Intermezzo

Netrebko and Villazon in Xmas day TV Boheme

Get your hankies ready. Robert Dornhelm's exquisite film of La Bohème, starring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, is to be shown on BBC2 on Xmas day at 4.10pm.

Though shot in a studio, with the soundtrack's Marcello and Schaunard substituted by more camera-friendly faces, the movie has a truthfulness rarely found in stage productions. This is mostly down to the central performances - how wise (in retrospect) Dornhelm was to create this testament to the partnership at the height of their powers.

But it also helps that he has spared no expense to communicate poverty. The clothes are shabby, the apartment is a dump, possessions are few. The richness of the characters' inner lives is highlighted by contrast. We understand that their dreams are all they have to live for. And more depressingly we learn that love and art are as nothing if you don't have money. The camera is always pointed in the same direction as the music, and perfectly responsive to it. Dornhelm apparently has no operatic training but it's hard to believe. Possibly the greatest opera movie since Syberberg's Parsifal.

Bertrand de Billy conducts the great Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Vienna State Opera bigmouth Intendant Ioan Holender makes a cameo appearance as Alcindoro.

Here's a preview:

and here's an interview with Anna:

Netrebko and Hvorostovsky reschedule

The Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky Royal Festival Hall concert scheduled earlier this year and cancelled due to a broken nail or whatever it was has now been rearranged for 18 January 2010.

Anyone who booked for the original concert has already been given the opportunity to re-book, as have South Bank members.

Public booking opens tomorrow, 18 September, for the rest of youse.

Anna Netrebko in Baden Baden - next stop Bayreuth?

 

As Anna Netrebko entertains Baden Baden audiences with her Iolanta (above and below), Bayreuth boss Eva Wagner-Pasquier says Anna is welcome on teh green hill any time.

"I love Netrebko - she can sing anything" she told FAZ on learning that Anna is interested in singing Elsa. "If she wanted, we'd put her on stage immediately".

But don't hold your breath - her co-boss Katharina Wagner is considerably less keen.

 
photos: Andrea Kremper

Stop Press!!! Netrebko and Hvorostovsky cancel tomorrow's Royal Festival Hall gig

I knew it was too good to be true.

This is the sicknote email I just received:

Dear patron,
We are sorry to announce that Anna Netrebko is suffering from influenza and has today withdrawn from the concert at the Royal Festival Hall on Tuesday 19 May 2009. At such short notice, it has not been possible to offer an alternative programme with Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Ion Marin, and so regretfully, the performance tomorrow will not take place. We are working to identify an alternative date for the concert in the future months.

Aaaaargh!!!

What's on in London in May

There's always plenty on in London musically speaking, but May looks particularly busy.

For starters, at the Royal Opera House, Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti take a roll in the hay for the first revival of Laurent Pelly's L'elisir d'amore. Il trovatore and Lohengrin are still around too.

At the ENO, David Alden's hotly-anticipated new Peter Grimes opens. Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley and Felicity Palmer sing, Edward Gardner conducts. The second new production of the month is film director Abbas Kiarostami's first venture into opera, Così fan tutte.

Purcell's King Arthur is performed in concert at the Barbican on 6 May by Le Concert Spirituel. There are limited *free* tickets for under-26's for this one (check out the freeB link on the Barbican site).

17 May is Handel-fest day. Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music bring Arianna in Creta to the Barbican. Miah Persson, Lisa Milne and Sonia Prina appear as originally scheduled, but Kristina Hammarström replaces the previously-announced Angelika Kirchschlager.

The performance starts at 6.30pm, so there should be (just) enough time to get there from Zurich Opera's Agrippina, which begins at 2pm in the Royal Festival Hall. The impressive cast joining Marc Minkowski and Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble, Orchestra La Scintilla, includes Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Liebau, Marijana Mijanovic and Anna Bonitatibus.

The other operatic event worth mentioning is not in London at all, but in Manchester.  Over two nights, 9 and 10 May, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra perform Götterdämmerung in concert at the Bridgewater Hall, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde. If this was in London, tickets would go in a flash, but there are still plenty of seats available.  Manchester is clearly a harder sell. It rather underlines the folly of the Royal Opera House's plans to create a Mancunian outpost. Northern opera lovers may be dedicated - there just aren't a lot of them.

