Triumph of my DPD ... best end of the year event in my telly from the Bayerische Staatsoper!

 Screen captures from tonight performance La Forza del Destino (curtain calls Bayerische staatsoper )


I have Just finished following eagerly La Forza on my telly direct from the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Nearly four hours of great singing and music, and all I have to say is that Leonora -my DPD Diva Anja Harteros, gave an outstanding performance in a smashing cast!
  I am so so so proud of our Ludovic Tezier ... he is at the moment the best baritone in the French tradition and he comes from Marseille( spent time at the CNIPAL I mentioned lately).

Alvaro -Jonas Kaufmann appeared as a true romantic lover and sang like an angel. The two of them, Anja Harteros the Discreet Diva, are really matched to sing together in this terrible tragedy.

 I liked the entangled crosses, perhaps the symbol of our lost route in a lost world...and found the ran tan plan aria completely surrealistic! The tarty looking Preziosilla-Nadia Krasteva stroke the desperate tune of the irony of war while she was making her way among rows of dead bodies. Sex and war go along well, with the counterpart of religion and charity... here also displayed with cynicism: It only shows how modern Verdi is.

The music tonight through my telly via my computer (repaired at last!) very often reminded me Verdi also wrote the best Requiem ever.
I was really glad to  be able to  somehow be part of this event, because although I pre-booked seats in May when I was in Shanghaï,  I did not get through what I refer to 'as The Lottery".  I also tried the offer on Parterre box some days ago, as I was ready to travel as fast as I could to Munich... but Fate stroke again... ! Well ... internet worked  tonight ! So ... who complains?

Noël ! Joyeux Noël 2013 !

Time to cook traditional food like 'bagna cauda' and get the 13 sweets ready.
Time to get the 'Crèche' back to the little side table in the sitting room.
Time to welcome children and granddaughters and have a karaoké evening for a change... and sing some Teresa Teng tunes.. in Chinese..
Time to get all the little clay figurines out of their box... and display the weat cups and saucers (more than three ritual ones!)
But I keep the tradition of the old little jobs I had the chance to see in the streets in Marseille when I was a kid. I got a bigger clay figurine to illustrate the peddler  who used to sell little snails from the fields  around the Berre pond, cooked in salted water flavoured with fennel. She used to chant in Provençal :

"A l'aïgo sau, lei limaçoun !
N'aven dei gros, e dei pichoun"
"In watered salted water are my little snails
There are some big ones and some little ones..."

Something to tell the girls...
Joyeux Noël my friends...

Songs from Georgia for R. Raimondi (Marseille masterclass 22oct)

 Last week I attended the second CNIPAL concert and had the pleasure to listen to Sulkhan Jaiani performing arias I heard him practice at the Masterclass (Elle gaimmai m'amo Verdi Don Carlos) but really rejoiced and was moved by his rendition of O tu Palermo,Verdi's I vespri Sicilian
A photo of the encore:

I attended almost the whole Masterclass but missed this musical offering from the CNIPAL Georgian singers to Maestro Raimondi on his birthday ( in the evening I had to make my way back homethere are no late buses yet). I had the pleasure to discover this fantastic video, I am grateful to the uploader and fantastic photographer who covered the master class. I followed the singers as well but posted on Facebook and I regret the time I spent doing so because it is lost!( but not from my memory). I enjoyed  the discovery of these talented young artists and their improvement along the days with  tremendous attention from Maestro Raimondi.
Sulkhan Jaiani is on the left. He has the last notes... and it is amazing!
I wish him plenty of good musical achievements! ( to all of them really, but the tenor and the other bass are 'launched" so to speak! )

This is Marseille Opera House!

Leo Nucci / Lawrence Foster"Marseille Opera House Nov 15 

Leo Nucci talks to Marseille audience!

Very moving end of the concert when Leo Nucci tells us how much he loves our Opera House and we show him how much we want to keep him here because we also love him a lot..
He is our Verdian baritone and the  large Italian community in Marseille plus the audience who  loves Italian Belcanto in South of France has always showed its strong feelings of pleasure to this smashing Rigoletto and other roles.

It is almost as warm and noisy as the Shanghanese atmosphere in a concert hall!

 A particular loud and clear voice comes from a very gifted young Georgian bass I now know better and better!

He is a student in his second year at the CNIPAL

  He is a wonderful singer...I bet he will be famous soon !

It is so moving to see the young generation of singers cheering a famous senior trouper!
Anytime I recall this acclaimed end of  Leo Nucci's concert,  I feel young...And it is a nice feeling in this Christmassy period which is not that fun for all of us on this planet earth... did some one say 'Christmas is humbug'? I do hope it won't be so for the children around the world...

Happy Winter Solstice to you all: my unkown readers and my best blogfriends, Eyesometric, Smorgy, Thadieu, Cat, Il diavolo ascolta Mozart, Intermezzo, Opera chic, and my first blogfriend, always faithful, Willym!

 To you all, my best wishes for the future to come, called New Year which is just the same but with a 4 and my gratitude for all the happiness and interest I 

have reading you and exchanging thoughts and music!

.

La Scala and All That... Listen to Lirico Spinto on France Musique !

Screen captures during the live Arte broadcast. I enjoyed Diana Damrau 's Violetta very much. Hers was top class and moving, different from the openly dramatic Traviatas of the past apart from Natalie Dessay's stunning one in Aix.

