TOP 5: reasons we loved 2007

OPERA in AMERICA is “A candid discussion of all things opera, music and the other finest things in life.” The time has come to take a moment and remember the best (and most ridicules) events in American Opera in the year 2007.

5. Joyce DiDonato: American Beauty’s return

This year was the breakout of a diva true that a quality aficionado has been following for some time. Joyce DiDonato arrived at the center of the scene as Rosina in The Metropolitan Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, she was awarded the Beverly Sills Award, and the prestigious cover of Opera News (the coveted diva issue at that). DiDonato is singing all of the best, and most challenging repertoire – Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Cenerentola and Cendrillon – and doing to great acclaim.

I first learned of the Mezzo with a Paris Barbiere, set in Moorish Seville and it was just wonderful. She is now performing at all of the world’s top houses and brining them down too. This is the sort of singer who makes Americans proud…intelligent, talented, skilled kind and beautiful, Joyce DiDonato’s broke out this year; it’s about time.

4. Peter Gelb: The Great Satan

Gelb is one of the two reasons we loved 2007 for something negative. OPERA in AMERICA feels that he has a sick mind and we love that the Metropolitan Opera has given us someone to hate.

Gelb appeared on the shit list after his negative comments about Joe Volpe (who I think rocks) and his discrimination against Ruth Ann Swenson, despite her triumphs at the house as Cleopatra and Marguerite. We love to hate Peter Gelb, the Great Satan and we can’t wait until he leaves the Metropolitan Opera House.

3. Die Agyptische Helena at the Metropolitan Opera

Will I ever hear such a performance again? I seriously doubt it, so I am glad to have made the trip last March to hear Strauss’ rarity in New York. Deborah Voigt proved herself the heir to Leonie Rysanek and the composer’s dramatic repertoire from the moment she took the stage. “Zweite Brautnacht” was erotic and magical, and she spun out the lyrical lines of the scene with a silver tone not usually heard. Voigt’s performance is the sort that will go down in history as one of the greats. The diva truly deserves her throne as today’s finest dramatic soprano.

Jill Grove’s Omniscient Sea-Shell was unbelievably great. She hit every note; from the contralto bottom to the top of the staff. This was another woman who showed that she is the finest in the fach. Grove is in a class of her own in the German Mezzo Repertoire.

Finally the Aithra of Diana Demrau was the toast of New York. Her large bright coloratura soared over the thick orchestra of Strauss’s score. She gracefully etched the difficult part and showed that she was the premier Struassian Coloratura.

The Met’s Helena was just incredible. The house brought together a Strauss Trinity of the finest caliber. A finer cast couldn’t have been created.

2. Neruda Songs

The recording of the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson singing her husband Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs (a cycle for Soprano and Orchestra) was a love letter saying goodbye to her fans. Hitting the shelves in January the piece was just stunning.

If only music could all sound like this. Peter Lieberson created something classic…for me Neruda Songs will be the same as Knoxville: Summer of 1915 and will become an American Classic.

Lorraine Hunt sings the music with passion and every word is colored perfectly. We will miss Hunt-Lieberson, but we will never forget her.

1. The Alagnas

She is awful. He is ridicules. One is off pitch, the other is a bitch. One got booed by Italians, the other got fired by one.

In one year Roberto got booed off stage, then needed his wife at his side. While she was standing in the wings of the Metropolitan Opera, she skipped out on her Chicago Mimi and was dismissed from the production, which was directed by Renata Scotto. They should be humiliated after this year. When the Met Opera Shop gave –for free, I’ll never pay for her music – me this CD called “Angela Gheorghiu - A Portrait” and it turned out to be a twenty-five minute interview filled with self praise (together with praise from Carol Neblett) over her less than perfect singing. I threw it away.

The Alagans made 2007 something to laugh at.

TOP 5: Reasons that Roberto Alagna isnt’ a winner

I have to admit, I drank to koolaid after his Romeo…then I saw this clip.

TOP 5: Reasons that Roberto Alagna isnt’ a winner



5. Being hated around the world:
Roberto is hated by opera fans and administers the world around. In Italy he is booed, in London he is unaffectionately called Clyde (as in Bonnie and Clyde) by British News Papers. He singlehandedly provides one nightmare after another for Press Agent (and opera legend) Herbert Breslin. If it were anyone else I would say “ROCK ON!” but he just doesn’t get away with much in my book. All of humanity agrees, this guy is a dick.

4. The clip above:
Just look at it. Does he look like a winner to you?

3. Getting owned by Volpe:
The best episode of this I can think of was when Alagna brought notes from his brother to then Met Kahuna Joe Volpe on the Traviata production and what might be changed. He shouldn’t have messed with Zeffirelli, and when this came out in Volpe’s autobiography I understood that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. A victory for Volpe.

2. Loosing the fight with the Loggionisti:
Since ancient times the Italians have felt to need to cheer and boo and carry on like the fools they are at any public gathering. On average they elect a new Prime Minister every Nineteen Months. They have an incredible history which includes Coliseums where thousands of Italians cheered as they watched men fight each other to the death. La Scala, another important Coliseum, is the place with the people of Milano go to see this tradition continued.

The list of singers who have been booed is an illustrious one indeed. Off the top of my head I can name Renee Fleming, Mirella Freni, Maria Callas, Renata Scoto, Salvatore Licitra, Placido Domingo…it’s so much longer. When Roberto Angela dealt with boos, he walked off the stage shaking his fist at the claque.
Roberto told a French Paper, "Have you any idea what it's like to hear people shouting 'Boo!' when I was singing with all my heart and had sung well?"
What a looser.


1. Crazy wife Angela Guergihu:
Any man who lets his wife get herself fired from the Chicago Lyric Opera –after missing 6 out of 10 rehearsals and several costume fittings– because he needed her right then isn’t cool.

"I asked Lyric Opera to let me go to New York for two days to be with him, and they said, 'No.' But I needed to be by Roberto's side at this very important moment," Gheorghiu told the Associated Press. "I have sung 'Boheme' hundreds of times, and thought missing a few rehearsals wouldn't be a tragedy. It was impossible to do the costume fitting at the same time I was in New York.”

Valois wonders if there is more to this story? Alagna fans will tell you he is the Brad Pitt of Opera. Well…I would say that if Opera has a Brad Pitt, it isn’t Roberto. He is maybe more of a Mel Gibson; he was once at the top of the world and is prone to out bursts of Anti-Semitism. For argument’s sake, if Alagna is Brad Pitt, is it likely that Guergihu didn’t want to end up Jennifer Aniston when rival soprano Anna Netrebko (who is Angelina Jolie in this little drama) came along looking all sexy.
The question is who won here? Not the Lyric Opera. Not “Wifey…”bitch lost her job. Roberto, he just looked like a pussy who needed his wife to hold his hand.
The true winner was diva turned director Renata Scotto who was famous for a few episodes of her own over the years, but at the end of the day she always came out on top. Roberto and wife should learn something important here: Scotto still has a bigger dick than you two.
Letting your wife looses her job because she is standing by her man? Not impressive!