On 31 May, Rene Pape joins Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for the UK premiere of Torsten Rasch's 2003 song cycle Mein Herz brennt. This is (loosely) based on the music of headbanging German industrial metallers Rammstein - a fact the Southbank promo guff intriguingly fails to mention. Not as scary as it sounds though, as the source material is engulfed by Jurowski's favoured big-boned retro-nouveau Eastern bloc neo-romanticism (or Vladcore for short).

On a smaller scale, there are lots of recitals this month, including the big one, Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Royal Festival Hall on 19 May.

At Wigmore Hall Kate Royal sings Schumann and Brahms on 7 May, and there's a solo recital from the great Jordi Savall the day after. On 19 May (the same date as Netrebko/Hvorostovsky unfortunately) Mojca Erdmann, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber tackle Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. The Wigmore's busy Haydn weekend begins on 29 May with an András Schiff lecture recital at 2pm.

And there are a few more Wigmore day time events worth mentioning. On 12 May at 2pm there's a *free* recital of Kurtag and Schubert by Jonathan Biss, which will be recorded for the Wigmore's own label. On 18 May at 1pm Anne Schwanewilms sings Debussy, Strauss and Wolf, and on 25 May at 1pm Ingrid Fliter plays Chopin and Schumann.

Philip Glass makes a rare appearance at the Barbican on 26 May for an evening of chamber music.

The fabulous Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plink and twang at the Cadogan Hall on 5 May.

One of the most intriguing events of the month is a Barbican concert on 30 May. Various artists including the Britten Sinfonia perform the Music of Moondog , and there are companion pre, post and interval events, including an 11.30pm concert at St Giles Cripplegate, Moondog Around Midnight .

Royal Opera House 2009/10 season - all the details

Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.

The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.

The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.

The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.

This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.

Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.

October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.

Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.

John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.

Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.

Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.

Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.

A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.

Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido) makes its first visit to Covent Garden in March with Christianne Stoijn, Sara Mingardo and Christine Schäfer. Baroque specialist Ivor Bolton conducts.

Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.

Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.

Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?

The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.

Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.

What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.

Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?

In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.

The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.

No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.

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*******UPDATE 22/4*******

The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.

Il trovatore test run

I don't usually write about rehearsals because you don't necessarily get 100%-honed performances, and its not really fair to make public comment in those circumstances. But yesterday's general rehearsal for the ROH's latest run of Trovatore was so superb I feel a duty to spread the word. (And just in case Monday's opening night doesn't reach the same heights - but let's not go there yet).

We all know what Caruso said - that all Il Trovatore needed was the four best singers in the world. And with this cast - Roberto Alagna, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sondra Radvanovsky and Malgorzata Walewska - it came as close as you could hope for.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky's Luna has been the highlight of previous runs of this production. Well, this time he's got stiff competition, but once again he sang with nobility and distinction. Just like he always does. And was it wishful thinking, or have his acting skills taken a dramatic (ha!) turn for the better? In recital, his natural exuberance is as memorable as his leather pants. But stick him in an opera, and he often looks as if he's reading from an autocue. Not in this show. Even the Egli era tuo fratello! at the end was, for once, not remotely tittersome - his quale orror!  sent a jolt through the auditorium.

And here's my profound rumination of the week. Dima's snowy hair is absolutely perfect for every role he plays, whatever the character, whatever the period. So why do production designers neverever duplicate it for other singers? Does he have copyright hair or something?

The Angela-less Alagna seems back on top form. He sounds healthy, he even looks a bit slimmer. Manrico is a real test of his abilities, and while you never feel there's a millimetre to spare, ultimately there's no audible strain whatsoever. He just grabs every note and hurls it forth heroically. So much for his plans to chicken-out from half of the murderous Di quella pira, as the Daily Telegraph's recent interview claims. He belted out both verses like the champion of the tenor Olympics. If he naughtily slipped out of character to acknowledge the applause, who can blame him? And in the tender, lyrical moments that are more his home territory, wooing Leonora or soothing his dear old mum, the natural beauty of his voice shone through to heart-melting effect.

