A Gossipy, Fun-to-Read Book About Opera People
Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
BY WARREN BOROSON
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
If you like opera - or if you just enjoy reading about colorful singers like Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti - you should read “Cinderella & Company: Backstage at the Opera With Cecilia Bartoli,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Manuela Hoelterhoff. You might have already read it: It came out in 1998.
But in case you missed it, here are a few of its salty stories and shrewd observations:
* No love was lost between Met stars Carol Vaness and the exceedingly difficult Kathleen Battle. After the two sang together in “The Marriage of Figaro” in Japan, Vaness shook Battle’s hand after the last curtain call, and said, “Working with you had been the most hideous experience of my life, and I will never do it again.” The rest of the cast, listening in, gave Vaness a big ovation.
* Battle was difficult. So is Angela Gheorghiu, a soprano from Romania. Her colleagues call her La Petite Draculette and Vampira.
* Cecilia Bartoli, a wonderful mezzo, liked to meet great singers of the past. Like the tenor Tito Schipa. “A quality-not-quantity kind of singer,” she explained. (Caruso went to hear Schipa sing at his first concert in the U.S., in Town Hall. What did Caruso say? “Another wonderful singer from Italy”? No. He said: “He’s no competition.”)
* Renata Tebaldi, like many other opera singers, had trouble with high Cs. And as she grew older, she even had trouble with high Bs. To help her out, her fans began yelling “Brava!” early, before she attempted those high notes.
* Old joke: How can you tell if a tenor is dead? The wine bottle hasn’t been opened, and the comics look as if they haven’t been read.
* Callas on the singing of her rival, Renata Tebaldi: “It’s…well, it’s like comparing champagne to Coca-Cola.” (Another time, she said, “She has a pretty voice….but so what?”)
* Rossini said he cried twice in his life: once when he heard Paganini play the violin, and again when he saw a lovely truffle-filled turkey become inedible when it fell off a wobbly table on a yacht.
* “…the ceaseless repetitions of La Boheme and Carmen have turned opera houses into mausoleums….”
* A rumor spread that the Met was planning a concert tour starring Voigt, Eaglen, and Sweet. None of them suffer from bulimia. The concert was going to be called the Three Tonners.
* A rumor spread that the Met was planning a concert tour starring Voigt, Eaglen, and Sweet. None of them suffer from bulimia. The concert was going to be called the Three Tonners.
* Opera singers tend to cancel. And cancel. Montserrat Caballe once canceled a concert in Covent Garden because her grandmother had died. She canceled again soon after… with the same excuse. Told that her grandmother was already dead, Montserrat giggled and said she had meant her grandmother-in-law. (A friend of mine once referred to her as Monsterfat Caballe.)
* A diva’s diet (abridged):
BREAKFAST
one-half grapefruit
1 slice of whole wheat toast
8 oz. low-fat or skim milk
DINNER
2 loaves garlic bread with cheese
Large cheese pizza
4 cans or one large pitcher of beer
3 Milky Way candy bars
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSome clarification about Mr Alagna's quote you are mentioning in this article. This sentence is refering to a case dated 1996, and that it has been completely truncated and diverted in purpose. In 1996, a long reportage about Mr. Alagna had been organized by EMI in New York. But, during the filming, it appeared that the journalists manipulated both the pictures and the "script" in a scurrilous way, just for the buzz. The broadcast of the reportage was finally prohibited and the truncated sentence you are quoting is an excerpt of the explanations Mr. Alagna gave on that time, talking about the journalists and the reportage.
ReplyDeleteHe explained how the journalists hired some prostitutes to "act" in front of the MET as if they were spectators complaining about his performance, suggesting he was not good and that they didn't like the show. And, as regards the second sentence, he said that, in the pseudo-diverted-interview, the man who was saying that he didn't hit the top C was the boyfriend of the cameraman, and that he recognized him very well as he several times had dinner with the homosexual couple.
Taken out of a correct context, the quote has NOT AT ALL the same meaning. The reportage was outrageous. And that what Mr Alagna was explaining in this sentence. 18 years later, this unfair "gossip" circulates on the web... We don't really know if it's "fun-to-read" but by the way, it's well known that Mr. Alagna is not homophobic and had and has gays among his friends and professional circles.