*All links below are live*
HAPPY
FOURTH OF JULY!!
This week on Rhode Island Public television,
WSBE: (Comcast 294, Cox 808, Full Channel 109,
and Verizon 478)
Great Performances at the Met
|
Saturday, June 29 -- 8:00pm; Sunday, June 30 -- 3:00am; Monday, July 1-- 12:00am
DON GIOVANNI
Mariusz Kwiecien brings his youthful
and sensual interpretation of Mozart's timeless antihero to the Met for the
first time. Under the direction of Tony Award-winning director Michael Grandage
and with Fabio Luisi conducting, the production also stars Marina Rebeka,
Barbara Frittoli, Ramon Vargas and Luca Pisaroni.
DURATION: 3 hrs. 25 min.
DETAILS: [CC] [STEREO]
GENRE: PARENTS PICKS
Starving opera stars need 'beef' to sing says
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
Why do all female classical musicians have to
be thin and sexy?
Adam Sherwin
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Opera singers need plenty of “beef” to hit the
high notes, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has claimed, as the soprano condemned the pressure on young
girls to starve themselves in order to meet the demands of concert managers.
The stereotype of the well-upholstered female
soprano has been challenged following the emergence of glamorous opera stars such as
Anna Netrebko and Angela Gheorghiu, who are marketed on the basis of their looks as much
as their vocal abilities.
But Dame Kiri, the acclaimed New Zealand
soprano who made her operatic debut in 1968, said she deplored expectations that female
opera singers should now be as thin as Hollywood stars.
“When I was at the Met (in New York), I would
see these young girls, starving hungry but terrified to put on weight,” Dame Kiri, 69,
told Radio Times. “They couldn’t even go down to the canteen and eat in front of anyone because
they were being watched.
“You can’t do that. You’ve got to have beef on
you if you’re going to sing. I was never really hugely big, but I certainly weighed more than
I do now. I ate to sing.” Dame Kiri said she would try to lose weight on
occasions but “I was also aware of how much I couldn’t or shouldn’t take off.”
The sexualisation of female classical
musicians was also criticised by Jenni Murray, the Radio 4 Woman’s Hour presenter.
“The women who seem to be most welcome are the
ones who are prepared to go along with the old idea that sex sells,” Murray told the
magazine. “Look at the way the violinist Nicola Benedetti and trumpeter Alison Balsom are
marketed.”
Benedetti, 25, the Scottish musician who has
become a hugely successful concert hall attraction since winning the BBC Young
Musician of the Year contest in 2004, declined to comment.
Last year, she said: “I’m a crusader for
classical music. But I don’t think dressing provocatively should be part of what I do. My
focus is on the music.”
Dame Kiri, whose career took off after she
came to Britain from New Zealand at the age of 21, said television shows like Britain’s Got
Talent were unlikely to produce the next generation of operatic talent.
“I’m always wary of someone who is a bus
driver and decides, aged 28, that they want to be a singer,” she said. “There’s got to be a
period of study, from age 16 to 22, and then it moves along. You can’t just think, ‘Oh, I can
sing in the bathroom, I'll be fine tonight on stage’. Not at all.
“There is such a demand on the voice for it to
be able to produce night after night. It’s the building up of the muscles that make that pair
of vocal cords really work.”
However Dame Kiri, whose career took off after
she came to Britain from New Zealand at the age of 21, remains a patron and jury member of
the BBC Cardiff Singer Of The World competition, which will be screened next week.
Summertime, and there isn’t much opera news…
so listen to your favorite diva sing "Summertime"
Kathleen Battle
Maria Callas
Renee Fleming
Audra McDonald
Anna Netrebko
Jessye Norman
Leontyne Price
Kiri Te Kanawa
...and Ella FitzGerald with Louis Armstrong
♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫♫
OPERA ON THE INTERNET
WITH
DAVE D' AGUANNO
Opera-lovers once again have a
fairly wide range of choices available to them this coming Saturday (June 29)
with operas not only by Verdi and Puccini, but some interesting works from the
likes of Kraus, Rameau, & Britten.