Sondra Radvanovsky wobbled a bit to begin with, but her supreme technical control soon became apparent. She spun her long lines out silkily and crested even the highest notes with liquid ease. Every note and every syllable was shaped and coloured in minutely-nuanced detail. Inevitably, it lacked the thrill of spontaneity - she's a sort of earthy Renee Fleming in that respect. I wasn't always convinced she was living the part either - her dedication to crafting the beautiful line often distanced her from the heart of the role. But I can't think of anyone right now who could sing Leonora better.

Malgorzata Walewska was a bit of a find as Azucena, with a rich lower register and a winning line in dramatic venom that more than compensated for some insecurities on top.

OK, that's your four best singers, but this production is immaculately cast top to toe. Mikhail Petrenko, a mahogany bass in the classic Russian style, has great presence as well as a fabulous voice - what a terrific Ferrando. Monika-Evelin Liiv's Ines more than held her own against Sondra Radvanovsky. And Haoyin Xue, who never made much of an impact on me when he was in the ROH's Young Artist programme, has matured into a fine, solid singer.

Despite the best casting it's ever had, and despite fine 19th century set and costume designs, the production is still as dire and inert as it ever was. It looks like some dredged-up '70's relic even though it can't be more than ten years old, and it makes the legendarily-'difficult' storyline even more incomprehensible and absurd. But more on that after the opening night.

And the audience weren't just the usual riff-raff. What a surprise to see sitting in a private box - Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott. She wore a loose beige geometric-patterned shift, chatted and signed autographs for her neighbours on either side, and applauded enthusiastically along with everyone else. A lousy phonecam shot:

Moar Capuleti ! Moar Montecchi !!! Anna and Elina ride again

I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Royal Opera House, 30 March 2009

I booked tickets for both ends of the current Capuleti run (curiously, four weeks apart), on the basis that even a serial canceller like Netrebko wouldn't dare cop out of both. Luckily I dodged the inevitable and caught her twice.

She wasn't at her absolute best, occasionally forcing her tone or slipping beneath the note, in a way that suggested lapses of concentration rather than serious problems. But most of her singing was very lovely indeed - liquid, intelligent and delicately nuanced - and she even managed a good firm trill at one point.

It was announced that Elina Garanca was suffering from a cold - collective sigh - but that she'd sing anyway - delighted applause. I couldn't tell anything was amiss. As on the first night, she shaded Netrebko in purely vocal terms.

But there's a real partnership between these two, at the musical level and beyond, and it transcends any of the finicky technical stuff. Listening to their exquisitely-matched love duet, or watching them grapple playfully on the bed afterwards as the applause thundered out made that clear.

The orchestra's contribution was patchy - dodgy woodwind intonation marred the prelude, and a few moments of hush were unbalanced by over-enthusiastic violins. But the solos, especially the haunting horn that introduces Giulietta, were well-taken. As on the first night, the only real disappointment lay with the male roles - when you're playing the same game as Netrebko, Garanca, and Elder, you need to be in the same league - mere adequacy is just not enough.

I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Royal Opera House

I Capuleti e i Montecchi - Royal Opera House, 2 March 2009 (opening night)

Sad - and surprising - to report that the Capuleti premiere couldn't quite match the thrilling rehearsal on Friday. Usually it's the other way round. But a little air had escaped from the balloon, a little of the lustre rubbed off. It was still very, very good though, with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca taking a lot of the credit.

Not all of Netrebko's top notes were perfectly secure, her tone sometimes coarsened and she swooped and slid just a little bit more than good taste would suggest. But these were minor quibbles in a performance of immense musicality and warmth, one that moreover transcended the theatrical limitations of an elegant production which places aesthetic considerations above dramatic.

While others gesticulated hopefully, like a row of medieval Thunderbirds, Netrebko lived and breathed Giulietta's compulsive ardour with a calculated abandon. Her voice meshes perfectly with Elina Garanca's, most strikingly in their unison duet, a showstopping moment.

Garanca is not quite the actress Netrebko is, but can match and even surpass her for stamina and sheer beauty of tone. Netrebko I'm sure will have converted a few more unbelievers, and Garanca enhanced her rapidly growing reputation.

