This blogger, Richard Gehr, is not an employee of AARP. The opinions expressed in the blog are not necessarily the opinions of AARP and AARP assumes no liability for the content posted by Mr. Gehr or any other participant
Richard Gehr | November 30, 2007
The Wagnerian machinations behind the Bayreuth Opera Festival became even more complex Wednesday with the death of Gudrun Wagner, 63, wife of festival director Wolfgang Wagner, the composer's grandson. Gudrun had long been the designated successor to Wolfgang, 88, but the couple had recently announced that their 29-year-old daughter, Katharina, would take over.
Meanwhile, Luciana Pavarotti's widow is suing two of the late tenor's former friends for $44 million, claiming they'd been spreading nasty rumors about the couple's relationship. And Opera Chic passes on the news that film director Gabriele Muccino has bought the rights to a Pavarotti biography published shortly after his death.
Richard Gehr | September 28, 2007
Soprano Natalie Dessay sings the fabulous Mad Scene ("Il Dolce Suono") from the New York Metropolitan Opera's new production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in these three videos. [via Opera Chic]
Richard Gehr | September 06, 2007
A sad year for opera, following the deaths of Beverly Sills and Jerry Hadley, continues with the loss of Luciano Pavarotti to pancreatic cancer this morning. While many tributes to the "King of the High Cs" will undoubtedly be scheduled, YouTube is a font of Pavarotti videos, both solo and with frequent duet partner Joan Sutherland. And Opera Chic is on the case, of course, beginning with this tribute:
Whenever we mention a phenomenon such as Juan Diego Florez, and his sometimes uncanny ability to produce a sound that we consider similar to the Platonic ideal of a tenor voice -- such as Tito Schipa's was -- we sometimes forget that Pavarotti's voice will be remembered as another gold standard just like Schipa's, and Gigli's, and no other -- the clear-as-a-bell sound, the natural beauty of the timbro, the truly awesome power, let me repeat, the unmatched power, the perfect diction, the apparent effortlessness of that heavenly sound.
The Elvis of opera has left the building.
Richard Gehr | July 04, 2007
Beverly Sills, who died of cancer Monday at age seventy-eight, was the second American opera singer to also be something of a pop star. And since Enrico Caruso was born too early to enjoy the benefits of multimedia overload, it's safe to say the soprano formerly known as Belle Miriam Silverman surpassed him, as well as other less accessible divas, in mass appeal thanks to her television specials, multiple talk-show appearances, and as host of thirteen episodes of "Live From Lincoln Center" beginning in 1976.
Born in Brooklyn, Sills made opera accessible by being no larger than life herself. Opera's Cinderella ("Bubbles" to her friends) lived a rather all-too-human real life. She also did her best to democratize the New York City Opera, where she worked as general director beginning in 1980 after performing ninety roles there since 1955. She then went on to become Chairman of Lincoln Center and, in 20002, of the Metropolitan Opera. Relive the Sills myth in this somewhat hypey yet still fascinating 1971 Time magazine profile:
Has Beverly Sills left Bubbles Silverman behind? Far from it. What might be called the Bubbles dimension in Beverly Sills is the leaven that, added to her enormous talents, makes her the extraordinary personality and professional that she is. It keeps her the least pretentious of prima donnas -- earthy, quick-witted, a little bit kooky. It gives her a natural, womanly radiance that suffuses any room or opera house she is in. Moreover, it generates a zest and determination in the face of suffering, and she has known deep suffering. Her generous, open nature is also a vulnerable one; she has had to learn to steel it with stoicism. "People plan and God laughs," she says. But she laughs too -- a billowing, enfolding laugh that is all the more warming because it is born not of frivolity but of grit. Beverly habitually arrives at rehearsals with her part fully memorized, her score shut and her mind open.
And for a perfect example of Sills's opera-goddess genius, enjoy her amazing rendition of Lucia's extremely complicated and challenging mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.
