Whenever Sieglinde's Blue ...

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If Sieglinde didn't blog, she'd want to blog that way.

10 Follow-up Questions for Renee Fleming

Sieglinde reads Time Magazine's little interview with our resident diva Renée Fleming, and can't help but submit follow-up questions to continue this most interesting conversation.


RENÉE: "Every singer eventually gets around to a Christmas disc. Only now it's called a sacred collection."
SIEGLINDE: Yes, we hear Leyla Gencer is under intense negotiations with Fonit Cetra, or Legato ... or is it with Falcon/Mustang ... In any case, what do you think she should call her disc?


RENÉE: "[Audiences] want to hear the most thrilling singing. When a human being without amplification makes a sound that is high and loud, it is almost unworldly."
SIEGLINDE: How gracious of you to recommend that audiences hear the likes of Deborah Voigt and Christine Brewer, the huge diva that you are. Who else sings high and loud these days?


RENÉE: "But I think the real future is streaming video over the Internet--then you can be heard not just by 3,000 people in the hall but live all around the world. One of the biggest markets for classical music is China."
SIEGLINDE: Oh these Diaries believe streaming video of opera is the next porn too. And speaking of piracy, I hear Sacred Songs is number one in Hong Kong. Is it because your voice is just so easy to fake?


RENÉE: "The voice is such a mystery. It is hard to diagnose if something goes wrong. No one really knows what happened to Callas' voice when it went. But I am now at a point where I can trust my voice better."
SIEGLINDE: So, you think you're better than Callas. Funny, a lot of people say that! Who else do you exceed?


RENÉE: "[Opera at La Scala] is a little bit like a sports event, with fans shouting at their teams."
SIEGLINDE: Oh, the booing was really just about soccer (or football?), and had nothing to do with your singing whatsoever?


RENÉE: On practicing singing in front of the mirror. "Once in a while. I can see if I am singing out of the side of my mouth or lifting a shoulder--we do all these involuntary movements when we sing."
SIEGLINDE: Do you see the saccharine tone drool coming out of the side of your mouth too? We can see it all the way from Family Circle, you know.


RENÉE: "If I could just sit in the audience and hear myself, I would be so much better, but I have to rely on others listening to me."
SIEGLINDE: So tell me, who in Opera-L do you really, really hate? And what is it that La Cieca hears when she attends one of your soirees?


RENÉE: "Would you believe--in two dialects, old Elvish and new Elvish? Who knew? It was wonderful. It put me in touch with a whole new audience, including my children's friends."
SIEGLINDE: Why, do they speak Elvish too?


RENÉE: "I think of (Luciano) as Ella Fitzgerald, and Placido as Sarah Vaughan. Luciano-- classical, crystal, timeless perfection. Placido--more baroque, a little bit twisted, crazy and sexy. For my own singing, I used to be attracted by the baroque, the flashier the better, but now I prefer a simpler, purer style."
SIEGLINDE: So you did sleep with Placido in your younger days. How twisted and crazy did he get? But now you're into simpler and purer, and yes, Luciano can be wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am these days, but do you also hate it when he calls you Marta during the sex?


RENÉE: On Chef Boulod's creation called Diva Renee au Chocolat. "It is too many calories! And with my face lasered on the front of the dessert, it is hard for me to look at that and then eat it anyway!"
SIEGLINDE: What is the best way to slice your face? And speaking of dessert, have you tried the day-old Gheorghius at the corner Polish deli? They're not only sweet, but they're just so high in fiber too.

No, Sieglinde didn't go ...

... to last evening's Met Romeo because she's officially saving up her dimes and nickels for three spectabulous weekends in the woods of the Berkshires in the sweet midsummer of 2006. Tanglewood, here we come.

SCHOENBERG Gurrelieder. Friday, July 14. Boston Symphony Orchestra; James Levine, conductor; Christine Brewer (Tove); Waltraud Meier (Wood Dove); Johan Botha (Waldemar); Matthew Polenzani (Klaus Narr); Eike Wilm Schulte (Peasant).

STRAUSS Elektra. Saturday, July 15. Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra; James Levine, conductor; Lisa Gasteen (Elektra); Christine Brewer (Chrysothemis); Felicity Palmer (Klytemnestra); Alan Held (Orest); Siegfried Jerusalem (Aegist); Claudia Waite (Overseer); Jennifer Check, Marjorie Elinor Dix, Sandra Lopez, Mary Philips, Ellen Rabiner (Maids).

MOZART, All-Mozart Program; Friday, July 21. Boston Symphony Orchestra; James Levine, conductor and piano (concert aria); Susan Graham; Richard Goode, piano (piano concerto); "Ch'io mi scordi di te...Non temer, amato bene," K.505, Concert aria with piano obbligato; Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat, K.595; Symphony No. 41, Jupiter.

MOZART Don Giovanni; Saturday, July 22. Boston Symphony Orchestra; James Levine, conductor; Mariusz Kwiecien (Don Giovanni); Michele Pertusi (Leporello); Barbara Frittoli (Donna Anna); Soile Isokoski (Donna Elvira); Heidi Grant Murphy, soprano (Zerlina); Matthew Polenzani (Don Ottavio); Patrick Carfizzi (Masetto); Morris Robinson (Commendatore).

