Anna Netrebko Answers The Guardian's Probing Questions

Anna Netrebko wears a Zac Posen gown in this
Dario Acosta portrait from 2013.

While in London for performances of La Bohème and in honor of her upcoming engagement at the Royal Albert Hall in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta, Anna Netrebko answered some musical questions posed by The Guardian in their "Facing the Music" series. Find out what music she listens to when traveling the world; why she recently purchased several Aida recordings; her thoughts on concert etiquette when it comes to applause; why the organ is an intriguing instrument to her; that time she enjoyed Elton John and Lady Gaga; the most recent Broadway musical she's seen (and loved...); whether a collaboration with Justin Bieber is in her future; and what she sings in the shower. Read the full questionnaire here.

Dressers Featured Backstage of "Giulio Cesare" at the MET

"Dressers Suzi Gomez-Pizzo and Lou Valantasis prepare Natalie Dessay and David Daniels for their roles as Cleopatra and Caesar for a performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare, directed by David McVicar, at the New York Metropolitan Opera. Photographs by Mike McGregor for the Guardian." Watch the slide show here.

Ms. Gomez-Pizzo was also featured dressing another MET opera diva in the New York Times. Check out the photo and link after the jump.

Simon Callow Makes an Argument For Opera's Current Vitality

The actor contemplates a centuries old art form.
(Photo: Sasha Ilyukevich/The Guardian)

"It is easy, in a sense, for opera to bend existing works for the purposes of interpretation or exploration, but in the past decade or two, composers have thrillingly taken the great leap into the present. Anna Nicole, the story of the doomed Playboy model, at the Royal Opera House, and Two Boys, English National Opera's tale of a chatroom murder, could only have been written now, at this moment in time; the musical and theatrical vocabulary is accessible to anyone alive today....I was 15 when I saw my first: Il Trittico, Puccini's great triple bill of one-act operas, at the Royal Opera House. I paid 12s/6d for my ticket in the slips and was overwhelmed – not just by the dramatic power of the music, the richness of the orchestral playing, the beauty of the singing and the spectacular impact of the production, all of which I had expected – but by the greatness of the acting, which I had not. The leading singer was Tito Gobbi, in two out of the three pieces. His piercing pain and comic bravura were as fine as any acted performance in any medium I've ever seen. Today Jonas Kaufmann and Natalie Dessay and Thomas Allen are every bit his equal." [Source]

Marina Poplavskaya Enchants Writer and Offends Immigration

Poplavskaya: A tigress on and off the stage?
(Photo: Phil Fisk/The Guardian)

The Guardian's Peter Conrad seems to never run out of superfluous adjectives to describe what seems to be his muse, Marina Poplavskaya: "Poplavskaya's jaw – angular, horizontally extended to give her square face the look of a cubist carving....it stores the breath she releases when sculpting the air as she sings....That sound is cool and silken, stoically controlling the passions it expresses....She does not vivaciously seduce us like her colleague Anna Netrebko, and her air of withdrawn mystery is increased by the waist-length cascade of hair that she wears like a veil. She is the Mona Lisa with a bevelled jaw; it's up to us to intuit what goes behind that alabaster mask...This pining futility could not be further from the determination of Poplavskaya herself....Arriving at the theatre, she told the selectors with precocious self-possession that she had a large repertoire and intended to perform all of it; they of course succumbed."

Worse yet may be having to experience Ms. Poplavskaya at the airport: "'Every time at the airport,' sighs Poplavskaya, 'I am a victim again.' Before each foreign engagement, she has to return to Moscow to join sullen, shuffling queues in quest of a visa. 'I'm trying to bring my mum to London now to visit; she's at the embassy today. On the phone she was hysteric, terrified by it. They are suspicious, they interrogate us, they tell us we must wait weeks for a decision and it is so expensive! Even if you get visa, sometimes you are not allowed into the country where you sing. At Heathrow once I slept a night on the floor because they wanted more information before they admit me. I am in a herd with workers, house cleaners, many people from Araby. Do they think I sell drugs or carry bombs? One man in a blue uniform saw I had a 1A visa to come here, and he said, 'This is only given to persons of extraordinary ability.' I replied, 'But I am person of extraordinary ability!' He asked what my job was and I said, 'I am opera singer.' 'Madam,' he said, 'do you make fun of me?' Finally, I had to threaten that I would report him for his intonation. 'Just put the stamp,' I said, 'and say welcome.' He did it, but with such a look! He expected maybe that I would give him champagne?' Bob Dylan pitied the poor immigrant; I'd rather pity the poor immigration officer who has to match wits with the deplaning Poplavskaya." [Source]