Netrebko out of Covent Garden Faust

Just in from the ROH:

"Anna Netrebko has regretfully withdrawn from the role of Marguerite in Faust with The Royal Opera in April 2014. This was to have been her debut in the role.

Anna Netrebko has asked us to forward the following: ‘I am so sorry to have to withdraw from the role of Marguerite in Faust. After much consideration and intensive preparation, I have come to the conclusion that the role is not right for me.  I had been very much looking forward to making my debut in this role at the Royal Opera House and following it with further performances in Vienna and Baden-Baden.  Unfortunately, I must now withdraw from all these productions. I am very sad to be disappointing my fans in London, Vienna and Baden-Baden and hope they will understand the difficult decision that I have had to make. However, I am very much looking forward to returning to The Royal Opera to perform with the Company again in 2015.’

We are working very hard to secure a good replacement for Anna Netrebko in this important part."

Not surprised at the decision - just at its astonishing lateness.

Comments

[Siggy]

To everyone's lack of astonishment. Given that the proposed Met Faust was changed to Macbeth some time ago isn't it a little late in the day to decide she doesn't want to sing Marguerite?

Wonder if Angela is available?

[John]

She sang both Adina and Tatyana at the Met earlier this season and now she feels the role isn't right for her? What exactly is the problem? Could it be that four role debuts in one season is just a bit too much for anyone?

[Alexander]

as far as I can understand all tickets have already been sold out ... any way I want to see her as Norma ...

[Chiswickian]

I agree IM. I'm not surprised but it's astonishingly late to discover that the role is unsuitable. Clearly she leaves things to the last minute. I wonder if the ROH will send her the way of Harteros.

[Andres]

Oh dear, real casting problems at the ROH. By 2015 it will have been five years without Anna. Mattei about the same if not more. Harteros and Florian Vogt in quarantine, Skelton, Herlitzius and Nikitin never invited...

Of course some of the absences are due to the artists themselves, but a large part of the blame lies on the casting - I could do with a year without Keenlyside, Jaho, Poplavskaya and even DiDonato and Kaufmann in exchange for some of the above.

[Thomas Os]

I am outraged - and the vanity of her statement (the role isn't right for me - silly Gounod for not writing a better one! (she should have said, surely "I am not right for the role" - basically because I am not up to it) and referring to "my fans"... huh - I hope ROH gets someone talented in instead as my 13 year old son spent vast amounts of his own money for a ticket and he is going to be devastated that she has withdrawn when he finds out when he comes home from school. Infuriating.

[William Lau]

"What exactly is the problem?"

Perhaps Erwin Schrott. He's not in the ROH run, but he's the Mephistopheles in Vienna, Baden-Baden and Hamburg.
*********
Intermezzo replies - Netrebko recently sang alongside him in L'elisir at the Met, so I very much doubt if that's the issue. I believe the excuse she's given is a genuine one, however strange the timing.

[Emil Archambault]

Of course not. Netrebko is Netrebko. If anything, they'll send her the Gheorghiu way and only invite her to revivals, with a sub at hand.

[Faye]

Really disappointing (if hardly surprising) news - although it's good that she's being so open and honest about her reasons

I wonder who the replacement will be. Hopefully not Morticia, as I'd rather hear someone who knows how to pronounce French correctly and doesn't simper so much in the role.

[inter mezzo]

Fortunately for your delicate sensibilities, Gheorghiu is giving Paris her Mimi at roughly the same time, though she might technically be free for a couple of later performances.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ROH end up falling back on more than one singer.

[John]

Yes, Netrebko is legendary for her command of French.

[Faye]

I never claimed Netrebko's French was good - but considering they need to totally recast then I was hoping we might get someone whose French was slightly more idiomatic.

[John]

At this stage they'll probably have to make do with whoever is available!

[Tenorfach]

Well it is not totally unknown for a major house to get a particular singer released from another house, so I look forward to see who ROH secure for this role, as it could be anyone at this stage.

[Emil Archambault]

My money'd be on Irina Lungu, who will be preparing to take the role the following month in Amsterdam. Or Ailyn Pérez, who has the role in her repertory and has a Faust-shaped hole in her schedule, before she takes on La Traviata...in London. Byström will be in New York, Haroutounian in Napoli.

[Renata P.]

When is the last time Gheorghiu has sung this role? It might be the case that she's tired of it after so many Marguerites (including the DVD) in her career. But I think she's the best in this role among the current crop.

Anyway, do you guys think that Netrebko was afraid of the top notes in the Jewel Song?

What if ROH brings in Poplavskaia?
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Intermezzo replies - The justification for using Gheorghiu would be that she's sung the role at every single outing of this production so far. None of the other contenders know the production.

[waltraud]

Sonya Yoncheva will be Marguerite

[John]

It's definitely not the top notes - Marguerite isn't an especially high role and Netrebko can nail those Bs and Cs like nobody else around. I've no doubt that she would have struggled with the Jewel song - she always has - but to be frank, her inability to deliver the coloratura perfectly has never been an obstacle to her doing a role before. Most of the role is full lyric material and should suit her perfectly fine, which is why I suspect she's over-committed to new repertoire and roles and just doesn't have the time or energy to learn it now.

