As the lunatic heroine of Bellini's
Puritani, (Anna Netrebko) lay prostrate and let her head with its cascade of black hair droop upside down into the orchestra pit as she sang some of the most dementedly difficult music ever written. She looked like an Ophelia about to drown herself in a river of sound.
'Was crazy, no?' she said, remembering this stunt. 'But felt good. Yes, was my idea.
I agree to sing this opera, then open score and don't like, it's crap, I want to cancel. And Met production was so dull, stage director no help. I had to do something, so I get on floor. Is fun to be a mad person; you are free, you do what you like. Physically was easy for me, I was acrobat for five years.'
And then we spend money, go to Met opera and hear you and we don't like, is crazy,
performance is crap, wish you cancel ... maybe you think
Romeo crap too, you tell us, so we know to expect shit, no?
'Je veux vivre!' shrills Gounod's Juliette: here, in a variant of Violetta's outcry about liberty, is Netrebko's hedonistic mission statement. She shuddered, however, when I mentioned the aria. 'Is terrible, that piece! I am always singing sharp or cracking the high notes.
OK thanks for telling, now we see
the Romeo and expect same crap too.
