Gertsamtkunstwerk

Cyrano Curtain Call photos

Just a few, actually probably the best of the bunch (we shall see, some of the others might turn out all right after a bit of post-processing).

I've kept in the outlines of other people's hands,  cameras etc. I'd like to pretend that it's in order to capture the atmosphere, but really, I lose too much by cropping them out.

Day trip to Paris

Last night at 11.30 when I should have been in bed, this morning at 1.30 when I was being hyper-sensitive to normal street noise and 6.30 when my alarm went off, I really questioned my wisdom in doing this.

To be honest I still have to say it was a mad thing to do but I'm glad I did. I didn't actually have any panic attacks except for a very small one leaving the house - somewhat later than I felt I ought to have done but thanks to deserted roads my bus got to St Pancras in record quick time.

The journey was uneventful all the way to the Chatelet.

Unfortunately we (my friend and I) just missed Plácido arriving at the theatre. We arrived at the Stage Door just as he was disappearing inside.

The performance was really excellent - I shall write a considered report on the two performances attended. Plácido was in fine voice throughout - oh you know how he is, takes time to warm up, then suddenly this sound hits you and it's wow! He is extraordinary in his portrayal of Cyrano, very moving.

This isn't meant to be a review so I will move onto the curtain calls which were like a show in themselves. Standard procedure, actors and chorus followed by comprimarii and ascending up through the stars. Despite the curtain coming down and the house-lights coming on, much of the audience stayed clapping, foot-stamping etc.

People generally left their seats and moved to the front. So more curtain calls, cast bows and so on. Because it was the last performance of the run, there were various members of the creative team also. At one point the other principles etc were applauding Plácido and he was applauding them. I suppose that's his way of saying it's a team effort which is fair enough, but I don't think anyone would have thought him arrogant to have stood there and bathed in applause.

At one stage during the curtain calls he brought his young grandson on his arms. I could see Alvaro in the wings taking photos of the audience!

I also noticed that he kissed his hand and touched the stage, which I have read that is something he does nowadays on the last night in the hope that he will return.

The curtain came down and then the safety curtain. I assumed that that was that but I wasn't leaving the auditorium until most other people did. I had filled up my memory card and was hastily deleting some old pictures to create space whilst other people clapped and chanted Plácido's name. (Bonjour to the lady who said hello - did I catch your name right as Genevieve? It was so noisy!).

Finally a door opened in the safety curtain and the cast reappeared for a final time, to great cheers and waves of lurve from the large proportion of the audience that remained.

My camera recorded over 20 minutes and almost 60 photos of curtain calls (because I haven't got enough photos already to edit...!).

We went to the stage door afterwards and waited as long as we could, but not long enough. There were loads of people there waiting, but we calculated that to get the 2113 train (the last train to London) we needed to leave the Chatelet at 2015. Meeting Plácido before or after a performance is only the sugar strands on the icing on the cake, and believe me, there was plenty of cake and icing inside the theatre.

Cyrano de Bergerac will never be my favourite opera, but the final act is magical, and the third act is above average. And I love the way that Plácido gets inside the character and makes him so sympathetic. I had been a bit ambivalent about this run in Paris, because of my ambivalence about the work. I didn't go to Milan or Valencia to see him it, but the draw of Paris was too much. And I am so glad that I did!

(most of this was composed on my phone, hence the somewhat stilted nature of the writing)

Postcard from Paris

Thanks to Catherine for sending me this photo that she took on Friday night!

(PS I don't actually have a double chin, I just pull strange faces,  I say, looking at myself anxiously in the mirror. But another of my Paris photos seems to  show a double chin)

Some pictures of Plácido

Just while I catch up on other things I thought I would publish some photos

I'll write something, maybe tomorrow or later in the week!

The nose returns!

I have to confess that I was not much looking forward to Cyrano de Bergerac. I was looking forward to going to Paris, and looking forward to seeing Plácido, but CdeB isn't and I doubt ever will be in my top twenty of operas. But a couple of interviews he's given this week have reminded me what a gorgeous compelling story it is, and how I was in buckets of tears on each of the five times I saw it three years ago.

And these photos, even with the watermarks, have just whetted my appetite even more! (oh, those thighs!)

and one from last Monday's Press Conference

How does he do it? (I know I wasn't the only person thinking he wasn't looking great earlier in the year, and now look at him, the old charmer!)

Plácido at the Crossover Brits

More here

Théâtre du Châtelet-Cyrano de Bergerac

includes preview video - look for the relevant icon to the top right - with comments from our hero

Théâtre du Châtelet-Cyrano de Bergerac.


Thanks to Christine for the tip

11 days to go 'til I see it! The Alfano will be a nice change from the Wagner, Donizetti and double Handel that comes first...

Concert in Washington

Update: that link to the YouTube clips...