The blokes trail some way behind. None exactly fail, but none are up to the calibre of the supporting cast on Netrebko and Garanca's recent CD of the opera. The patrician gravity of Eric Owens's Capelio is marred by a vibrato so wide that the line sometimes disappears.  Giovanni Battista Parodi's Lorenzo is dramatically effective, but unsteady of tone. And Joseph Calleja could eat the ROH's weedy Tebaldo, Dario Schmunk, for breakfast. With fries. The neatly colour-coded chorus (red for Capuleti, blue for Montecchi) were more impressive than the soloists, even if diction left something to be desired.

Mark Elder makes Bellini sound as clever as Mozart and as bold as Wagner. His tempos are on the slow side. Instead of the usual breathless rush of smudged notes, the spare details of the score emerge with crystal clarity. And he is so considerate of the singers, following Netrebko's caprices minutely, never rushing or overwhelming. The orchestra were on good form, though clearly not at their freshest. Horn and clarinet solos were painstakingly immaculate; pity the woodwind intonation wasn't.

Pier Luigi Pizzi's austerely elegant production looks routine in photos, but it's rigorously constructed,  deceptively so. Pizzi is also his own designer. His architectural training results in a series of striking tableaux that are never simply random or just pretty.

What differentiates Bellini's version of the tale from Shakespeare's is its fatalistic propulsion. Each of Pizzi's sets simply shuffles the ever-present classical columns this way or that, a superficial adjustment of unvarying elements that underlines the inexorable fate of the young lovers. As Giulietta wakes in the tomb, drawing back the gauzy black veil which covers her prone form, we are reminded of her first appearance, kneeling alone in her room veiled in white, when - in a departure from Shakespeare - she wills her own death. What's missing from this production is detailed individual direction, personenregie, and as a result it's not as involving as more conventional interpretation might be. But if lives are guided by irresistible forces, not personal motivations, is that really an oversight? 

For those who find Pizzi's allusions just a bit too subtle, there are some corking swordfights, courtesy of Fight Director Mike Loades, a man whose name should, by rights, be up there in lights with Anna Netrebko's. The Royal Opera House can always be relied on for a good scrap (some of the pathetic efforts I've seen in places like San Francisco and Vienna would be laughed off stage in London). But here they have surpassed themselves. The money spent on 'Actor Fighters' has not been wasted. Even Elina Garanca looks a doughty prospect with a weapon in her hand. 

 

 

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many more photos over teh page.................

that lying camera lies again

Has Anna Netrebko sprouted wings? And did she run out of St Tropez halfway through basting her bewbs? Completely undoctored, I swear: 

more later.........

What's on in London in March

Is February over already?

Opera 

At the Royal Opera House, I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca opens on 2 March. Kill for tickets.

Next up is a new double bill of Dido and Aeneas with Acis and Galatea opening 31 March. Choreographer Wayne McGregor, whose work demonstrates little musical sensibility, is the odd choice of director. Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese make their ROH debuts.

On 13 March there's a one-off performance of Verdi's Messa da Requiem . Antonio Pappano conducts Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Sold out, but check for returns towards the date.

At ENO, there's a revival of one of their better recent productions, David Alden's Jenùfa with Amanda Roocroft.

English Touring Opera bring the Magic Flute to Hackney Empire on 12 and 14 March, with Katya Kabanova on 13 March. For authentic 'period' atmosphere (and a bargain), buy the cheapest balcony seats, then stand at the back with your beer (the balcony bar is open throughout the show).

On 2, 4 and 9 March the Royal Academy of Music present Haydn's charming La fedeltà premiata in their bijou but perfectly-formed theatre.

Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBCSO attempt an overdue rehabilitation of Martinů's Julietta in concert at the Barbican on 27 March, with Magdalena Kozena in the title role.

And on 28 March David Parry and the LPO bring Rossini's Ermione to the Royal Festival Hall. 

Not opera

At the Barbican, 7 March is the BBCSO's Xenakis day. On 11 March Thomas Quasthoff presents a Bach and Handel programme. On 12 March it's the turn of Valery Gergiev and the LSO, who perform  Parsifal's Act 3 with the awesome Rene Pape and the remarkably-tattooed Evgeny Nikitin. Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw visit on 14 and 15 March with Beethoven's 7th and Bruckner's 9th.

