Finally a day off! It's been a brutal week with me catching the 4th flu of the year (I really have got to get out of Riverside, CA before too long. I had gone 3 yrs without a flu before I moved up here last December. This place is really bad for me!), but still having to go back to work the first day after the fever finally broke. It seemed the whole town of Redlands knew the Thai resto I've been working at finally had a bartender in residence again after 4 days, and we were absolutely swamped for 3 straight days. I'm telling you, people start drinking martinis and other hard core cocktails at lunch time here!
Anyhow, I somehow survived, but was quite something of a post-halloween zombie this morning until I stumbled onto this awesome audio upload of the Alcina broadcast from the Paris Opera in 2004. It stars Luba Orgonasova (Alcina), Vesselina Kasarova (Ruggiero), Vivica Genaux (Bradamante), Patrizia Ciofi (Morgana), Toby Spence (Oronto), and Luca Pisaroni (Melisso)!
That was VK's first foray into the Handelian repertoire, I think, and a marvelous treat to start a day off with!
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Innsbruck, of all places!
By now most of my fellow fans of the Bulgarian - Swiss operatic mezzo soprano Vesselina Kasarova would probably have heard of her run in, a few days ago, with a couple of muggers in Innsbruck ahead of her scheduled performances as Fidalma in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto. Frau Kasarova is one tough cookie and operatically screamed off her attackers, but not before getting roughed up enough to require the cancellation of her appearance and a return home to recuperate.
She is reportedly recovering okay, considering the circumstances. We fans are still quite shocked by the incident, of course! (Honestly... of all places for this to happen!) I'm personally in awe as to how well she handled the whole experience. Shame on the two perpetrators and may they never forget her voice.
Sending the White Shirt Republic's favorite dame all the best of wishes for a complete and speedy recovery. Gute Besserung, Frau Kasarova!
She is reportedly recovering okay, considering the circumstances. We fans are still quite shocked by the incident, of course! (Honestly... of all places for this to happen!) I'm personally in awe as to how well she handled the whole experience. Shame on the two perpetrators and may they never forget her voice.
Sending the White Shirt Republic's favorite dame all the best of wishes for a complete and speedy recovery. Gute Besserung, Frau Kasarova!
Monday, May 2, 2016
Guest Review: Vesselina Kasarova in Verdi's Rigoletto at Opera Bastille
The following review of the current run of Verdi's Rigoletto (with particular attention on our mutual favorite singer, Vesselina Kasarova) in Paris is guest-posted here courtesy of John Carnegie of Scotland. Thanks very much, John!
VESSELINA KASAROVA IN “RIGOLETTO” AT THE OPÉRA BASTILLE IN PARIS ON 14TH APRIL 2016
Through shuffling round work assignments, I managed to attend the second performance of the Opéra National de Paris’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto at their unlovely Opéra Bastille venue – a vast and gloomy barn of a building that makes the New York MET seem almost intimate by comparison.
Vesselina Kasarova was billed to play the comparatively minor role of Maddalena, the assassin’s sister/accomplice who causes the downfall of the title character and his daughter by succumbing to the charms of the opera’s philandering baddie, the Duke. Given that Maddalena does not show up on stage until the very last scene of a long evening and that VK had cancelled her announced appearances on the two previous occasions that I had booked to see her, there was always a doubt in my mind as to whether she would turn up this time for a task that might seem somewhat beneath her. On the other hand, the fact that Maddalena is a prominent participant in the Quartet (for my money, the single most sublime passage of music in the whole history of opera) made for a compelling reason to hope against hope that VK might actually appear. Well, she did and to great effect.
Before one got through to her eventual entrance, however, one had to surmount the hurdles of the visuals on offer. Claus Guth was on directing duties and his typically high concept piece of “regie-theater” proved to be a very mixed blessing. The curtain rose at the start to reveal the figure of “Rigoletto’s Double”, a mimed role who represented Rigoletto looking back retrospectively on the events of the opera by mourning over the contents of a brown cardboard box he carried: his ex-jester’s costume and the blood-stained robe of his deceased daughter. This distracting figure was onstage throughout the evening and his non-stop gurning succeeded in constantly pulling the focus from Quinn Kelsey’s portrayal of the singing version of the title character.
As the set unfurled around the “Double”, it quickly became evident that it represented a gigantic sideways version of the cardboard box he carried. Brown cardboard is a very drab surface indeed and (combined with mostly monochrome costumes) made for a visually dull experience. However, that proved to VK’s great benefit. When she made her entrance in sparkling black thigh-high boots, a tight-fitting jump suit surmounted by a top hat a la Marlene Dietrich and carrying off a choreographed Las Vegas-inspired routine backed by a bevy of half-naked showgirls, this was the first visual excitement of the evening and the audience rose to the spectacle and VK’s panache in accomplishing it. This compensated for the fact that she was having to deal with the inconsiderate accompaniment of Nicola Luisotti – one of the breed of conductors whose head is mostly in the score and rarely paying attention to the performers on the stage. He spent much of the evening drowning out the singers with his vast orchestra. Fortunately, VK managed to gradually overcome this unwarranted competition – first in a very telling contribution to the Quartet and then in her successful attempt to put some backbone into Rafał Siwek’s dour assassin. Her portrayal could definitely be counted as a success and was richly rewarded with the audience’s applause at the curtain call.