Wonderful contributions from commenters. White Rabbit has drawn our attention to a splendid collection of videos uploaded by Rebecca. I say splendid, it's not like I've had time to watch all 11. They are obviously filmed on a hand-held home camera, with all the inevitable limitations, but having watched at least 'Granada' (with extended obligatory flower-throwing) I definitely think it's worthwhile.

And ZS has sent me a photo which unfortunately languished in my Spam folder (raspberries to btinternet - too many false positives, on all my email accounts).

But languishing no more!

 

Plácido walks out midway through Act I Die Walkure

I ought to be in bed now, but if there's any more info I guess it will be at parterre or Twitter

high blood pressure it says here.

Concert in Zacatecas

Plácido Domingo enloquece a México cantando mariachis ante el presidente Calderón

Cautiva Plácido Domingo a Zacatecas
El tenor español canta ante unas 6 mil personas que han quedado maravilladas con su voz, que dio vida al majestuoso Palacio de Convenciones

Deleitó Plácido Domingo con clásicos y música mexicana en Zacatecas

Plácido Domingo concluye recital en Zacatecas Plácido Domingo recital concludes in Zacatecas

There's something in there that's I'm not quite understanding about Zacatecas being altitude, so he stayed indoors while he was there. I know he grew up in Mexico City and one of the few things I know about Mexico City is that it is at altitude (I know that because of the 1968 Olympics)

Nine good quality pictures in the galeria here.

Some more photos here, but not as good.

Oh, and Placido Domingo Visits Mexican Orphanage

(just 20 days til I see him live)

Plácido's dates at Covent Garden next season

My post arrived this afternoon, and in it was the Royal Opera House Season Guide 2009/10 (as well as three Premium bond envelopes, which made me think I was in the money. Sadly, because of the interest rates, they have introduced a new £25 prize, and I won three of those. Nothing to sniff at, of course, but I did hope for a moment or two that one of the envelopes would be four figures, or even three!).

And I checked the guide and saw that Plácido is appearing ten times, which is great, but I doubt that I will be able to get tickets to all ten (and to any Friends Rehearsals which may or may not happen). And if by some amazing miracle I do get tickets to something approaching ten, ouch, that is going to hurt financially. Especially considering I'm tempted to try and see Boccanegra at La Scala and maybe the Teatro Real, too.

The dates are: Tamerlano, March 5, 8, 11, 15, 20 and Boccanegra 29 June and 2, 5, 13, 15 July.

The sharp-eyed among you will see a gap of a whole eight days between third and fourth SB performance. I wonder if that has any connection with a certain football match occurring in Johannesburg on 11 July? I would wager my entire Premium bond prize winnings for April 2009 that it is!

Even if I can't get tickets, I shall be hanging round the opera house for the performances I won't be attending (probably with a sign saying 'will do anything for ticket, pls, pls, pls, pls').

Light sabres! (NSFNY*)

A short clip of brief highlights from Los Angeles Die Walküre

Not Safe for New York;-)

Simon Boccanegra in Madrid

July 2010

There's two casts, one of which plays the majority of dates, and one that plays just 22, 25 and 28.

Stellar casting of Plácido Domingo as Simon Boccanegra, Angela Gheorghiu as Amelia, and Ferruccio Furlanetto as Fiesco. Also featuring Marcello Giordano as Adorno.

It' not on the list of operas to be shown in cinemas, but, looking at that list, they're not 2009/10.

via Mei

I'm so hoping we get Angela Gheorghiu at Covent Garden. And Ferruccio  Furlanetto. But please not Marcello Giordani

That gala in New York

First off, a comment I left at Parterre Box

I’m really shocked they didn’t have cameras. Someone must have gone through the thought process of considering and then rejecting the idea, disregarding the opportunities to play to cinemas around the world, live and/or delayed, sell the rights to TV companies, and market a DVD which would be snapped up by fans of any of the singers who performed. Unbelievable.

When Wien had their 50th anniversary of post-war rebuilding, they broadcast live in many European countries, even the dumbed down island to the east of Ireland. And then they made a DVD.

The gala did double duty as a tribute to Plácido Domingo on the 40th anniversary of his Met debut. In excerpts from four operas, Mr. Domingo sang impressively, and he looked overcome by the tumultuous ovation he received at the end.

Mr. Domingo was Dick Johnson for “Fanciulla,” singing the soaring aria from the final act, taken down in pitch to accommodate his vocal comfort zone at 68. His voice may be a little weathered. Still, with the sheen, power and charisma of his inspired singing, decades were wiped away.

He was also strong in the final scene from Wagner’s “Parsifal,” with Thomas Hampson in fine voice as the suffering Amfortas, and in the death scene from Verdi’s “Otello.” The title role, which Mr. Domingo put on the shelf some years ago, was once his calling card.

Most interesting, however, was an extended duet from Verdi’s “Simon Boccanegra,” with Mr. Domingo singing the title role for baritone, a part he will bring to the Met next season. Ms. Gheorghiu was Amelia, a role that suits her well. Though Mr. Domingo sang with comfort, the colorings of his voice made Boccanegra seem like a tenor. This will be a fascinating experiment.
 

