Wagner On A Sousaphone Accompanies KKK Marchers To Rally

A man cleverly uses a sousaphone alongside marching members of the Klu Klux Klan. The choice of slumbering, almost cartoonish music, is perfection. He even slips in "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner! Check out the Vienna Philharmonic playing the full version as it was originally intended in the opera Die Walküre.

Leading Ladies Of The Late Jon Vickers In Opera Performances

Jon Vickers (center) and Leontyne Price (right) are seen talking with producer Richard Mohr
during the recording of Verdi's Aida for RCA in 1961 at the Rome Opera.

With the most recent passing of the heroic tenor Jon Vickers, we look back at the outstanding roster of female partners he had on the opera stage and in the recording studio. During an era when operatic pairings like Callas & Di Stefano, Tebaldi & Del Monaco, and Nilsson & Corelli were commonplace, the Canadian powerhouse voice of Jon Vickers sang with voices as far-ranging as Teresa Stratas to Gré Brouwenstijn. Find more astounding clips featuring Katia Ricciarelli, Renata Scotto, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé, Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, and many more, after the jump.

Christine Goerke Balances Being a Wagnerian Opera Star & Mother

Goerke at home with a picture on the wall featuring her
with the great Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson.
(Photo: Robert Sciarrino/The Star-Ledger)

"Goerke’s world is carefully balanced between her family and her art, which requires frequent travel — this season, to Australia, Spain, Poland and Chicago. And next month, she’ll be local as the artist-in-residence at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y. She has never stayed away longer than 60 days — 'too long' — and video-chats with the girls every day. In her home, past the practice room where sunlight streams through a picture window to a grand piano, opera DVDs share space on living room shelves with Charlie Brown and Barbie. Goerke’s Grammy Award certificate hangs on one wall, framed crayon drawings on another. She is determined that the girls receive music instruction to enrich their lives, but how far they pursue the field is their choice. In general, she sees education as essential as the opera world goes through changes — in her words, people need to know 'that it’s not the kind of thing they think it is.' She describes the rich scores she sings as really great movie soundtracks, the emotional subtext of compelling stories — with incredible voices. 'To hear no microphones, no speakers, just unadulterated, mind-blowing, butt-kicking sound coming right at you is so fierce and it’s so visceral,' she says. 'It’s something everyone should experience once in their life and then, if you don’t like it, I’m okay with it.' The kind of sound that Goerke describes comes to very few people naturally, even if they work as hard as she has. But when she asks her colleagues if she can be heard in the audience over 120-piece orchestras, they laugh. “While some might find that daunting, I finally feel like I don’t have to hold back anymore,” she says. 'I finally feel at home.'" [Source]

Christine Goerke Celebrates Dramatic Voice Change

Goerke is all smiles after a four-year absence
from the MET stage, she will return in
Wagner during the 2018-19 season.

"The change, when it came, took her by surprise. 'I noticed it during the run of Alcina at City Opera (in 2003),' Goerke said. 'Handel always felt easy and comfortable, and it didn't feel easy. I went home and told my then-fiance: 'I broke it.' . And it turned out that in fact, my voice was just changing . and I had disconnected from my support, because my voice got so big and I was trying to keep it very slim.' Once she corrected the problem, she said, her voice became 'immediately twice the size, then three times, and my coach said, 'My God, there's still more in there!' It wasn't something that was broken, just something I had to grow into.' At the same time, Goerke was growing into a new personal life. She married her fiance (whom she affectionately refers to as "a tone-deaf construction worker") and had two children, girls now 4 and 7. Her reincarnation as a full-fledged dramatic soprano began when she sang the title role of Strauss' Elektra in Madrid in 2011, a part she has reprised in Chicago and London. But coming back to the Met

The soprano at the beginning
of her career (Photo: Christian Steiner)

was special. Born on Long Island, she had apprenticed with the Met's program for young artists. Her Met debut came in 1995 and she sang there regularly for a while. But since 2004, her only appearances had been in 2009 as the Foreign Princess in Dvorak's Rusalka. 'Singers should never think of a house as a 'home' because it's all business,' Goerke said. 'But this will always be home to me. I grew up here.' Within days of the Frau opening, the Met announced it had signed her to sing Brünnhilde in Wagner's Ring cycle in 2018-19, as well as to appear in Elektra and as Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. Other Ring cycles are on her calendar, including one in Houston. And she's studying new roles, among them Isolde, Lady Macbeth and Cassandra in Berlioz's Les Troyens. And she looks forward to many years of singing at the top of her game. 'It's very rare at 44 to be able to say I'm a baby,' Goerke said. 'It's just at the beginning of where things start to get comfy in this repertoire.'" [Source] Find a fun photo, that may have foreshadowed Christine Goerke's future singing endeavors, after the jump.