As for the three principal roles, Quinn Kelsey made for a touching Rigoletto and often managed to command the stage (despite the distractions of his “Double”). Michael Fabiano’s Duke was a less compelling assumption and was the singer who suffered most from being swamped by the orchestra. Still, he perked up greatly in the last act – spurred on perhaps by the attentions of VK and the dancing showgirls. The star of the evening though was Olga Peretyatko’s Gilda: pin-sharp in her coloratura and hugely affecting throughout. Her final appearance was particularly moving. In one of Herr Guth’s happier inventions, Gilda does not spend her last minutes onstage in a sack but as a disembodied spirit diagonally traversing the stage as she disappears from her father into eternity. It was not just Ms Peretyatko’s nationality, talent and looks but also her manner that brought to mind a young Anna Netrebko. The packed audience took her to their collective hearts and gave her a huge round of applause at the curtain call. It was notable that VK (who has always been demonstrably appreciative of her fellow performers onstage) was particularly enthusiastic in her applause for Ms Peretyatko.
The current run of performances of Rigoletto in Paris is playing through to the end of May and VK (unlike her fellow principals) is scheduled to appear in all of them. If you go on the 14th and 30th of May, you will not get the benefit of Ms Peretyatko’s Gilda but you will at least be spared Mr Luisotti’s conducting. So, is it worth braving the travails of getting through the oppressive security arrangements of contemporary Paris (post Charlie Hebdo, the most militarised city in the western world) and enduring some of the vagaries of Herr Guth’s production? On the whole (and particularly for VK and Olga Peretyatko), I would say yes.
*******
VESSELINA KASAROVA IN “RIGOLETTO” AT THE OPÉRA BASTILLE IN PARIS ON 14TH APRIL 2016
Through shuffling round work assignments, I managed to attend the second performance of the Opéra National de Paris’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto at their unlovely Opéra Bastille venue – a vast and gloomy barn of a building that makes the New York MET seem almost intimate by comparison.
Vesselina Kasarova was billed to play the comparatively minor role of Maddalena, the assassin’s sister/accomplice who causes the downfall of the title character and his daughter by succumbing to the charms of the opera’s philandering baddie, the Duke. Given that Maddalena does not show up on stage until the very last scene of a long evening and that VK had cancelled her announced appearances on the two previous occasions that I had booked to see her, there was always a doubt in my mind as to whether she would turn up this time for a task that might seem somewhat beneath her. On the other hand, the fact that Maddalena is a prominent participant in the Quartet (for my money, the single most sublime passage of music in the whole history of opera) made for a compelling reason to hope against hope that VK might actually appear. Well, she did and to great effect.
Before one got through to her eventual entrance, however, one had to surmount the hurdles of the visuals on offer. Claus Guth was on directing duties and his typically high concept piece of “regie-theater” proved to be a very mixed blessing. The curtain rose at the start to reveal the figure of “Rigoletto’s Double”, a mimed role who represented Rigoletto looking back retrospectively on the events of the opera by mourning over the contents of a brown cardboard box he carried: his ex-jester’s costume and the blood-stained robe of his deceased daughter. This distracting figure was onstage throughout the evening and his non-stop gurning succeeded in constantly pulling the focus from Quinn Kelsey’s portrayal of the singing version of the title character.
As the set unfurled around the “Double”, it quickly became evident that it represented a gigantic sideways version of the cardboard box he carried. Brown cardboard is a very drab surface indeed and (combined with mostly monochrome costumes) made for a visually dull experience. However, that proved to VK’s great benefit. When she made her entrance in sparkling black thigh-high boots, a tight-fitting jump suit surmounted by a top hat a la Marlene Dietrich and carrying off a choreographed Las Vegas-inspired routine backed by a bevy of half-naked showgirls, this was the first visual excitement of the evening and the audience rose to the spectacle and VK’s panache in accomplishing it. This compensated for the fact that she was having to deal with the inconsiderate accompaniment of Nicola Luisotti – one of the breed of conductors whose head is mostly in the score and rarely paying attention to the performers on the stage. He spent much of the evening drowning out the singers with his vast orchestra. Fortunately, VK managed to gradually overcome this unwarranted competition – first in a very telling contribution to the Quartet and then in her successful attempt to put some backbone into Rafał Siwek’s dour assassin. Her portrayal could definitely be counted as a success and was richly rewarded with the audience’s applause at the curtain call.
As for the three principal roles, Quinn Kelsey made for a touching Rigoletto and often managed to command the stage (despite the distractions of his “Double”). Michael Fabiano’s Duke was a less compelling assumption and was the singer who suffered most from being swamped by the orchestra. Still, he perked up greatly in the last act – spurred on perhaps by the attentions of VK and the dancing showgirls. The star of the evening though was Olga Peretyatko’s Gilda: pin-sharp in her coloratura and hugely affecting throughout. Her final appearance was particularly moving. In one of Herr Guth’s happier inventions, Gilda does not spend her last minutes onstage in a sack but as a disembodied spirit diagonally traversing the stage as she disappears from her father into eternity. It was not just Ms Peretyatko’s nationality, talent and looks but also her manner that brought to mind a young Anna Netrebko. The packed audience took her to their collective hearts and gave her a huge round of applause at the curtain call. It was notable that VK (who has always been demonstrably appreciative of her fellow performers onstage) was particularly enthusiastic in her applause for Ms Peretyatko.