[PetetheCheat]

The last time Poplavskaya appeared at the ROH, for her one and only performance in Vepres, she was still so ill from bronchitis, it would have been better for her not to have sung at all, as it caused a relapse in her condition. I very much doubt they will ask her to give it a go.

[Diane]

... or even understandable!

[TTQT]

In Wien StaastOper web they announce that Sonya Yoncheva will be Margueite instead Netrebko

[Emil Archambault]

Poplavskaya will be singing Elisabeth in Tannhauser for Barenboim in Berlin at that time. I don't see her cancelling on Barenboim to come to London.

[PetetheCheat]

I think you're right. She likes Barenboim, who once told her that she had an "exceptional voice" which she had "trained very well".

[SJT]

It's bound to be Perez, which is fine by me, though (after the Manon) Faye might well find her French sensibilities subject to yet further outrage.

Poplavskaya cannot in any meaningful sense sing the role, as amply witnessed by the new release of the Met's Dr. Atomic staging with Kaufmann this week.

What I completely fail to understand is how someone like Netrebko - in this business for twenty years now, the Queen of the Met, and with enough self-awareness to have said only recently "actually, my voice hasn't any coloratura in it at all" - can have left it so very late to realise that Marguérite isn't for her. And has already been pointed out, she does in fact fake the coloratura pretty well, considering. Could it simply be that, like some other contemporary luminaries, she underestimated or failed to make provision for learning time and, questions of "fit" aside, has no time left to learn it?

Well, at least she didn't plead largely fictitious illness as her excuse....

[SJT]

By the way, I love the ROH's press release's last sentence: "We are working very hard to secure a good replacement for Anna Netrebko in this important part."

Were we otherwise to assume that they'd be working hard to secure a bad one?

[Alexander]

Netrebko's French is as much as my lovely Granny Joan's (Sutherland) Italian - no one really wants to listen to the language - everyone wants to listen to the voice and music lines she exudes ... Human's magnetism in such a substantial quantity is the first sign of God's gift ...yes , her voice is not for much coloratura, but her personal fluids are above her command - and that does all in this case ... she can sing a telephone book and success will be the same , like Callas and Sutherland did .... probably this is another reason for me to like her ( not to speak of Renée, Ruth Ann Swenson and some other more praised sopranos like Kiri )... just my opinion, of course

[Johann Erinn]

"Poplavskaya cannot in any meaningful sense sing the role, as amply witnessed by the new release of the Met's Dr. Atomic staging with Kaufmann this week."

@ SJT, this seems to have holes in it.

[Ted]

Naturally I'm sure ROH will be offering a partial refund on our ticket prices seen as they were 20-25% higher than normal for this production presumably because of the higher cost of having Anna in it?

[Miriam]

Perhaps we were otherwise to assume they were doing nothing about it at all and hoping one would just turn up and offer their services.

[inter mezzo]

You're also getting Calleja, Terfel and Keenlyside for your money.

[John]

Yes it's still a great cast - but as Andres has pointed out, it was to be Netrebko's first role in London for four years. Having seen this production multiple times, I'm not sure I would have bothered going unless Netrebko were cast. It's not the opera house's fault - it's just a shame she doesn't seem particularly bothered about appearing here and that her cancellation record in London is so high.

[Nik]

Has this ever been done other than for Tamerlano? At that time the ROH had no choice, since tickets for "Tamerlano with Domingo" were in a different price bracket to "Tamerlano with Streit", and in the end we got Streit on all the nights. But this run wasn't sold as "Faust with Netrebko".

[yvette]

When Anna Netrebko cancelled her last Capulet i Montecchi in Munich we were offered a 50% refund (I did not 'like' it because I immediately thought all the others on the cast were worth peanuts...). Still, better than nothing! This time I booked for Faust in Baden Baden and hard luck too...

[Ted]

I know what you are saying but I still can't help but think ROH should be a little more sympathetic to their patrons. If this didn't take the form of a partial refund perhaps they could offer £x voucher for the bars or 1 week advanced booking on the summer season.

[La Cieca]

What "coloratura?" There are a couple of short scale passages and three trills across a five minute aria, and these are the only "brilliant" moments in the entire role.

I wish I could understand why it is when an artist withdraws from a role (or decides not to take on a role in the first place), everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion "she can't sing it." Netrebko has been very straightforward in explaining why she does not sing certain roles that would seem to be an ideal match for her voice, e.g., Desdemona and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra: she personally doesn't find the characters dramatically interesting, and she prefers to spend her time performing parts that engage her as an actor.

[Forte et Piano]

Of course Netrebko should have honoured her contract.
She should have sung a role that she didn't feel comfortable with or didn't feel was suitable for her voice at this point in her career.
Then she should have put up with the vilification that comes with singing roles she isn't suited to.
She should have just taken the money...rather than losing the money, which she will have done by not singing.
She's left it late, admittedly, but sometimes things don't become apparent until late.
Of course people are disappointed. And I understand their disappointment. But I understand her reasoning too.

[Frank]

...and maybe she realized during that run, that she doesn't want to perform with him in the near future or they had a fight in between NY and now. (as an answer for the intermezzo-comment).

I guess at the end, it is a puzzle and all the rumored reasons are kind of true and play together for her to finally cancel Marguerite !