Hope for the Aquarius ?

My blog is neglected for the simple reason I am either too busy reading or listening or completely astonished by what is going on around me, so that  writing about operas and singing seems to me rather futile and  useless.
I keep faith in Arts, Music and Singing but I cannot keep up with my blog.
There is a "battle" which is worth keeping in touch with. I started some years ago and wrote about it  already during  the last monts I kept writing here.
I cannot help crying when I think my "sea," the one I grew up next to, is now a vast tomb for the desperate souls nobody wants to care for. 2018  is nearly ending,  is it the  beginning of the Dark Ages again ?

NEWSLETTER #32 • 4 Décembre 2018

Edito Chers amis, A l’heure où les ONG de recherche et sauvetage en mer sont systématiquement criminalisées dans leur action, la Suisse aurait pu faire valoir sa tradition humanitaire en accordant un pavillon à l’Aquarius. Malgré la forte mobilisation de la société civile suisse, le Conseil Fédéral a rejeté hier cette demande. Pourtant, les citoyens suisses, comme les 271 000 signataires de notre pétition en ligne envoient un signal fort aux dirigeants européens : le sauvetage en mer n’est pas un crime. C’est un impératif moral et légal qui doit primer sur toute autre considération. A quelques jours des 70 ans de la Déclaration Universelle des droits de l’Homme du 10 décembre 1948, il nous semble essentiel de revenir aux valeurs d’humanité et de solidarité qui fondent l’action de SOS MEDITERRANEE. Faut-il rappeler que le premier des droits fondamentaux est le droit à la vie ? Notre mobilisation citoyenne ne doit pas faiblir face à l’urgence : depuis le début de l’année, au moins 2 133 hommes, femmes et enfants sont morts noyés en Méditerranée. « Pas des migrants. Des humains. Comme vous », rappelait très justement Ludovic, l’un de nos marins-sauveteurs lors de son intervention à TEDxParis. C’est aussi le sens du petit film de notre campagne de fin d’année : une rencontre entre un homme et une femme qui ne portent pas le même regard sur la Méditerranée mais partagent la même envie de vivre, celle que nous avons tous en commun. Face à l’urgence en mer, les équipes de SOS MEDITERRANEE mettent tout en œuvre pour repartir sauver des vies. Plus que jamais, votre soutien et vos messages sont notre force et notre espoir : à l’image de Michel, donateur, dont nous partageons le cliché de l’Aquarius, ou des sept skippers qui ont porté haut et fort nos couleurs lors de la dernière édition de la Route du rhum. Notre détermination reste intacte. Tant que vous serez à nos côtés, nous continuerons !

Journal de Bord

Opera Bastille : Les Huguenots (7 X 18)

Back to Bastille for a 'Grand Opéra' : After some time when I could not move much I am back to nearly normal and was so pleased to cheer for Karine Deshayes who is a smashing Urbain with so much fun, musicality and agility! a pity they cut her second aria ... introducing Raoul.
Of course she was the reason why I saw this long opera again and thought the one in Strasbourg some  six years ago was much better (same Urbain too!) in a better production from Olivier Py and a much better tenor too (Grégory Kunde). Anyway same delightful music where is is fine to listen to the same words again and again when the tune is so good.
Here is the link to Culture Box for my blog friends who would have liked to travel to Paris, if it works... I hope it does!

La Devia for ever! updated with video link.

Casta Diva and time to say good-bye to the stage!
 If only I could travel like I used to... La Fenice is not far, I even went by bus to Venice some years ago but now I keep all my memories alive with records and internet. For me she is by far the best in Italian repertoire! She will give recitals and also hand on  her art of singing  Bel canto to her students.

Here the news of her retirement from the stage and also her homage in La Republica:
maggio 2018

"La Fenice, una Casta Diva da brivido per l'addio alle scene di Mariella Devia

Con tre rappresentazioni di Norma di Vincenzo Bellini in scena al Teatro La Fenice il 13, 16 e 19 maggio, Mariella Devia darà ufficialmente l’addio alle scene, limitando la sua attività professionale ai recital concertistici e all’insegnamento. Per l’occasione il soprano ligure riceverà il Premio Una vita nella musica 2018. Il prestigioso riconoscimento – creato nel 1979 da Bruno Tosi per celebrare le personalità più illustri della scena musicale internazionale e giunto quest’anno alla sua trentunesima edizione – sarà consegnato nell’ambito di una cerimonia a ingresso libero che avrà luogo lunedì 14 maggio alle ore 12.30 nelle Sale Apollinee del Teatro La Fenice. La premiazione si svolgerà quindi a corollario delle recite di Norma.
In questo video la sua esecuzione da brivido di "Casta Diva"."
My  post two years ago when I last saw her in Norma ! 
She was stupendous. The best indeed. I am posting her photo at the applause again because I am somehow very moved  as time goes by... but she will always be here with her amazing voice and art of singing.