New York Times

the voices, with one unbelievable exception, mostly belonged to singers in their 30s and 40s...The unbelievable exception, who was also being honored last night, was a singer who made his Met debut 40 years ago but remains a singer of extraordinary power. That, of course, is Placido Domingo. Presumably when the voice does begin to falter -- no time soon, I hope -- he will finally impart the secret of whatever Elixir of Youth he uses to lubricate his vocal cords. It seems truly miraculous that anyone in his late 60s can sing so well.

His first appearance last night was next to a noose in "Girl of the Golden West," as the cowboy hero, Dick Johnson. When the audience realized it was Domingo there was tumultuous applause. When he finished singing, the voice still golden, the vibrato still firm, the applause was even more tumultuous, and deservedly so.

He next appeared in a new role, that of the title character in Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra." For many years he has been a thrilling Gabriel Adorno, the heroic tenor, but now he sings the patriarchal baritone part. It was a sign of what a serious evening it was, apart from all the glitz, that it included the scene in which Boccanegra is reunited with his daughter, one of Verdi's most dramatic father-daughter confrontations.

This is not what you'd consider conventional gala material, but it is a sign of the mindset of the Met that its music director, of whom more later, insisted it be a part. Domingo and Angela Georghiu sang it magnificently.

At the end of the first act Domingo joined with Thomas Hampson in a memorable scene from "Parsifal." Domingo's excursion into Wagner around the time most tenors think about retirement is yet another amazing facet of this career.

Domingo's last contribution was Otello's death scene. Here again nothing about the voice suggested age, and only a singer so experienced could convey the depth of the music. How lucky we have been to be opera-lovers in the age of Domingo!

Cultural Tourist

Splendour and abundance

Domingo  appeared in four guises. At 68, he can be forgiven for avoiding lofty vocal heights – never really his speciality anyway. For all his verismo urgency, he lowered “Ch’ella mi creda” from Puccini’s Fanciulla del West (staged in the manner of David Belasco’s premiere production of 1910) to the point where it sounded uncomfortably like a baritone aria. Surrounded by hints of 1903 scenery and ably supported by Thomas Hampson as Amfortas, our hero mustered a reasonable facsimile of heldentenor prowess as Wagner’s Parsifal. Accompanied by the incongruously voluptuous Angela Gheorghiu (oh, that décolletage) in the recognition scene from Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, he offered an astonishing preview of bona fide baritonal attractions. Finally, he invoked worthy images of Leo Slezak (1909) in a noble account of Otello’s suicide.

 

Official photos

Parsifal in Berlin

Those of who who have been watching my linklog or noticing my autoblog posts will have noticed, in particular, two blogposts on this subject

Berlin: Embarassingly underprepared Domingo as Parsifal with Meier, Salminen and Barenboim

As Parsifal, Plácido Domingo was notoriously underprepared, relying heavily on audible prompting, especially in the second act. Famous for his acting skills, he had no connection with the character at all, seemingly stretching himself to the maximum to get through it alive and pronounce the words at least partially correct. Has he ever been dramatically convincing as the innocent fool? I suspect not. But yesterday he was painfully unconvincing, almost downright terrible, I (as a staunch Domingo-Wagner fan) am very sorry to say. The tones, however, were beautiful and probably not to be heard better by anyone today in this part. In a concert performance he would have been stunning. However, is it really possible to watch a performance with no chemistry between Plácido Domingo and Waltraud Meier? I wouldn´t have thought so, but apparently it is.

with 'lively' comments thread

Parsifal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 6 March 2009

The true musical disappointment, I am sad to say, was Domingo’s Parsifal. When I have heard him as Siegmund, most recently for the Royal Opera, I have been greatly impressed. Here, however, it sounded as though detractors of his Wagner performances might have been right along. Given that I, not a native speaker, was constantly troubled by his pronunciation, then Germans most certainly should have been. More seriously, he seemed to have forgotten more than a little of the text, both verbal and musical. At one point, he simply gave up on a line, whilst there were plentiful instances of mangled syntax – it sounded as though the spear were to melt rather than to heal Amfortas’s wound – accompanied by all too audible interventions from the prompter. To begin with, I thought the latter was a deranged member of the audience, so loud were her contributions. Moreover, Domingo, for the first time in my experience, both looked and sounded old. One simply could not believe that this was Wagner’s ‘pure fool’. Salminen, hardly at the outset of his career, seemed a youthful Gurnemanz by comparison: a strange and troubling inversion.

Obviously, anybody reporting on anything but the basic facts is bound to introduce subjectivity. However, I have been reading both these blogs more or less since they began, both in 2007, and they rank amongst the best writers on opera on the web. Neither puts their ego before their desire to report accurately, they are both deeply knowledgeable about their subject matter,and they are amongst the blogs least requiring a pinch of salt.

