Fun-to-Read Book About Opera People

A Gossipy, Fun-to-Read Book About Opera People

MONDAY, 07 APRIL 2014 11:22

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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.

* 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

And the Greatest Recording Ever Made Was...

The Greatest Musical Recording Ever Made Was…

BY WARREN BOROSON

When British music critics were asked by BBC Music magazine to choose the greatest recordings ever made (January 2012), first place went to Sir Georg Solti’s recording (with the Vienna Philharmonic) of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (1956-65).

     A fine choice, certainly. The cast consisted of such legendary singers as Kirsten Flagstad, Birgit Nilsson, Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, George London, and Regine Crispin, among others.

     Still, some might argue that the greatest recording of all time was actually Enrico Caruso and Tita Ruffo’s singing of the duet from Verdi’s “Otello.” Caruso was Othello, Ruffo was Iago.

    The recording was made 100 years ago. On January 8, 1914. And the two men had collaborated on an “acoustic” recording, singing into a horn, without the use of electricity. In New York City. Pretty crude compared with today’s electrical recordings and high fidelity.

    In 1983, Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of The New York Times, compiled a list of the 12 best singers who had sung at the Met (for at least eight years). He named Caruso the greatest tenor and Ruffo the greatest baritone.

   And in 1914 they were at the height of their powers. Caruso was 42, Ruffo was 38.

   They recorded two arias. One, a duet “Enzo Grimaldo,” from La Gioconda, by Amilcare Ponchielli, has gone missing. Only the Otello aria survives. They did it in a single take. This “paragon of recorded duets,” wrote Caruso’s son, Enrico Caruso Jr., and Andrew Farkas, “has never been surpassed for sheet vocal opulence.” Another singer and top-flight critic, Nigel Dennis, said the recording “remains to this day one of the most thrilling pieces of operatic singing ever committed to disc.”

      It is certainly magnificent. The two singers were clearly competing.  And their voices were somewhat similar—Caruso’s being a baritonal tenor, Ruffo a high baritone. Their voices were so alike that it is sometimes hard to determine who is singing.

   Caruso was, of  course, the man of a thousand voices, as Chaliapin called him. He  had everything: a powerful, trumpet-like voice, a tender, silvery voice. When Puccini heard the yet-unknown Caruso sing for him, he asked him, “Who sent you to me? God?”

  Ruffo is nowhere near as famous as Caruso, but perhaps he should be. His was the Voice of the Lion, and there are reports that Caruso had to rest his voice for two weeks after singing with Ruffo—and would never sing with him again.

     Ruffo also distinguished himself for sheer courage. He dared to criticize Mussolini and was thrown into prison for his effrontery. International outrage freed him. Mussolini’s minions also physically attacked Ruffo before a performance in Paris; Ruffo nonetheless went on with the show. At a time when a good many Italian singers groveled at Mussolini’s feet—Gigli and Pinza, for example—Ruffo was a shining exception.

            Here is Caruso and Ruffo’s magnificent 1914 recording of the Oath Duet from “Otello”:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Enrico_Caruso%2C_Titta_Ruffo%2C_Giuseppe_Verdi%2C_S%C3%AC%2C_pel_ciel_marmoreo_giuro%21_%28Otello%29.ogg

                                                            ***

   BBC magazine’s recent poll listed not just the top ten recordings, but the supposedly 50 “greatest recordings of all time.”

    Where was the Caruso-Ruffo recording on the list of 50?

    Nowhere.

Nasty Stuff About Famous Opera Singers

By Warren Boroson

The late Herbert Breslin, who was Luciano Pavarotti’s manager for 36 years, wrote a warts-and-all book about him — and included nasty comments about a slew of other opera singers as well. His book, “The King and I,” which came out in 2004 and was co-written by Anne Midgette, is a true joy to read. Especially if you enjoy nasty putdowns of famous people.

   Breslin must have endured a lot of abuse from his clients — hence, his apparent decision to get even in the book he wrote.

      Re “Ricky” Bonynge, the conductor, and his wife, soprano Joan Sutherland: “He was pretty smart, and she was pretty dopey.”

      Critics had reservations about Bonynge’s conducting. Pavarotti would say, “Who does he think he is, this no-good conductor?”

   After a performance with Sutherland, Pavarotti, perspiring, said to her, “Joan, we fat people know how it is.” She stared at him coldly and replied, “Luciano, WE are not fat. YOU are fat. I am big.”

     Kiri Te Kanawa, “the beautiful (if boring) Maori diva...”

     Birgit Nilsson was standing in the wings while Montserrat Caballe was singing. What are you doing here? someone asked her. I’m here to hear Madame Aballe, she answered. You mean Madame Cabelle? No, Madame Aballe. She has lost her [high] C. (I doubt that this ever happened.)

   Why did she sing in the sticks? Nilsson was asked. “The money is just as green in Iowa as it is in New York.”

    Katia Ricciarelli “was a lovely-looking if slightly vacant woman with a very pretty voice that didn’t have much muscle to it.”

    Pavarotti on his rival, Placido Domingo: “…he’s not a man of quality…. He’s a black marketeer who unseated [rival tenor] Carreras by getting him thrown out of theaters he wanted. … so ungenerous.”

    Breslin on Domingo: “He began a conducting career; he wasn’t a very good conductor, but it kept him busy.”

