh-it’s-Verdi-gotta-PUSH mode. (Nyet, nyet, moi drugh!) I have heard JDF sing the Semiramide aria better. I liked Fleming’s Trovatore more than I expected to, especially the ripe, juicy trills in “Di tale amor.” (A soprano who sings her trills! How retro-chic in this age of… Never mind.)
Novelty songs? Can’t be bothered. Dessay in Sonnambula? What do you expect an orfanella like vilaine fille to say?
I will not pick on the infirm and the superannuated, but someone, please, enlighten me: What in blazes do Roberto Alagna’s out-of-tune, marbles-in-his-mouth yawping, crooning, hollering, and bawling have to do with singing and music?
Please read the superb reports by sister Sieglinde and brothers JSU and Muori.
- I am getting, like, 200 hits a day from people searching for “Filianoti.” Could it be the dreaded pazza di Filianoti? Anyway, I caught a second Elisir, which was better than the first, though still worrisome in terms of oversinging. Filianoti received a long, rapturous confetti-shower at his curtain-call—not wholly deserved, in my view, though a sweet arrivederci to a lovable newcomer.
When I interviewed Don Peppino, he opined that Carmen needed to be sung in a true opéra-comique (and not verismo) style. Lo and behold, Filianoti takes on Don José under Marc Minkowski at the Châtelet in 2007. Minkowski, a master of légèreté, gives me hope (Magdalena Kozená gives a ravishing and true-to-herself account of Eboli’s Chanson du voile under Minkowski in her French recital); Don José gives me pause. (Villazón, another tenor who burns too hot for his own good, started going bad after adding Carmen to his repertoire.) Tocchiamo ferro.
- You need to see An Inconvenient Truth. I love and have always loved Al Gore, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. (A Harvard wonk—what’s not to love?)
- An e-mail from a perfect Wagnerite, miffed at my Parsifal review:
Are you Jewish? … Your review makes me yearn for the days of the camps.
- Two noteworthy events:
On Monday, 29 May, WNYC presents the Young People’s Chorus of New York City’s Transient Glory V concert as part of its American Music Festival. I’m not certain that Rufus Wainwright’s “Bloom” will be included in the broadcast (I’m trying to get confirmation), but with or without Rufola’s music, it’s a splendid program.
The smashing Aquila Theatre Company takes part in two Medea-related events: On 1 June, the NYU conference “Enacting Medea: Theatre, Opera, and Film”; and on 3 June, a Carnegie Hall concert performance of Cherubini’s opera Médée (including spoken dialogue).
Re: the "perfect Wagnerite" email, as we say down here, "la madre dei cretini è sempre incinta"...
Posted by: Giorgia | 27 May 2006 at 13:54