Leyla Gencer And Grace Bumbry In Unconventional Performance

Grace Bumbry (left) and Leyla Gencer (right) appear backstage during performances of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at La Scala in 1967. Listen to the performance here.  See some other unique casting choices for this Baroque piece, after the jump.

"L'incoronazione di Poppea (SV 308, The Coronation of Poppaea) is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times. The original manuscript of the score does not exist; two surviving copies from the 1650s show significant differences from each other, and each differs to some extent from the libretto. How much of the music is actually Monteverdi's, and how much the product of others, is a matter of dispute. None of the existing versions of the libretto, printed or manuscript, can be definitively tied to the first performance at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo, the precise date of which is unknown. Details of the original cast are few and largely speculative, and there is no record of the opera's initial public reception. Despite these uncertainties, the work is generally accepted as part of the Monteverdi operatic canon, his last and perhaps his greatest work. In a departure from traditional literary morality, it is the adulterous liaison of Poppea and Nerone which triumphs, although this victory is demonstrated by history to have been transitory and hollow. Moreover, in Busenello's version of the story all the major characters are morally compromised. Written when the genre of opera was only a few decades old, the music for L'incoronazione di Poppea has been praised for its originality, its melody, and for its reflection of the human attributes of its characters. The work helped to redefine the boundaries of theatrical music, and established Monteverdi as the leading musical dramatist of his time. [Source]

Catherine Malfitano Delivers Master Class For Opera Preservation

"The American Lyric Theater was founded in 2005 to foster the creation of operas by matching composers to librettists and offering them training and workshops to help them develop new works. Last year it also commissioned three operas from participants. Those operas are at the center of the InsightALT festival being presented at the JCC in Manhattan. The festival, where audiences can get a glimpse of the craft that underpins the art of opera, opened on Tuesday with a public master class led by Catherine Malfitano. A venerated soprano, Ms. Malfitano has, over the course of three decades, created roles in nearly a dozen new operas. In recent years she has also built up a portfolio of directing credits. 'The ultimate test of whether a piece is going to last is whether you can make an emotional connection with the audience and make them come back for more,' she told the participating singers, urging them to take the creation of new operas seriously. 'What we are doing is of the utmost importance for the future of this art form. Because at some point people will get sick of the museum.'" Read more at the New York Times Blog by clicking here.

Catherine Malfitano's Daughter Premieres Opera Libretto

Lauren Flanigan, Thomas Pasatieri, Catherine
Malfitano, Daphne Malfitano and Chris Cooley.

"'My name is woman,' Magda Sorel says in Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul. In The Family Room, composed by Thomas Pasatieri with a libretto by Daphne Malfitano, the two main characters are billed only as Woman 1 and Woman 2. Their identities are even more erased those of Magda and her family as they too face brutal cold and imminent death. The Family Room has its own sensational premise that can be traced to real events. Its protagonists have been trapped in a windowless basement room, afraid—or maybe unable—to leave their captor. The opera’s private staged reading at the McCarter Theatre’s Berlind Theatre was the first collaboration between Opera New Jersey and American Opera Projects. The show opens this weekend and offered much to recommend it. Written for and sung compellingly by renowned sopranos Catherine Malfitano and Lauren Flanigan, the story’s central women are vividly, distinctly drawn, with relatable desires expressed eloquently in both words and music. The opera has many elements of mystery and room for audience interpretation. But, while trying not to give too much away, part of what makes The Family Room so intriguing is that desperation breeds creativity. As the women imagine future plans and share their memories, intoxicating melodies lull the characters and the listeners." [Source]

For ticket information about the performances on July 23 and 24, visit the Opera New Jersey website here.

Catherine Malfitano Leads the Artistic Pack....Finally

(Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

Follow Daniel J. Wakin's updates on the New York Times Blog here. The obvious question might be: where were all of these artists, orchestra members and choristers when Susan Baker was flushing money down the toilet with the Gérard Mortier debacle? It seems the company should fold and just start over with someone like Catherine Malfitano leading the way. 

Happy Birthday: Catherine Malfitano

"Give Me My Robe"

Antony and Cleopatra (Barber)

Catherine Malfitano was born April 18, 1948, in New York City, the daughter of a ballet dancer mother, Maria Maslova, and a violinist father, Joseph Malfitano. She attended the High School of Music and Art and studied at the Frank Corsaro Studio and the Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 1971. Malfitano made her professional singing debut in 1972 at the Central City Opera playing the role of Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff. She soon appeared with Minnesota Opera, where she sang in the world premiere of Conrad Susa's Transformations and, in 1974 at New York City Opera, in La bohème, as Mimi. She then appeared with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1975) and at the Royal Opera House (1976) and in other major European opera houses. In 1978, Malfitano achieved wider recognition in a telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street from NYCO, playing Annina. Since then, Malfitano has sung at the major opera houses throughout the world, including

"Gavotte" Manon (Massenet)

the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Grand Théâtre de Genève in Geneva, Teatro Comunale in Florence, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Berlin State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Paris Opéra, Hamburgische Staatsoper in Hamburg, De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam as well as the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, the Houston Grand Opera and the Salzburg Festival. Catherine Malfitano's stage repertoire of more than seventy roles spans the entirety of operatic history. Her interpretations extend from Monteverdi's Poppea and