This morning I received an email from Raffe who attended

All the bad things you've read on blogs are true...  The prompter costarred extensively during the 2nd act.  :-( I send two (crap) photos from the curtain call, plus one photo of a PD concert flyer that I got outside the opera house.  Picture of PD is here obviously taken during the fairly recent hunky, bearded, slim period. This Placifal is best forgotten.  I'm considering switching to the Salminen crowd ;-)

to which I replied

I think we should campaign for a return to hunky, bearded, slim Pláci  (says me who is having chocolate cake for  brunch!)

Thanks Raffe!

 

He looks just stunning in that picture, although the sharp eyed among you will notice the Amore Infinito CD cover, so what with flying Ryan Air to Baden Baden, several kilometres walk to the Rennplatz Iffezheim and Papal Poetry, I think I can miss this concert! All it really needs is Katherine Jenkins as support singer to make it unforgettable!

Of course René Pape cancelled this appearance and Monday's, plus Thursday's at the Barbican. I'm thinking of cancelling, too - a no-name cast, a cello concerto I didn't book for and have no interest in, and sitting downwind of Valery Gergiev. So if anybody wants Stalls Row G ticket for £30, face value £32, email me before 3pm Monday, if you can meet up for exchange in Brixton or Westminster/Victoria areas at a mutually convenient time.

More concert dates and other media references

A concert is planned for Lodz on 8 June and Riga on 7 August, plus a conducting gig at the Hollywood Bowl on 25 August, Yo-Yo Ma on cello. None of these are, as yet, on his website.

I'm not in the habit of agreeing with FoxNews but on this occasion, I will!

…And yes, that was opera star — no, legend — Placido Domingo on the red carpet at the Oscars last week. Somewhere in the mix mention of this towering artist got lost. But really, wasn’t he the biggest star there?...

I bring you every little snippet of news I find on the web such as 'sightings' from the New York Post

Placido Domingo holding court at a round table of seven at Josephina, across the street from Lincoln Center.

Although it has today's date I suspect that must be a few days ago because if I read German properly* he was due at the Rotes Rathaus in Berlin at 3pm today - and he'll be Parsifal at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden on Friday and Monday. I am so kicking myself that I procrastinated too long before tickets sold out

* shut up, Faye

Various links and photos

Chamber Orchestra benefits from Domingo's charisma

It was striking, too, to hear Domingo in such gorgeous form. There might have been a few worrisome moments...But to dwell on such thoughts would have been to miss the rare and almost miraculous combination of qualities that accounts for Domingo's charisma.

With a low-key but self-assured saunter, he moved about the stage in operatic excerpts from Massenet, Cilea, and Wagner - and later Lehár, Bernstein, and other light works.

He has that thing in his voice that makes listeners know he cares urgently for the music. To Cilea's "Lamento di Federico" from L'arlesiana he brought a good deal of pain. His sound shimmered with refinement and a cheery ardor in "Winterstürme" from Die Walküre, Wagner's love song to spring.

He was a judicious server of schmaltz in "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz" from Lehár's Das Land des Lächelns, giving a loud twist of sound at the end that made the audience cheer. He knew it would do that, they knew he knew, and everyone was happy.

Plàcido to the Rescue

At 68, Domingo is well past a tenor's retirement age, but his voice still cast a bronze glow at the season debut February 6. The qualities that have always made his singing special, a rich middle register and melting legato, remain intact. His only concession to age was lowering some of the music to a more comfortable range.

The transpositions, perhaps a dozen in all, sounded jarring only to an ear intimately familiar with Francesco Cilea's sweet-scented score. The real loss was excitement in several dramatic moments. Just as the music was working itself up to a climax, the drop in key suddenly lowered the emotional temperature.

Placido Domingo wins $1M Nilsson Prize for opera

I'm sure he will spend it very wisely (I did read on Opera-L something about LA Opera's Ring being the beneficiary but I don't know if that's just speculation)

In July (1969), at the Arena di Verona in Italy, the two sang their first "Turandot" and Nilsson said she had caught tonsillitis after Domingo's lingering kiss at the finale, her foundation said Friday.

"It was worth it, in order to sing with Placido Domingo" she said, "for he was born not just with a stunning voice but also with the great, rare gift of musicality, which you either have or you don't, and was also a charming, fantastic person. And, yes, all the high notes were in place!"

Placido Domingo to perform at festival in Miaoli County

Taiwan, 21 March

Opera singer Placido Domingo and guest arrive at the 81st Annual Academy Awards held at Kodak Theatre on February 22, 2009 in Los Angeles, California.

Going to the Oscars with his son? He's slipping ;-)

 Singer Placido Domingo arrives at the 2009 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter held at the Sunset Tower on February 22, 2009 in West Hollywood, California.