Stephane Grant is a wonderful opera specialist and opera lover who knows his classics .
Verdi is at the center of the debate of course with what happened lately for the last Traviata opening night at La Scala and the traditional booing which  wide opens the memory-door of this prestigious opera house and its great singers who had the privilege to be booed and just withstood the blame to transform it into a greater success like Maria Callas did when she returned to La scala.
Piort Beczala got really offended and reacted too fast after the disgraceful boos but still he was not perfect either... It is part of the game and may be does good to one's ego....
What was not too nice on his part was to blame the entire Italian people and only considered the country for a nice holidaying spot for  jet-set opera singers!(That is my reaction to what he published, it only shows the process of misjudging people: from a rather rude and traditional behaviour to another rude answer and on top of it my reaction, finding the tenor not being a nice person and yet I have never had the chance to see him live but I did not like his rendition on tv, so this is a nasty feeling of being caught in a spiral of misunderstanding... in politics it could end in wars...)
What is marvellous is this programme on France Musique:

Part  ILirico Spinto
Part II Lirico Spinto
And it goes without saying that VIVA VERDI and LA SCALA, I want to go there one day....nonetheless ! La Scala

Cecilia Bartoli at Pleyel with Mozart, Haydn ....and me !(26 /XI/13)

Mozart and Classical Wien. Kammerorchester Basel under Muhal Tang

Salle Pleyel was full that evening and humming with joy and expectations at the prospect of listening to this beloved artist who gives so much to her audience and shares her passion for music where ever she goes ! 

 Her love for singing is catching and her enthusiasm and frankness on stage have something which only belongs to her: she is amazing in her coloratura and feeling the music she sings. That night it was centered on  the pains and tortures of love.

I was so happy to be there and at last able to see her in  Mozart and Haydn, arias she sung at the beginning of her career, as early as 1990 at Hamburg Opera she sang Idamantes and was only 24 years old... Her love with Mozart occured early in her musical public life, not to mention her fantastic success as a Rossinian singer in 1988 with Rosina, one of her best seller role!

She appeared in her baroque  black  costume and opulent white shirt with the large collar overflowing at the open front of her long coat,  the leather leggings replaced by black shining trousers almost silky and velvety as well. As she was Sesto and Genio, she kept this young man appearance until after the catching Joseph Martin Kraus Olympie Ouverture, unknown to me like almost all the Haydn arias, that was just fantastic to discover them with a really fine baroque orchestra. Cecilia Bartoli always tours Europe with the best baroque ensembles and that is why I make a point in being there even if I am quite far from the stage!

She had her gorgeous long hair this time plaited at the back and had no curly vivid locks bouncing to her singing pace like some years ago... 

Then for the last aria, the most moving one with all sorts of feelings and expressivenes, she appeared in a long black dress with top lace and had her hair undone at the back... real feminine appearance for the last moments!She was Berenice and I was completely overwhelmed by this part.

After two encores, ( Mozart Exsultate jubilate, like the beginning! and then a peaceful Voi que sapete, real delight...) thundering applause freed the emotions and love of this full house. She had a signature session planned in the hall and I found myself nearly at the back of a long queue, my head buzzing with her voice and so happy to be there waiting...she was having nice words with every one, paying attention, listening and getting up for  photos very often. I was very moved to thank her for all she gives, and she signed the album,...with a little heart in her name.... It was 11h30pm when I left Pleyel  and I was not the last one.

Tuesday 11/26 2013 8:00 PM

Basel - Muhai Tang

• Cecilia Bartoli : mezzo-soprano
  

• Kammerorchester Basel
• Muhai Tang : conducting
• Stefano Barneschi : concertmaster

PROGRAMM

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Exsultate jubilate, KV 165
• Joseph Haydn
• Extrait de la Symphonie n° 52 en Ut mineur, H. I/52 (Allegro Assai)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• "Parto, parto" (Air de Sesto, extrait de La clemenza di Tito)
• Josef Myslivecek
• Ouverture (extrait de Medonte)
• "Se mai senti" (Air de Sesto, extrait de La clemenza di Tito)
• Joseph Haydn
• "Al tuo seno fortunato" (Air de Genio, extrait de L'anima del fislosofo ossia Orfeo ed Euridice, Hob. XXVIII:13)
• Entracte
• Joseph Haydn
• Extrait de la Symphonie n° 13 (Adagio)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• "Deh, per questo istante" (Air de Sesto, extrait de La clemenza di Tito, KV 621)
• Johann Baptist Vanhal
• Extrait de la Symphonie en Sol mineur (Finale-allegro)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• "Ch'io mi scordi di te... Non temer, amato bene" (Scène et Rondo, extrait d'Idomeneo)
• Joseph Martin Kraus
• Extrait d'Olympie (Ouverture)
• Joseph Haydn
• "Berenice, che fai" Cantate Hob. XXIVa:10

Mozart et la Vienne classique

     

       

Maria Callas Assoluta on arte.

2, December 2013.
Maria Callas would have been 90.
I cannot imagine her ageing.
I watched this celebration of her fate like a poem, another Greek  myth.
 I had seen it last year.
It took me back to Epidaurus where her ghost haunted me the whole afternoon I walked up and around the theater.
Some shots are amazingly beautiful, showing how she blossomed and suffered through a destructive love for a man who did not deserve it.http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/037146-000/maria-callas-assoluta