The Royal Festival Hall hosts Maurizio Pollini on 4 March and the not-so-retired-after-all Alfred Brendel on 7 March (it's a charity concert for Comic Relief and he's credited as 'poet'). On 12 March at 6pm there's a FREE concert of Oliver Knussen's vocal works, conducted by the composer himself, with Claire Booth. A few tickets remain for countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in the Purcell Room on 23 March. On 29 March Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by Anja Harteros in a programme that includes the Eroica Symphony and Strauss's Four Last Songs.

At Wigmore Hall,  Mark Padmore visits on 12 March with a Brahms and Schubert programme. Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk appear on 26 March. Check the website for the inevitable returns.

Netrebko and Garanca pull it off

Today's general rehearsal for I Capuleti e i Montecchi (opening at the Royal Opera House on Monday) could hardly have gone better. A few question marks over the guys maybe, but Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca were on stunning form, Garanca in particular entirely flawless.

This role really shows Netrebko's strengths with its soaring legato phrasing - none of that hit-and-miss twiddly batsqueak stuff. Even in rehearsal she's right under Giulietta's skin. She looks gorgeous too, in a flowing cream gown - cut low for maximum bewbage but skimming gracefully over any remaining post-baby chub.

And we even got to see her in person and close-up as she made a surprise passage through the bar at the interval, still in full costume of course, with photographer and baby-toting husband Erwin Schrott in tow. The baby incidentally is utterly adorable, his thick black hair in a little mohawk and a look of permanent surprise on his face.

Elina Garanca got an even bigger ovation than Netrebko and deservedly so - tone, phrasing, flexibility, stamina - she had it all. The press photographers in the stalls went trigger-crazy at every Netrebko/Garanca clinch - I'm now waiting for the lurid lesbo headline in the Daily Mail.

Mark Elder's Bellini is a revelation, clean-limbed and twinkling. I hope the ballet-style oafish applause over the end of each scene won't be repeated on opening night though.

Netrebko and Garanca recorded in Vienna last year:

Anna Netrebko beats Vladimir Putin in Russian election

Here's the painting that Anna Netrebko produced for a Russian charity auction. Entitled Celebrant, it's one of 28 contributed by various Russian slebs.

Before you gasp at her hitherto-concealed talents, it's worth pointing out that the organiser's website notes that, like Vladimir Putin's contribution, it was created 'in collaboration' with artist Nadezhda Anfalova.

You can vote for your favourite painting of the 28 here. La Netrebka - Анна Нетребко in Russian - is second from the bottom. The grey button on the bottom left places the vote and takes you to the results screen - where currently Anna is just edging out Putin in the poll.

Vote early! Vote now! Vote often!

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UPDATE - 19 January - Anna is soaring to victory with more than 50% of the votes cast so far! Vladimir Putin - for once on the wrong side of a rigged election - trails far behind in a miserable fourth place.

You can vote as often as you like providing you wipe your cookies or reboot between each vote. Again, the link is here.

Spring season at the Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House's spring season starts in March. Booking is already open for Friends of the ROH; mere punters can join the online queues on 3 February.

First up is Bellini's version of the Romeo and Juliet story, I Capuleti e i Montecchi. I haven't seen this production, but it premiered in 1984, so I'm betting on more crinolines than underpants. The big draw is the casting of Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca. The ROH have cunningly scheduled around la Netrebka's inevitable sick leave by placing performance dates at the beginning and end of March, with a big recovery break in between.

Netrebko and Garanca perform Crudel, d'onor ragioni in Vienna:

The fabulous Mark Elder conducts, and also opens one of his orchestral rehearsals to public scrutiny on 14 February - highly recommended.

The pairing of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Handel's Acis and Galatea is not just a celebration of both composers in their anniversary year - it's also the first ever co-production of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet. Both are directed by Wayne McGregor - a bold choice, as music generally seems more an afterthought than a creative basis for his choreography. But we shall see. More ROH debutants in the cast, which includes Sarah Connolly, Lucy Crowe, Iestyn Davies and Danielle de Niese.

The Alagna circus rolls into town for Elijah Moshinsky's brutally trad production of Il trovatore.  Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Sondra Radvanovsky  provide the vocal backbone.  Opera's own Don Johnson is also interrogated 'In Conversation' for anyone lucky enough to snag a ticket. Will Mrs A come and cheer him along from the stalls? Unlike Anna Netrebko, she's far too grand for the cheap seats

More Moshinsky with his ancient but unfussy Lohengrin, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. Man-mountain Johan Botha shares the title role with the merely stout Simon O'Neill - both are worth catching. The reliable Petra Lang and Falk Struckmann are Ortrud and Telramund, but perhaps the most interesting casting is Edith Haller, barely out of music college but already a Bayreuth veteran. She replaces the previously-advertised Anne Schwanewilms as Elsa.

