Alagna brings me back

I took something of a sabbatical (after I forgot that I had a blog to write) and I wasn’t sure of how to return…so I, John Valois waited for a bang. Thank you President Sarkozy! My feelings about Algana have been well documented here on the Opera in America Blog…so I won’t revisit old ideas; much.

The naming of Roberto Algana (a.k.a. the greatest thing to happen to Opera since Andrea Bocelli) to the Légion d'honneur was the perfect event to bring me back. The event was documented by Opera Chic.

I’m a descendent of the post-revolutionary Valois émigrés. I’ve always harbored family ills towards the French Republic. It seems the people of France are determined to make fools of themselves by giving the world a reason to think they are stupid.

Let’s be honest: The French have a long history of debacles. The Republic has been a mess since the revolution – where tens of thousands lost their lives and thousands were executed as enemies of the state – as well as being kicked out of Paris multiple times. It goes back beyond the botched revolution to the several times when the English, the Spanish and the Germans pushed the French out of Paris.

Algana as a knight of the Légion is no exception to the pattern long established by the French. I admit it, I enjoyed his Romeo. True to his French blood he doesn’t stick to the things he does best. A lyric voice should stick to Faust, Romeo and the Bel Canto cannon. But Alagna’s constant expeditions into the Dramatic repertoire leave his voice tired and ugly. When he was young and talented the French government paid little attention to him…but now that he is old, fat and dried up he is being honored.

I call on the Crowned heads of Europe including Elizabeth II of England and Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden to return their Grand crosses as members of the Légion in the name of good taste.

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!

IN REVIEW: Metropolitan Opera – Roméo et Juliette

Roméo et Juliette
Charles Gounod

CAST:
Conductor: Plácido Domingo
Juliette: Anna Netrebko
Stéphano: Isabel Leonard
Roméo: Roberto Alagna
Mercutio: Stéphane Degout
Frère Laurent: Kristinn Sigmundsson
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Production: Guy Joosten
Set Designer: Johannes Leiacker
Costume Designer: Jorge Jara
Lighting Designer: David Cunningham
Choreographer: Sean Curran
Fight Director: Dale Anthony Girard

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (September 29, 2007)– I was so disappointed about the cancelation of Rolando Villazon, in my opinion the finest lyric tenor on the scene. Adding salt to this wound was the news that he would be replaced by Roberto Alagna who I had given up on after disrespecting opera’s temple, Teatro alla Scala, a few months ago.

The opera began well enough, with the opera chorus sounding in fine form with their prologue. The set was the Met’s astrological production, the one in which a few years ago Natalie Dessay fell out of the flying bed.
For as many difficulties as the original run of this staging had the Met has made it work well. The work opened with the Capulet ball where the guest are dancing and having a wonderful time. The Met’s chorus (for once) looked as good as they sounded in the joyful scene.

Mercutio, the visceral baritone Stéphane Degout, performed his first ballad well. The show really began with Anna Netrebko. I hadn’t heard Anna live until that night, she didn’t interest me (except maybe as Violetta). Expecting a simply stunning moment, I was shocked when the loudest (I mean loud in only the best manner) singing came from the skinny Russian. One of the most beautiful women I have ever seen, she danced around the stage singing “Je veux vivre”. In that moment I understood Juliette as a young woman who wanted to live life to the fullest…she was sure great things were to come, and I too wanted them for her.

I must say that Alagna was impressive. I expected the most awful singing of the week, buy he did a very fine job. I found it hard to imagine what other tenors would have looked like in the difficult to look good in costume.

The evenings shenanigans came and went. The floating bed turned out very beautifully I must say…though once more I expected tacky. No one fell out this time either. Later in the evening Mezzo-Soprano Isabel Leonard proved herself a fine singer as Stéphano, but she didn’t project the male quality to the “pants roll” that some mezzos do. Stéphane Degout’s performance suffered as Mercutio died later in the evening…I’m not sure why, but it didn’t work.

The last scene was very touching, they seemed so in love… I found myself very saddened. When the lovers were finally (after some wonderful singing)dead I just wanted to look at Netrebko some more. He was hot, and she was the most stunning thing I had ever seen.

If Netrebko, Alanga, and the production were not enough to prove my biases wrong, Placido Domingo’s conducting was another wonderful surprise. The orchestra sounded so alive and added to the drama. A first class performance all around, this was the finest opera I have seen this year.