I'd like to see him lose a little bit of weight and regrow the beard, not that his appearance is any of my business

The caption says he's with Pláci jr, but I think that's Alvaro

The previous evening was Los Angeles Opera's opening night of Das Rheingold, but I don't think even Mr AirMiles could have got from the Adriana Lecouvrer matinée finishing at 4.15 pm in New York for a 7.30pm start in LA!

Seasons of the Champion

Using his fourteen previous OPERA NEWS covers as an aide-mémoire, Plácido Domingo shares his thoughts about his first forty years at the Met.

    

Happy Anniversary: The Metropolitan Opera will mark its 125th year with a singular — and spectacular — gala performance.

On March 15, the Metropolitan Opera celebrates its 125th-anniversary year with a unique gala. James Levine will conduct the evening of twenty-six staged scenes...Planned highlights include Domingo in an aria from Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, with the staging and costumes evoking the Met's 1910 world premiere...Domingo will also revisit the final scenes from Otello and Parsifal (the latter with Thomas Hampson as Amfortas) and join Angela Gheorghiu for the father–daughter duet from Simon Boccanegra.

Tamerlano arrives!

The DVD arrived this morning, a nice fat packet, with a nice inlay booklet lavish with glossy photos. I shall stick it in the DVD player, but won't have time to watch it all this afternoon before Jimmy and I go cycling, or swimming, or slobbing, or something

Update: This seems to be a substandard product. Easily dealt with is the fact that it defaults to 4:3 (just a flick of a button changes it to the correct 16:9). More problematic is that the colour is washed out. Fiddling with the colour brightness leaves the stage action (and singers' faces) with a bluish tinge while the orchestra look as though they've been Tangoed. If I stick with the TV settings I have employed for months if not years leaves everyone on stage looking washed out, to the point of deathly pallor.

Sigh...I don't pay £30 for crap (obviously I'm not talking about the quality of the performance...!)

Tamerlano is now on DVD...

Handel: Tamerlano [DVD] [2008]

   and reviewed in The Times

Approaching the twilight of his career with just a whisper of concession to age Plácido Domingo marks his 126th career role with a surprising foray into the Baroque. But what a role. Bajazet ...is one of the first great tenor roles, in an opera containing some of Handel’s most exquisite, poignant music.

It requires serious vocal agility, and few singers would entertain it in their late sixties, let alone one whose repertoire is more usually the great lyric/dramatic roles, but then Domingo.. is not just any old tenor.

At 68, the great singer/actor’s voice still juts above the crowd — burnished, velvety and hugely expressive, if less so than in previous years. His heroic, flawed Bajazet dominates, although his Baroque style is idiosyncratic to say the least, and his first aria, Forte e lieto, somewhat wayward. If his technique doesn’t always match the cast’s Baroque specialists, his dramatic weight is ideal for Handel’s wonderfully dramatic, unusually dark masterpiece.

Having seen it live and at the cinema, this DVD is a must have for me, and I am already getting Ticket Acquisition Stress Syndrome - and hoping, probably unrealistically, that the Royal Opera House might have an online booking system that's fit for purpose in 2010. 

The expected delivery date is 3 - 4 March which seems a long time to wait for a DVD that's out on the 2nd. I shall of course go immediately to the end and see if I can spot myself in the crowd!

Interview with Plácido

Plácido Domingo returns to Philadelphia after 25 years

Interview/feature in both written and aural forms.

Concert tonight, Monday

And the New York Social Diary announces: Metropolitan Opera Guild Luncheon Honoring Plácido Domingo.

¡Espléndido Plácido!

April 23rd, Waldorf-Astoria

Tickets 250 USD to 7,500 USD

More 'Adriana Lecouvreur' links

Shrinking Violet

I must confess now that I attended this performance partly out of morbid curiosity: to hear Placido Domingo attempt Maurizio -- his debut role at the Met in 1968. Amazingly, he can still do it. Domingo has become a walking object lesson in style, musicality and vocal technique and proves that age does not necessarily wither. The squillo -- that wounded animal sound -- still squeezes out of the upper register, the phrasing is indeed more natural than in his salad days, and he's gained the aura of a compelling stage-presence. That was not always at his command.

Metropolitan Opera

A protean singer by any standard, Domingo still has the sizzle and swagger to portray Maurizio, the aristocratic playboy

Recession special: three giants on stage for $15

In his slow decline, Placido Domingo can still convene a worldclass performance... His tours above the staff are understandably calculated, with some top notes on the verge of faltering, but with Domingo there is never fear of total meltdown. Thus, no matter how arduous it seems for him to scale the heights these days, the audience never feels uncomfortable or burdened. A true wonder that it's his 40th year at the Met. In the style department, he remains unmatched, bailing out this artless opera with rare elegance.

Plácido Domingo vuelve a ser el 'rey de Nueva York'

Como coinciden en afirmar todos los cronistas, resulta memorable y épico que un hombre de 68 años sea capaz de hacer suyo el papel con absoluta frescura, derrochando lirismo, emoción y cálculo.