Sondra Radvanovsky Sings at Birgit Nilsson Prize Ceremony

Riccardo Muti accepted his $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize in Stockholm, Sweden. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky sang "Tacea la notte placida" from Il Trovatore at the ceremony. Click here to watch the video. Two more images after the jump.

Buried (MP3) Treasure: Birgit Nilsson

As record labels explore the cost effectiveness of the MP3 format, many are digging deep into their archives to find recorded material to re-issue from previous CD incarnations or in some cases for the first time since their original LP release. Click on the Amazon widget to hear MP3 audio samples.

Universal's Eloquence Releases Rare Archived Recordings

Complete track listings and album notes for each release
can be found after the jump.

Happy Birthday: Birgit Nilsson

La Nilsson singing Wagner's Isolde at the MET Gala 1983

"The celebrated Swedish dramatic soprano who specialized in operatic and symphonic works, would have turned 93 today. Her voice was noted for its overwhelming force, bountiful reserves of power and the gleaming brilliance and clarity in the upper register. Birgit Nilsson came from a rural background and had to work hard to gain acceptance in the world of music, but she made so strong an imprint on many roles that they came to be known as the "Nilsson repertory". She sang the operas of Richard Strauss and made a specialty of Puccini's Turandot, but it was the music of Wagner that made her career; her command of his music was comparable to that

With her dog Nalle in Sweden

of Kirsten Flagstad, who owned the Wagner repertory at the Metropolitan Opera during the years before World War II. At her peak, Nilsson astounded audiences in live performance with the unforced power of her voice, which cut through dense orchestration, and with her remarkable breath control, which allowed her to hold notes for a remarkably long time. Her interpretive powers grew as her career developed, and she became a moving artist as well as a vocal phenomenon. Among colleagues, she also became renowned for her playful sense of humor."

Bing Gala at the MET 1972

"Una partita a poker" La Fanciulla del West (w/Andrea Mongelli)

"Starke Scheite, schichtet mir dort" Götterdämmerung

"La fatal pietra..." Aida (w/Luigi Ottolini & Grace Hoffman)

"Dich teure halle" Tannhäuser

"Mario, mario, mario!" Tosca (w/Franco Corelli)

"Der Engel" Wesendonck Lieder

"Ah! Perfido"

"Una macchia" Macbeth

"O Don fatale" Don Carlo

"Du wolltest mich nicht deinen Mund küssen lassen" Salome

"Crudele!...Non mi dir" Don Giovanni


A full biography and funny anecdotes are after the jump.

Which Rich Opera Singer Will Win $1 Million?

Diva on Divan (Photo: Hamish Brown/Evening Standard)

This Sunday, Angela Gheorghiu is the favorite to win the next Birgit Nilsson Prize valued at $1 million. The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements by (a) a singer in the field of opera or concert or oratorio (b) a conductor in the classical field of opera or concert or (c) a specific production by an opera company, as long as this production is outstandingly cast and conducted and, most importantly, staged in the spirit of the composer. According to sports betting platform bwin.com, other nominees include Anna Netrebko, Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme, Renée Fleming, Rolando Villázon, Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila. Also on the list is James Levine with 18-1 odds. [Source] The full betting list is after the jump. For more information about the Birgit Nilsson Prize, go here.

The World of Gloria Vanderbilt

"Gloria Vanderbilt is many things: an heiress, a painter, a muse, a designer, a model, a writer, an entrepreneur, an actor, a socialite, a survivor and an icon. She brought the Vanderbilt name out of the Gilded Age and into the Digital Age, reinventing herself over and over along the way. Hers is a story of charisma, glamour and heartbreaking loss, told here by Wendy Goodman, who had intimate access to Vanderbilt for this book.