LINK  : Sunday May 13th 7pm Rai Radio 3 broadcast from La Fenice  (the first Norma  out of the three ) the last for Mariella Devia and a great chance to be listening to her on the radio.
Culturebox replay, video from La Fenice.

Sharing' Onion for Peace'

Picasso's painting revisited by a Palestinian artist: Malak Mattar
What with the latest  terrorist attack ,completely unpredictable and savage,  the Friday clash of the civil population of the Gaza strip with the Israeli soldiers along the dreadful 'wall', then the endless casualties on the Mediterranean Sea when migrants try to escape their atrocious living conditions in Africa mainly, I feel this Easter  time  2018 does not feel like a peaceful period at all.

When I was reading about what is happening in Gaza, I found a photo  of a young Palestinian boy trying to escape the tear gas by breathing in a mask with an onion,  and a painting which revisited Picasso 's painting "L'enfant à la colombe",  I felt like a kind of hope, a little corner of blue sky through Art vision of human suffering, children's being ill treated in this part of the world where there seems to be no future for the Palestinian people. I have been witnessing for too long the Palestine people  suffer and disappear.

Arte Concert live or on the radio: Debussy, Ravel and Karine Deshayes very soon!

It is one hundred years since Claude Debussy's death today, so the concert tonight either on Arte Concert or on France Musique is dedicated to Debussy and also Ravel.
LINKS : ARTE CONCERT, FRANCE MUSIQUE
https://www.francemusique.fr/emissions/le-concert-du-soir/debussy-images-pour-orchestre-59424

Yesterday only 'words' could tell the truth about 'women'...

This young politician gives a true account of what is going on in my country.
So sad.

Rossini and Karine Deshayes: an everlasting love story !

My best wishes for Semirade tomorrow night at Opera de Saint-Etienne, nearly on the same date of ,its creation at Fenice in 1823, February the 3rd, it will be on March the 3rd. I hope to catch it on the radio, live,  somewhere.

Here she is with luxuriancy and beautiful trills!

'Nico' loves Anja's voice!

Last night, nostalgia came upon me with so much strength that I had to find the voice I know so well and I miss again because fate is against us somehow!
My secret and discreet diva is not fit to face the Bastille Ballo in maschera tonight. I was meant to be in Paris and not feeling on top of the world myself I could not face to travel for another Ballo without her as Amelia. So I Emailed my ticket to good friends in Paris and cancelled train and hotel room...
My only consolation was to find her voice in this role, and going through  youtube I found a Ballo excerpt  I had not yet discovered: 'Morro,ma prima in grazia' which is in act IIIe  the most heartbreaking musical moment, as Amelia as a mother is begging her husband to have permission  to embrace her son for the last time before death, a short aria di bel canto with a cello counterpart all along the soprano part. With Zubin Mehta 's soft tempis both voice and cello  manage to really move me here. I thank 'Nico' so much for this choice and somehow remember how upset I was that night in Munich during this aria before the longer 'l'orrido campo'.

Then I realised the youtubber  'Nico'who uploaded this live aria sung by Anja Harteros the night of the première (and if it is so I was in the Staatsoper that night in 2016 too) was not unknown to me. I thought that if 'Nico' posted that precise aria was because he loved the way Anja sang it . Suddenly I looked at the little picture and quickly thought I knew this face, this smile!
 ' Nico is a wonderful young French singer : Nicolas Courjal, with a splendid warm and strong voice, a basse I heard in Marseille Opera House several times now and that I will hear in  Bastille in May. Because of his love for Anja's voice and art of singing I love him  even more! One day, they will be singing together in Don Carlo? who knows?
(photo I took in Marseille Alcazar last June during the conference 'Capuleti e i Montecchi')

Anja Harteros :mesmerising and dazzling singer in the Wesendonck Lieder at La Philharmonie 22/I/18