J.S. BACH & HANDEL; Friday, August 11. Boston Symphony Orchestra; Harry Bicket, conductor; Corey Cerovsek, violin; Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. BACH Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D; BACH Violin Concerto No. 2 in E, BWV 1042 ; HANDEL Selected arias; HANDEL Royal Fireworks Music.

Exhaustion

BEFORE Elizabeth Futral, there was Ruth Ann Swenson. Three years ago, also around this time of year, I visited the Met a few times for Swenson's Lucia, which, under the baton of Maestro Patrick Summers, was a brooding, Gothic, delicate piece of high bel canto. Swenson then was coming out of a series of failed Gildas in the prior season, marked by forced top notes, weak resonance, widening vibrato: all dire signs of an overripe soprano passing into the twilight of her coloratura career. But then somehow she regroups, and returns triumphant with a gorgeous, masterful Lucia, hypnotic, with mint notes that sparkled like the crystal bursts of the Met chandeliers.

The Edgardo then was the dashing Marcelo Alvarez. The Swenson-Alvarez tandem was soothing, their love was down comforter, their fall into death inevitable and classic. Maestro Summers' work was expansive but elegantly understated: the orchestra was transparent and gracious, and knew its proper place in this Donizetti. Succeeding Lucia evenings seemed like trips to the spa after a long day's work, and those velvet seats took you in softly, soothing bones and muscles. Beauty was the first command, and everyone delivered. Voices were relaxed, exceptionally civilized, symmetric. Therapy in predictability: the soul fed, the universe realigned: Sieglinde reached a peace by each curtain's fall.

Fast-forward this season. We are force-fed the fiery pair of Elizabeth Futral and Giuseppe Filianoti, and a heavy-handed Maestro Edoardo Müller whose orchestra likes to partake in the screaming match transpiring on stage. The air of minor regional opera, uncertain, unpolished, permeated every scene. Each aria is a tour of subterranean emotions, and the pain rises from each unsettled phrase: by the end of the Mad Scene, I fall to the ground, and during Edgardo's suicide, I feel the dagger slice through my skin. I don't think Donizetti meant to write the first verismo opera, but no matter: Futral treats the high notes not as sweet academic flourishes but as sonic symbols of an unreachable happiness, and every time she launches something up there (in distressing screams) I'm pushed closer to a hard precipice. Though Filianoti moves about the stage gracefully, silent-film style, his grave, desperate heart is too easy to discern amidst the stylish poses of his voice. His phrasing is formidable in beauty and lightness, but it's much more than beautiful: long lines taken in one breath (when it's perfectly fine to break), top notes soaked in grief (throbbing), all compose a sense of vulnerability. Because these emotions appear more spontaneous than designed (young Filianoti perhaps buoyed by this city's extraordinarily warm reception), the evening unsettles right from the fountain scene, and through to the last bars of Edgardo's dying music the internal chaos deepens.

In truth, Futral does not have (or no longer has) a particularly attractive sound. It is now a tattered (yet still bejeweled) bag of tricks: a conclave of ringing top notes desperately wanting to cross into Wagner, curious colors in the middle range, seemingly inexhaustible shower of raw sound (and an ad hoc chest); and that face! Futral's face forces the capital Q in opera Queen. She scowls and she clutches her gown a la Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons and runs around the bare stage like a vampire in heat. Every time she opens her mouth, she declares war. (War against sensibility, physics, Donizetti, the Enrico, high D-flat, Swenson, obscenity laws, the pit ...) She collapses, the tornado ends, and as the curtain falls, Sieglinde is challenged to explain where the bel canto hid all evening. But somehow it's all OK. Taking in three of these Lucias is closer in impact to three Mattila Salomes than to, say, three Fleming Rodelindas. Exhaustion has set in; thankfully, I don't have to deal with it again till late December; and much like puking your guts out can never be an effective deterrent to binge drinking, this three-evening Lucia assault will not keep me away from going back and paying good money for this kind of sweet obscenity.


OUR SISTER Vilaine Fille believes that the Anglophone blogosphere is full of people who don't know how to listen (in an added comment she wrote in her stupendously praised post on Giuseppe Filianoti, written in Italian so Anglophones like me can't detect their little chatter dagger), referring to Sieglinde's 'alleged' comparison between First Archangel Juan Diego Florez and Peasant Filianoti. Sieglinde's post VF was all venom about was a simple text message relay from a hyperventilating friend who was turned into a Filianoti fan overnight. The comparison was simply a reaction to a wild evening; Sieglinde, having not heard Filianoti live then, translated his *humorous* text messages inaccurately. There was no intention on our part to offend the Most Holy Congregation of Florez, and particularly the High Priestess of the Doctrine of the Congregation of Faith (a.k.a. VF), for we worship rabidly in the same temple. Lest we spark a crusade here, Sieglinde will state for the record (seriously now, after having heard Filianoti thrice) that (a) Florez and Filianoti have different vocal constitutions, (b) they both have a place in the wide operatic altar, (c) Florez is an allcaps GOD, (d) she will check with the High Priestess regarding any future comparisons with Florez the Great, and (e) she promises to go to the ear doctor this afternoon. (So when can Sieglinde get her I-Love-Florez-Like-French-Fries membership card back?)