Last year's hay-strewn Laurent Pelly L'elisir d'amore is speedily revived, this time with Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti.

Finally, there's a special performance of Verdi's Requiem conducted by Pappano on 13 March - soloists are Barbara Frittoli, Olga Borodina, Piotr Beczala and Ildar Abdrazakov. Be warned tickets will go quickly for this one.

Inside the nostrils of Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon

Will this make its way to the DVD extras? Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón's new La Bohème movie was teaser-trailed on Austrian TV on Monday night.

In a shocking evocation of fin de siècle poverty, Mimi and Rodolfo are reduced to excavating their nostrils for nourishment:

 

 

   

   

And a fence post makes a tasty dessert:

   

This looks chewy:

 

Thanks to the magnificent Opera Chic's latest Awful Alagnas alert for the tip off. The full 10 minute video (in German) is here:

Anna Netrebko - the People's Diva

As Anna Netrebko's great fan Carlos kindly informs below, not only was Anna Netrebko found in the least glamorous of the Royal Opera House's bars at last night's Don Carlo premiere, she even sat in the cheap seats!

Seats in amphitheatre row B, from where Carlos says she watched her old mate Rolando Villazón bringing down the house, cost less than a quarter of the posh ones downstairs. 

The seats are narrow and armless, the legroom limited. If Anna found herself sitting next to anyone vaster than Kylie Minogue, she would have had to squeeze her dainty elbows into her hugely pregnant belly all night.

And from that distance, if Rolando had wrinkled his nose adorably in her direction, there's not a chance in hell she would have spotted it without binoculars.

But the acoustics are vastly superior to those in the expensive boxes - indeed many including myself believe the amphitheatre front rows have the best sound in the house. Anna, surely, could have bagged herself a freebie in any seat she wanted. But she chose instead to sit with the people who come to every show, and experience the Pappano magic at its most awesome. Respect! 

(Any further Anna sightings last night? Let me know!)

 

Anna Netrebko - "We have very strong muscles down there....it is easy for sopranos to give birth"

"pitiless self-assurance"
"throttled pianissimi"
"strangled spasms of coughing"
"tearful ovations"
"fans with their tongues out"

Anna Netrebko tells the Guardian she really has it all.

And have they, haven't they? Is 'husband' a figure of speech, or has she secretly tied the knot with Erwin Schrott?

Sadly, the Guardian is more interested in what she'll be wearing at the Classical Brits (a 'maternity dress' is the bold guess) than pursuing her neatly-dropped reference, so we'll have to wait on the Big Question.

Netrebko's Traviata - on yer radio - soon

Terrific though Ermonela Jaho was, I do regret that I missed Anna Netrebko in the Royal Opera House's La traviata.

Of course I'm not the only one. "What about my end-of-year round-up and the 2008 awards?" bleats the Observer's Anthony Holden, who nevertheless would rather watch Arsenal. (5-1 is all I'll say to that)

But with only one performance to go and tickets like gold dust, such is the unfairness of life that he'll probably get a ticket and I won't. Needless to say if anyone has a spare....

But at least Netrebko was back for last night's performance ("brilliant" according to a friend who saw it), which was recorded for BBC Radio 3. To be broadcast on Saturday 9 February at 6.30pm.

Dessay and Netrebko head to head in Traviata-off

Quelle coïncidence! On Saturday, the very same night that Anna Netrebko is scheduled to return (lungs permitting) to the Royal Opera House to complete her run in La traviata, Natalie Dessay will be incorporating Violetta's E' Strano….Sempre libera degg’io into her Barbican recital.

Interesting timing you might think, but like the rest of the evening's programme, it's included on her latest recording.

Dessay will be performing her first Violetta in Santa Fe in 2009, though as she told the Observer last month:

"I have my problems with Violetta. When her boyfriend's father pleads with her to give him up, why doesn't she just say "fnck you"?"