The current run of performances of Rigoletto in Paris is playing through to the end of May and VK (unlike her fellow principals) is scheduled to appear in all of them. If you go on the 14th and 30th of May, you will not get the benefit of Ms Peretyatko’s Gilda but you will at least be spared Mr Luisotti’s conducting. So, is it worth braving the travails of getting through the oppressive security arrangements of contemporary Paris (post Charlie Hebdo, the most militarised city in the western world) and enduring some of the vagaries of Herr Guth’s production? On the whole (and particularly for VK and Olga Peretyatko), I would say yes.
*******
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Guest Announcement: San Diego Opera Listening Tour Series
San Diego Opera Announces Listening Tour Series
Tour will see San Diego Opera’s General Director, David Bennett, engaging the community to explore how the Company can best
serve San Diegans
San
Diego, CA – San Diego Opera is proud to announce a listening tour
series that will bring the Company’s General Director, David Bennett,
out into the community to explore
how the Company can best serve its citizens as it looks towards its
next 50 years. These interactive conversations will take place in four
different regions of San Diego County – Central (at the Natural History
Museum in Balboa Park), North County (at the
Museum of Making Music), La Jolla (at The Scripps Institute Research
Center) and South Bay (at the Chula Vista Masonic Temple). Using
smartphone technology, these multi-media conversations will allow
participants to respond to questions in real time and drive
the conversation about the future of San Diego Opera.
“What
is opera? What do you like about opera? What might you want to see
different? Is opera too long? Too expensive? If you were General
Director of San Diego Opera,
what would you do to ensure the Company was thriving fifty year from
now? These are just some of the questions I will engage the community in
during this listening tour,” shares David Bennett. “What made San Diego
so attractive to me is that the community
had taken an active role in the opera’s future, having saved it in
2014. The diversity of San Diego is what makes this city so wonderful,
and it is my goal to make San Diego Opera an organization that serves
the community. To do this, we are going to do something
the Company has never done before: listen to you.”
The listening tours are free and open to the public but registration is required and can be made at:
http://www.sdopera.org/engage/listen. Refreshments and wine will
be served. Participants can also win opera tickets and other prizes.
Participants should attend the listening tour with a fully charged
smartphone, tablet, or laptop capable of internet
access through a cellular network to interact with the questions and
real time polls that will be part of the program. In order to better
evaluate aggregated responses, participants will be sent a short,
confidential questionnaire from our market research
partner Q2 Insights to be completed before attending the event.
Dates and locations for the San Diego Opera Listening Tour are:
Central: Thursday, March 31, 2016 at 6 PM – The Nat (in the Charmaine and Maurice Kaplan
Theater). 1788 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101.
La Jolla: Thursday, April 28 at 6 PM – The Auditorium at The Scripps Research Institute.
10620 John J Hopkins Dr., San Diego, CA 92121.
North County: Thursday, May 19 at 6 PM - The Museum of Making Music. 5790 Armada Dr,
Carlsbad, CA 92008
South Bay: Thursday, June 16, at 6 PM – The Chula Vista Masonic Lodge. 732 3rd Ave,
Chula Vista, CA 91910
The San Diego Opera Listening Tour is made possible with support from Q2 Insights. For more information visit us online at:
http://www.sdopera.org/engage/listen.
The 2015-2016 International Season
René Barbera in Recital
September 19, 2015
Patricia Racette “Diva on Detour”
November 14, 2015
Tosca Giacomo Puccini
February 13, 16, 19 and 21 (mat), 2016
Ferruccio Furlanetto in Concert
March 5, 2016
Madama Butterfly Giacomo Puccini April
16, 19, 22 and 24 (mat), 2016
Great Scott Jake Heggie
May 7, 10, 15 and 15 (mat), 2016
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Happy New Year (a bit late)
I'm afraid this past holiday season was rather hellish for yours truly, and really isn't something to talk about. I finally made it back home on Tuesday, though, and spent a lot of time since reacquainting myself with my own bed while trying to excise a nasty strand of virus and a whole lot of tracheal lining... and sort of scaring my roommate to death with the associated noises.
Anyhow, I think it's safe to say now that I'll probably live, since I've been able to spend more than an hour upright today and even found me a rather nice surprise on Youtube that I think fellow lovers of classical music and the fiddling ability of one Lisa Batiashvili would enjoy. Here it is!
Happy New Year, one and all. Look ahead and brave new world!
Anyhow, I think it's safe to say now that I'll probably live, since I've been able to spend more than an hour upright today and even found me a rather nice surprise on Youtube that I think fellow lovers of classical music and the fiddling ability of one Lisa Batiashvili would enjoy. Here it is!
Happy New Year, one and all. Look ahead and brave new world!
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