Adriana Lecouvreur

The man is as dauntless as he is sentimental. At an age - 68 - when most divos retire to rocking chairs and puffy memoirs, he carries on stubbornly. On the side, he runs opera companies at both ends of the country. And here he was on Friday, competing with memories of his younger self as the would-be dashing Maurizio. Unfortunately, the younger self won.

Make no mistake. Domingo continues to sing remarkably well. His tone remains mostly strong and mostly steady, his vigour reasonable, his spirit more than willing. Still, the top range, never his greatest strength, has declined to the point where sweeping, disorienting transpositions (semitone, even whole tone) are de rigueur. And, for all his enlightened posturing, his imitation of impetuous youth demands a generous, forgiving eye.

Placido Domingo reunites with the Met and 'Adriana Lecouvreur'

...Forty years later (well, 40 years, 5 months and 6 days... but who’s counting?)

(Can I just interrupt this review to say I can think of someone who will have been counting...)

Applause greeted him, before he even sang a note.  His first aria, “La dolcissima effigie,” was delivered with clarity and vigor, despite some tightness in his voice and was received by more enthusiastic applause.

forty candles

Placido Domingo’s voice remains a steady and well produced instrument with a slight decline in volume and breadth of line and a somewhat more pronounced vibrato. What was once a silver sheen to the voice has bronzed, but by Act 4 when he allowed himself to sing out fully the sound made any of the current crop of rising tenors pale in comparison. Every note he sang was carefully measured and calibrated for maximum impact and it was a strong vocal showing, even in transposed keys.

Controversial to some, his transposition of large sections of music did not bother me. I did find it a bit cruel to make Maria Guleghina sing in an uncomfortably low register in their Act 1 scena, but my opinion is it’s better to have Domingo as Maurizio in a lower key than not to have him at all. The two of them make a very sexy couple and their was a serious passion between them. 

The role doesn’t require much acting from Domingo, and so he did not act much. At least he knows how to carry a performance based on charisma and commitment. He was definitely dignified and involved if a bit surface and stiff (perhaps criticism that could be said of many of his roles). He also received a full standing ovation (at least on Orchestra level) at his final solo curtain call.

And Siggy emailed me on Saturday to say:

Our espanish gentleman was fabulous last evening, BTW, he finally got the voice to open up (the cold is over now) and filled the Met with his glorious sound.

Interview with Plácido

On Saturday, during the interval in Lucia di Lammermoor, Plácido was interviewed by the broadcast host Margaret Juntwait.

In case you missed it - or didn't record it - here it is.

You can either download it from Rapidshare or from my Yahoo Group (which I had completely forgotten about...!) - membership applications here (I wouldn't turn members down capriciously).

He sounds totally adorable...as ever!

If you have any problems with the download let me know, but bear in mind I can't do anything when I'm asleep or at work.

Adriana Lecouvreur

Music Review - 'Adriana Lecouvreur' - At the Metropolitan Opera, a Catnip Role for a Soprano as a Tragic Actress - NYTimes.com.

I say 'review' but I don't think that the writer actually had to be there to write this article. Really, just one sentence about Plácido's performance

He missed the dress rehearsal because of a cold and took time to clear his throat and warm up during the performance on Friday. But soon he was singing with vigor, stylistic insight and ringing top notes. Some of the music was transposed down to suit Mr. Domingo’s current comfort zone.

Adriana and reality TV

Gosh, I'm missing magnolia for quick-and-easy linking. I suppose I shall just create individual blog entries for links, like I used to in the old days.

So, apologies to people on FeedReaders who may see an exponential rise in the number of posts from me.

A profile of Svetlana Dvoretskaia, who "is president of Show One Productions, responsible for bringing such productions as AGA-BOOM! and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo to Toronto." Most of which is actually just a shopping list of designer labels (zzzzzzzzzzzzz) but contains four intriguing sentences

She is just back from New York where she was taking a meeting with Placido Domingo...What is she doing with Domingo?

"It's not just a concert production, it is involved with reality TV. I do music; that is my involvement in the project."

No doubt we will find out more in due course.

Meanwhile, Katrina brings us a review of Adriana Lecouvrer - Opera...and an odyssey She went to see it because her friend was in the ballet. Her previous experience was La Gioconda!

Adriana was silly enough to be entertaining. Stuff happened (albeit silly, implausible stuff), and kept happening, and there were nasty catfights between two strong women. This one was lots more fun!

And Placido Domingo?

Even to someone like me who admits to knowing next to nothing about music, his voice was...heavenly. Truly. So crystal and clear and haunting. There was just something about it that raised the hair on my arms, gave me goosebumps, and made me want to weep. I'm serious! I didn't want to breathe when he was singing.

I don't know how to write about music. I can't even to begin to describe how beautiful, how reverent it felt to be in that presence, to hear that voice live.

What a stage presence, too. Anna said he was very nice, that he's a bit of a flirt, and that he told the dancers they were "delicious girls."