She was in harmonious shades of green, a set of  a  short  sleeved top and a long skirt

 with shining dots, twinkling like small stars from the second balcony where I was, matched with an elegant and silky emerald stole contrasting with the dark bluish green of the set; her long dark hair

combed at the back which enhanced her regular, almost sculptural Greek profile. She was very elegant and looking younger, probably in communion with the romantic poems she was ready to share with us. I was tensed as always, knowing how high and sustained her top notes float, thinking there were treacherous parts in Träume, the last part in the set of five poems and also the longest one  and that 'the Greenhouse' is also a demanding part.
To begin with : the scores to be followed to appreciate the singing and the music, which help to remember the intense moments of that concert of the too short Wesendonck lieder, I would have liked them to last longer, it was so intense with a wonderful artist who gave her best in her interpretation  
of the five love poems Mathilde wrote while deeply in love with Richard for a brief encounter really that got the eternity  in front of them, through  the osmosis of their art,  poetry on her side, music on his.
Then came the fabulous Anja Harteros with her rather juvenile soprano voice, her natural intense phrasing and shaping of the lines and her tremendous sense of expressing feelings.  The audience got completely under her spell and it could be felt growing, to a complete silence only her voice utters the lines in The greenhouse, then also when she is backed by the  violin . Of course the floating  notes , her special way of making them so pure and magic, were there several times. The mesmerising effect of her art of singing these poems could be felt in the intense contemplation of the very silent and meditative audience!When Valery Gergiev shaped the latest music chords, the last two, seperated by two quater rest, I had the apprehension of early clapping but the audience kept dead silent even after the last chord,   so soft ... that ending was magic. Gergiev made his typical' fluttering butterfly' hand gesture and kept motionless, staring at his musicians, Anja was lost in her dream for some time and we all came back to the ground and clapped with wonder at such beauty from the Munchner Philharmoniker, their conductor, Valery Gergiev and Anja Harteros so much in harmony with all of them that night!
I hope they will record the entire concert because the orchestral parts were also so good. (But for me it was a discovery with top musicians, the lead  violin was outstanding, and got tremendous applause too, so was the first clarinetist and all the horns, all of them really!)

• Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski
  Francesca da Rimini
• Richard Wagner
  Wesendonck Lieder
• Entracte
• Richard Strauss
  Ein Heldenleben, Une vie de héros, poème symphonique Op.40

• Münchner Philharmoniker
• Valery Gergiev, direction
• Anja Harteros, soprano 
• A very interesting account of the concert here

(the great profile photo is borrowed from my friend Maria Stuarda's facebook page, many thanks for letting me share this admirative shot, Maria Stuarda also loves Anja and her profile that night when Anja Harteros was so much involved in the songs!)

Anja Harteros in Paris, soon!

Will she appear in her velvety black dress with shining  diamond earrings as only set?
This black dress without frills and flounces suits her figure so well!
(screenshot from the award ceremony)
Her pianist, Wolfram Rieger,
who received the Hugo Wolf award  is part of her art of singing the Lied, they both sculpt and shape words and sounds in such an intricate manner that it appears to be coming from one soul, without hand gestures that are unecessary, without any insignificant detail that would distract one's attention from poetry and music. Now I attended two live recitals and will go to the third one soon.

Her venue at the Philharmonie de Paris is on the 22 and she will also be on the Bastille stage for Ballo in Maschera. That is for me an extra treat, having seen the Munich new production which I enjoyed so much.

Here is the account  of her recital on sept the 30th: Resmusica
The concert at La Philharmonie will be an entire discovery as she will be singing Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder for the first time with the Munchen Philarmoniker under Valery Giergiev's direction.
This is the last poem written by Mathilde Wesendonck so much in love with Wagner! last of the five poems I can well understand and follow with the music.
Träume: how to get into the music with this tremendous upload which gives the melody with the poem and the accompaniment. What a fantastic site!
Then sung by Régine Crespin in the orchestral version under Georges Prêtre, I am listening to Régine's voice I like her so much, it keeps me patient until I  travel to Paris again soon…

Many thanks to Operalala for this moving upload, so exquisite with Regine's rendition . 'There  is also the entire 1961 cycle which is a historical  musical gem.

Bonne Année!

Last words...

 Il faut tourner la page
Aborder le rivage `
Où rien ne fait semblant
Saluer le mystère
Sourire
Et puis se taire.

 ` (You have to turn the page/Approach the shoreline /Where nothing pretends/Greet the mystery/Smile/ And then shut up.)(google Translate is not too far...this time...)

Thank you Claude Nougaro, and also Oliounidizlove for this great upload.