     Angela Gheorghiu is “so difficult  that people are reluctant to work with her. Joe Volpe once fired her from a production of ‘Carmen’ when she refused to wear the wig for her character, Micaela. He’s supposed to have said, ‘That wig is going on stage whether you’re in it or not.’” It went on without her.

    Riccardo Muti “has a reputation as being very, very egotistical and very vain. In other words, he’s a conductor.”

     Renee Fleming: “…her story would be very different if there were some good soprano competition out there to give her a run for her money.”

        Marilyn Horne was furious that Joan Sutherland shared the cover of the Times Magazine with her. And “she has a mouth that can present you with every curse word you ever heard, and she used them all….”

       On Lily Pons singing the Mad Scene from Lucia: “She “basically chirped away at it, not always on the right pitches.” (Must have been when she was older.)

      When Leontyne Price substituted for another soprano in a performance of “Aida,” with Pavarotti, she supposedly said, “I want one dollar more than you’re paying that fat man.”

      Tito Schipa, famous tenor with a poor memory: He had words to arias he was to sing written all over his body — “his sleeves, his chest, you name it.”

      Alfredo Kraus was famous for “being extremely interested in money.”  

      Roberto Alagna “was supposed to be the Second Coming. It turned out he wasn’t even the Fourth Coming.” Today “He doesn’t even sell out at the Met.”

      On Carol Fox, who co-founded the Lyric Opera of Chicago: She “was a bitch on wheels.”

    Franco Corelli had stage fright “that led to full-scale tantrums before performances….”

    Richard Tucker once told a friend of Breslin’s, through a mouthful of bad teeth, “You know, it’sh a helluva reshposhibility to be the greatesht tenor in the world.”

    Jon Vickers, on receiving advice from a stage director on how to kiss Desdemona in “Otello,” “I don’t need a faggot to tell me how to kiss.”

    Actresses who apparently were asked to star with Pavarotti in his disastrous movie, “Yes, Georgio,” included Sally Field, Candice Bergen, Goldie Hawn, Blythe Danner, Sigourney Weaver, and Kate Jackson. Rumor has it that Cher told Jackson, “Never, never ever do a movie where you can’t get your arms around your romantic lead.” She bowed out. A little-known actress, Kathryn Harrold, got the part.

     Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the soprano, was married to Walter Legge, who was her manager. “Walter was a famous monster. He was really terribly hard on her…. Walter was really a big jerk.”

    Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the German baritone: “High class is not quite the term I’d use to describe him; he was more highfalutin. He gave the impression that his bodily emanations…didn’t smell.”

On Breslin and Pavarotti

   Breslin actually knew a lot about opera and opera singers. He praised a favorite of mine, soprano Miliza Korjus — “a lovely-looking woman, if a bit zaftig [chubby]….” And he helped the careers of a good many deserving singers and other artists.

   When Pavarotti flew on the Concord, he insisted on sitting in the first seat, first row — reserved for dignitaries. One time, the president of France was on the same flight. Oh, it’s no problem, said Pavarotti. “Ask him to switch.”

   Soprano Mirella Freni and Pavarotti were born in the same town and reportedly had the same wet nurse. Mirella always said that you could see who got all of the milk.

   His former wife, Adua, said that Pavarotti had stopped growing up when he was about 3 1/2 years old.

          Breslin, summing up Pavarotti: “…he doesn’t care about anybody but himself.”

The Latest Look in Librettos

Boroson on Music

October 2014

The Latest Look in Librettos

By Warren Boroson

Opera librettos may seem passé in this era of supertitles and subtitles — and free opera translations available on the Internet.

    But librettos seem to be making a spirited comeback. Witness “George Bizet’s Carmen,” the latest edition of a “superlibretto” — a paperback published by The Metropolitan Opera and Amadeus Press. Earlier in this distinguished series: Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte,” Puccini’s “La Boheme,” Puccini’s “Tosca,” and Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro.” Each is $18.99.

    The new librettos are a huge improvement over the dull-as-dishwater librettos of old. They boast glossy paper, bright white color, big print with lots of space, and modern, colloquial language. And photographs of Met singers! From Emma Calvé in 1893, an early and much-praised Carmen, to Jonas Kaufmann in 2010, as Don José, along with a variety of other singers — including the great Rosa Ponselle, in 1936. (It was not a role right for her — and you can see and hear her sing it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_wmjUk234s

She flunked this Hollywood screen test — although she claimed that she was not engaged because she asked for too much money.)

   The libretto, 151 pages long, has — besides the original French and an English translation — a synopsis; notes on the opera  by William Berger; a program note by Hugh Macdonald (Bizet’s death in 1875, three months after the opening night, “is one of the cruelest ironies in the history of music”); and footnotes by Nico Castel. (“The word Toreador is a French fabrication. A bullfighter in Spanish is a torero.”)

    As a bonus, there’s a reproduction of a program for the opera’s Met premiere, on tour, at the Boston Theatre on Jan. 5, 1884. (The advertisements include one for a shop that dyes, cleans, and flattens ostrich feathers.)

    I wish there had been more about the story of the opera — a man’s pathological love for a free-spirited woman. There’s just the opposite in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” — a woman’s pathological love for a free-spirited rogue. But whereas Gilda sacrifices her life for the Duke, Don José in a rage murders Carmen. (Though, in a famous incident in an opera in Chicago, the Don José, objecting to how fast the conductor was playing, angrily stomped off the stage. The singer playing Carmen, after getting over her astonishment, had the good sense to grab the dagger Don José had dropped and pretend to kill herself.)