Plácido a bit of a flirt? I don't think there's any 'bit of' about it!

Update: Just in, from the Associated Press

Placido Domingo tries to turn back clock at Met

The fact that Domingo is still performing at all after 40 seasons (50,  actually) amazing. If it can't be said that his attempt to turn back the clock was an unqualified success, at least it was an honorable effort with considerable rewards...

...Domingo still moves and acts with enviable grace for a performer old enough to be his character's grandfather. But it does stretch credulity to picture him as a romantic idol for whom two glamorous women are willing to battle to the death. (oh yeah?  This reviewer really doesn't know women!)...

...What made it all worthwhile were those moments, especially in the final act, when that familiar Domingo sound rang out in the cavernous Met auditorium. At its best, it's still a thrilling voice — ardent and muscular, supported by a rock-solid technique that has kept him going all these years while so many promising younger tenors have come and gone from the scene.

Adriana Lecouvrer on t'internet

I listened last night on the webstream from the New York Metropolitan Opera's website.

Disclaimer:

• I don't know the opera at all. This wasn't my first time hearing it, but I can't say I know it.
• My PC/speaker set-up is not exactly cutting-edge hi-fi.
• The webstream was not good quality - a lot of wobble, flutter and sticking. And it switched off after an hour of playing (causing me to miss most of a big tenor aria in Act II).
• I don't find audio-only to be a satisfactory way of experiencing an unfamiliar opera. The 'Domingo Experience' is at its best when seen as well as heard. 
• It was 1 am to 4.30 am my time, and I didn't have an opera nap (although I had had a lie-in).
• I don't like the way the Met broadcasts sound - something to do with microphone placement, I think. At least with this one it wasn't made any more amateurish by the prompter's voice sounding louder than the entire chorus

It hasn't been a good week (or so ) for tenors in New York. There has been a great deal of discussion about Rolando Villazón's performances in Lucia di Lammermoor - a lot of dramatic overreaction from people who thrive on sensation and negativity, mixed with some genuine concern as a supremely talented singer did not fulfil his potential.

(If he has a cold, I think the whole discussion is pointless; we've all heard superb singers crash-and-burn when suffering from colds and coughs. It doesn't mean the end of their career. If the cold is a face-saving PR exercise to cover up the fact that he might be turning into José Carreras or Roberto Alagna, even though I would prefer not, there are worse things that could happen to a singer. If he singing the wrong rep or too often I am sure he has enough sense to think about those things)

Giuseppe Filianotti disappointed in Rigoletto. I didn't hear it, or even a clip, so I can't comment. Piotr Beczala is now being talked about as the Greatest Lyric Tenor in the World. I don't wish to be negative about Piotr, who is an excellent singer, but I have heard him as Faust and twice as Lenski, and if he really is the second coming of the Messiah, he must have undergone a miraculous transfiguration in a year since I saw him twice as a pleasing but forgettable Lenski. 'Fine and worthy' I said at the time. And reportedly he cracked in Kuda kuda on Thursday but is singing Edgardo today.

Then the fourth tenor mimed through the dress rehearsal (with the cover singing from the wings) because of a cough. So there was some inevitable internet speculation.

I know that arguments rage about transpositions. Some of the arguments are valid, some are not. They don't bother me, and I'm not just saying that.

I do think there is a lot of hypocrisy spouted in some quarters from people who think the ultimate heresy is lowering the music to make the higher notes more comfortable/attainable but insist that the key be changed to enable a circus-trick unwritten high C - to be held so long as to break up the rhythm of the music and interrupt the drama.

I can see why people dislike changes to the relations between keys and I think it is problematic if the composer chose a specific key specifically to convey a specific mood. On the other hand, it is well documented that composers would change keys and other aspects to accommodate the strengths and weaknesses of the singer on the day.

Pragmatically, would you prefer to hear a great singer singing beautifully a transposed work or a hack singer hitting a few high notes and otherwise turning in a journeyman performance?

I was listening and suddenly there was an outbreak of applause for no apparent reason, going quite against the music. Within a nano-second I heard Plácido's burnished tones and I just collapsed laughing! And then in the interval the radio host referred to the applause as the star arrives on Stage as if it were a good thing. Oh dear.

I enjoyed what I heard, from Plácido anyway. I don't regret not going to New York. Of four operas I have heard this week (On DVD, live and audio recording of a live performance) it is the least by a considerable distance. Perhaps I would enjoy it more if I could see it. Definitely I would enjoy seeing Plácido. Shame it's not being shown in cinemas, but surely they can put the cameras in anyway and show it on TV or just DVD-release it? Show some initiative, please, Metropolitan Opera. 

So far I haven't seen any mainstream media reviews. There were  live comments being left at La Cieca's place on non-obvious threads - another thrilling twist starting at #16 (#57 carries a brief reference to the 'after' party) and say it loud and there's music playing. You could start at #69 or scroll to 105.