NPR brings us yet another in
their series of broadcasts from this past season at Lyric Opera of Chicago,
when they present a March 2013 performance of Verdi's ever-popular
"Rigoletto."
ORF, on the other hand, offers
a tempting alternative with their broadcast of Puccini's "Madame
Butterfly" (Barcelona 3/27/13), featuring a rare appearance (for him) of
tenor Roberto Alagna in the role of Pinkerton.
Described as an opera-ballet,
Rameau's "Les Indes Galantes" (from 1735) can be heard on French
Radio. The performance being aired took place in Vienna on January 27 of this
year.
More opera from the 18th
century comes to us via German Radio, when "Proserpin" by Joseph
Martin Kraus can be heard. This one-act opera from 1781 was performed in
Potsdam as recently as this past Sunday (June 23).
Coming to us LIVE from London's
Royal Opera House (via BBC Radio 3) is a performance of Britten's 1953 opera
"Gloriana." This is actually a rare chance to hear one of this
British composer's lesser-known scores, written around the same time as two of
his masterworks: "Billy Budd" & "The Turn of the
Screw."
Enjoy!
DAVE
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2013 Summer encores of
Live in HD Broadcasts ARE HERE
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/summer-hd-encores.aspx
Click here for theater locations and tickets:
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/summer/us
tonight!
Click here for theater locations and tickets:
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/summer/us
tonight!
il trovatore
US: June 26, 2013, 7 pm (local time)
David McVicar’s stirring production of Verdi’s intense drama premiered at the Met in the 2008–09 season. This revival stars four extraordinary singers—Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky—in what might be the composer’s most melodically rich score.Marco Armiliato; Sondra Radvanovsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Álvarez, Dmitri HvorostovskyApproximate Running Time: 2:40
Original transmission: April 30, 2011
next--
wednesday, July 10
wednesday, July 10
Armida
US: July 10, 2013, 7 pm (local time) This mythical story of a sorceress who
enthralls men in her island prison has inspired operatic settings by a
multitude of composers, including Gluck, Haydn, and Dvořák. Renée Fleming stars
in the title role of Rossini’s version, opposite no fewer than five tenors.
Director Mary Zimmerman describes the work as “a buried treasure, a box of
jewels.” Armida is a fanciful and magical tale with “an epic, enchanted quality
and a tremendous visual element.”
Conductor: Riccardo Frizza; Production: Mary Zimmerman;
Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, John Osborn, Barry Banks, Kobie van
RensburgApproximate Running Time 3:05
Original transmission: Saturday, May 1, 2010
cast sheet and synopsis:
♫♫♫
2013-14 Live in HD
Season Preview
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Some interesting articles
Opera star honoured all year long: Kirsten Flagstad
An Interview with Sondra Radvanovsky: The Finest Tosca
of Our Time
Playing Mozart — On Mozart's Violin
A Motley Crew, Including Said and Wieseltier, Unite To
Find Chopin’s Great Lost Interpreter
A Pianist’s A–V:
Alfred Brendel
Diana Damrau
and Joseph Calleja in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (in German - translate with Google
translator)
Summer production of
"Elixir of Love"
Thursday, August 1, 5:30pm
@Blithewold Mansion and Gardens, Bristol, RI
$30 General admission and $25 for Blithewold Members
♫♫♫
Thursday, August 8, 7:30pm
Saturday, August 10, 7:30pm
@ Ocean State Theater,1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, RI 02886
$35 and $60
For additional information on our exciting opera season,
to purchase tickets, or to contribute to the Annual Appeal, contact:
Opera Providence
585 Elmgrove Avenue
Providence RI 02906
401-331-6060
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The Met radio broadcast season is
over for now...
check this space the first week
of December.
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NO OPERA ON WGBH TV
THIS WEEK!
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