Domingo's Contract Extended at Los Angeles Opera and Washington National Opera
Plácido Domingo's contract as general director of the Los Angeles Opera has been extended for five years through 2011, the company announced...According to the Washington Post, Domingo's tenure with the WNO will also be extended for five years, although the company has yet to make an official announcement.
Domingo Extends General Directorships at Los Angeles & Washington National Operas by Five Years
The Washington Post's headline is Domingo Re-Ups With Washington, L.A. Operas. Is that English? Re-ups? I have never encountered that phrase before, and, frankly, hope I never do again.
"Washington made a deal with the Los Angeles Opera that it would wait at least two days until after the announcement in California before making an announcement of its own," a WNO insider, who asked for anonymity because of the violation of that deal, said yesterday.
Press announcement on the LA Opera site, which, incidentally, has video clips from several recent productions, but none from Parsifal (the Sudoko-Toyota-Keiko Parsifal, as it was dubbed on mmofm)
Gert sulks...
There again, read the last few paragraphs in the LA Times
One less solid note in the opera's recent history has been the 65-year-old Domingo's health: The tenor suffered from tracheitis this winter and recently canceled European performances of Wagner's "The Valkyrie" in April, because of what he termed overcommitment. But Domingo insisted he is on the mend. "I can say that I feel much better," he said, adding that he was recently practicing for a March 8 performance of "Cyrano de Bergerac" at the Metropolitan Opera and sounded fine.
Now we have an explanation for Paris. I knew there was more to it.
He said he harmed his throat singing the title role in "Parsifal," which Los Angeles Opera mounted in a Robert Wilson production last fall. "I'm not used to singing without movement," he said of director Wilson's meditative, ritualistic production. "I need the movement."
Meanwhile, Norman Lebrecht writes How Domingo Killed the Three Tenors in La Scena. Meanwhile, the print ediiton of the Substandard (because London's 'newspaper' 's online presence is nowadays just advertising, has the headline on the same article "How Domingo saw off the Three Tenors"
Typically spiteful Lebrecht piece:
...the slinky Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and the Mexican tenor with the male-model (huh?) looks, Rolando Villazon...despite their inexperience, are being groomed as the new power couple to replace Angela Georghiu and Roberto Alagna, whose tiresome antics never matched their voltage...
then
Such is Domingo's magnetism that London tickets are virtually unobtainable and New York awaits his belated appearance he missed the first run last month with a bad throat with something resembling bated breath...Domingo, though he may have won the match, will sing unchallenged and send us to sleep. The Three Tenors lit up the world. One on his own is just another gig.
Such a shame the Letters' Editor of the Substandard has stopped pestering me for free copy. Ah well, I don't suppose "Lebrecht sucks" would be published anyway. And it's all been previously published on mmofm, anyway.
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