My friend Richard, who has been serving the blogosphere well this week, provides his review under the title of Adriana - The Goldberg Variations

I was at the Adriana tonight, and ended up thinking it was the best tenor singing I've heard at the MET all year, and not caring about the transpositions at all...

...The last act, he just sounded to me like the old (as in, 'former')  Placido, with really beautiful and secure tone, and if it was lowered a step, I didn't think it damaged the impact. The size of the voice remains pretty ideal for the MET, which is one reason, I think, he is so popular here...

...So, Domingo is  not my favorite, to say the least, but who would have thought he'd get to this point at the extreme high level he has, and having given so many performances with so much pleasure for so many? I wish more of 'my' tenors could accomplish half as much. Perhaps he should stop now  - he's so far ahead, time will soon brush him a little too stongly with its wings - but this was a real night of deserved pride, and I was glad to be there.

I did try to find a picture additional to the one that I published the other day, but couldn't  so this will have to do...

Oh, and on a somewhat unrelated note

Serving Two Cities, Staying True to Each

- a feature on Plácido as General Director of Washington and Los Angeles Operas and Nigel Redden, the director of the Lincoln Center Festival and general director of the Spoleto Festival USA

In Los Angeles, being close to Hollywood, I can take more risks...In Washington people come and go with the party in power. Supreme Court justices come to the opera. Ambassadors and senators come. Over all it’s a more conservative public, and I have to be careful what I present. But in the capital of the United States, I think it’s a must to have an American opera every season.

Amore infinito = Turkey?

As CD reviews go, this one doesn't pull its punches...

CD Review for Ottawa Citizen:Placido Domingo - Amore Infinito (Deutsche Grammophon):Rating: One-and-a-half stars out of five

Ouch!

Placido Domingo is one of the greatest tenors of our time and a fine musician in every respect, though sometimes his taste is subject to question......Some of the tunes... are, despite their banality, vaguely suited to the texts. The majority are mawkish at best.

And then there are the arrangements - gimmicky, overblown and downright awful. Not wanting, perhaps, to take sole responsibility for this mess, Domingo enlisted the collaboration of Andrea Bocelli, Placido Jr., a couple of crossover artists and the London Symphony Orchestra.

You might want to pick up this CD if you can't find the late pope's poetry elsewhere. Otherwise, it can only be recommended to the esthetically and spiritually challenged.

With a blasting like that, I wonder what earned it as much as one-and-a-half stars. Presumably his voice!

If I was a different sort of fan - a different sort of person - or I was writing on one of those wretched record-label controlled fan-sites where free speech is not permitted, I probably wouldn't even link to this review. Or I would launch an ad hominem attack on the reviewer. But, at the risk of judging a CD by its cover, somehow this review sums up perfectly how I imagined the CD would be when I first read of it. The only thing that would tempt me to buy it would be obsessive completism, but there are still dozens of Plácido CDs I would get before this...turkey. I even have a link somewhere for an illegal download, but even if I downloaded it,  I doubt I'd play it more than once, if that.

He can be so annoying - such a superb incomparable musician (as well as singer) but, as the reviewer says, those lapses of taste...

Domingo ready to reprise Met role from his youth

Brief report from Tuesday's Dress Rehearsal of Adriana Lecouvrer.  He didn't sing; he had a cough. But on Thursday, he was 'feeling good'

O Sohne mio!

An interview with Plácido and Pláci jr (in German)

I don't know when that photo was taken, but the beard has gone :-(

Plácido was on TV in Austria at the weekend, without the beard. There are clips available on the internet but for complicated reasons I can't provide a link. I am hoping they will turn up on YouTube soon.

There was a a photo somewhere on the internet, but I can't find it now

This weekend, live from New York

I think I have missed a trick this weekend. This birthday weekend of mine.

If I had put my brains on I would have been flying out to New York New York to catch, first Adriana Lecouvrer on Friday night (with Plácido) and then Lucia di Lammermoor on Saturday afternoon (with Rolando)

Mind you, could you imagine the angst and hand-wringing on this blog as I checked for minute-by-minute updates to the weather forecast for Heathrow and the wails as I feared another snowstorm might leave me grounded, miserably spending my birthday in Terminal 3.

No, far better that I will be tuning into the internet at 1 am London time on Saturday morning to listen to an opera I don't even like live from the internet - that's Adriana Lecouvrer, yes, that's right, live on t'internet. He's going to transpose, so what. Live with it, get over it, whatevs.

And Saturday evening, I shall be at the Brixton Ritzy to see Lucia di  Lammermoor, live in HD. In Brixton I said (they still have tickets left, unlike Clapham).  I have everything crossed in a fervent hope it all goes well for Rolando.

Concerts in Taiwan and Baden-Baden

I've just noticed that Plácido has added a couple of concerts to his schedule. One in Taiwan with Veronica Villarroel and one in Baden-Baden.

Is Baden-Baden worth visiting as a tourist?