Brava Ermonela Jaho (Netrebko u can go home now)

La traviata - Royal Opera House, 17 January 2008

Denied the advertised Anna Netrebko due to a sudden-onset 'bronchial condition' (which will no doubt clear as soon as teh shops open), we learned only hours before tonight's Covent Garden performance of La traviata that our replacement Violetta was to be Ermonela Jaho, aka -- 'who?' 

Actually, that's not fair -- the name struck a faint bell, and sure enough, a little scrabbling around, and I found her name on a favourite Juan Diego Flórez recording. Well, if she's good enough for JDF.....

The suspiciously perceptive Royal Opera House, who probably by now realise that every Netrebko contract comes with a sicknote, had cannily flown in Jaho the night before. And that's not all - as it became evident that she had every move of this fiddly production pegged, it was obvious Jaho either a) is the world's fastest learner, b) has been cramming DVDs for weeks dreaming of getting 'the call' or c) has somehow and who knows how managed to fit in more than one day's rehearsal.

But enough of the conspiracy theory. Could she do the job? Could she replace the 'once in a generation' performance of the soprano who conquered (-ish) even London's testiest critic?

At first it didn't seem so. In contrast to her classically elegant ballerina looks, her singing was graceless and squally, with a vibrato you could drive a truck through. But she drove pluckily on, and as her solo scene drew the first act to a close, the tone sweetened and smoothed out. Just nerves, then, and who could blame her? Not the easiest way to make a Covent Garden debut.

If her È strano was cautious, her Sempre libera rather buttoned-up, the massive ovation she got at the end of Act I must have boosted her confidence, because after the interval we saw what Jaho could really do.

Jaho may lack Netrebko's brassballed charisma, but she does score in a few areas where Netrebko's not even in the game, namely sincerity, humility and warmth. Her clean, silvery tone is not broadly coloured, nor does she play with dynamic extremes. Nuance rather than gesture is her weapon. As she slid downward through her Act II showdown with Germont père, each tiny straw of hope snatched away from her grasp one by one, the voice glowed and dimmed. Her desperation is corseted and dignified, and all the more credible for it. It was a bravely open performance. I don't doubt Netrebko would have given a very different reading, but Jaho's was subtle, coherent and most of all, touching. I was far from the only one in tears. And more than once.

And I think I should point out that every one of Jaho's notes was clear, even toned and accurately placed - of course that should be a given, but I can't recall the last soprano I heard here who managed it.

Violetta's illness was portrayed in too non-specific a way -  not a cough to be heard (plenty to compensate in the audience of course...) and the protracted death scene, delivered as a Dawn of the Dead zombie walk around the set, was misplaced, but otherwise there were no holes to be picked in Jaho's performance.

And she had fine support from Jonas Kaufmann as Alfredo and Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Germont. Vocally and dramatically Kaufmann was faultless, and so hawt you could fry eggs on him. And not one second of 'underpowered' either, as some of the first night critics claimed - every note was stadium-sized. Though he remains about as Italian as Hamburger con cipolle, this is no flaw in a performance this dynamic and committed.

Hvorostovsky sang wonderfully throughout, with a great attention to detail. He had the appropriate patrician assurance for most requirements, a natural authority that marked his presence, but couldn't unbend sufficiently to make key moments like his final reconciliation with Violetta work dramatically.

Although none of the smaller roles were hugely impressive, the ROH chorus once again did a fabulous job, despite in some places getting not a lot of help from conductor Maurizio Benini, who should be collared for reckless disregard of an orchestra. There were so many instances when musicians threatened to part company totally with singers. But he did pull out the light, sprightly performance that was needed.

Just before the performance started, a cheer went up. I looked around, and there, in one of the boxes, were a bride and bridegroom in full wedding gear, veil included. What a way to start a honeymoon. I do hope Netrebko didn't ruin their special day by not turning up, but they looked happy enough. There were plenty of people not best pleased before the performance (including some Germans who'd travelled just to see Netrebko) - but I didn't hear one complaint at the end. Could Jaho be the cure for Netrebko cancellitis?

***UPDATE*** - check out another perspective on the same performance, and a useful round up of the reviews, from Mad Musings of Me

above, Ermonela Jaho sings from La traviata - not tonight's production though.