After last week's revelations about Ms. Gheorghiu's tumultuous marriage to Roberto Alagna and her affair with Cezar Ouatu, Romanian websites (1, 2, and 3) are trying to romantically link her to co-star tenor Charles Castronovo. He was formerly involved with another soprano before settling down into marriage with Russian soprano Ekaterina Siurina. The rumored pair are performing together in La Rondine at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London. One has to wonder how long it will be before accusations start to fly that she had a fling with former tenor colleague James Valenti. Pictures of all the gentlemen are after the jump.
In what seems to be a collaboration between tenor Roberto Alagna and the Orchestre National de Montpellier, Deutsche Grammophon releases its second rare French opera recording featuring the two. The first release in 2009 was Massenet's Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame and this time around it is Lalo's Fiesque. The latter is taken from a 2006 concert performance and is finally seeing the light of day.
"Le jongleur de Notre-Dame is an opera in three acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Maurice Léna. It was first performed in Monte Carlo on February 18, 1902. It is based on the story of the same name by Anatole France, which was in turn based on a 13th-century medieval legend by Gautier de Coincy, c. 1220. The role of Jean the juggler was popularized in the United States by the famous soprano, Mary Garden, which, according to some sources, horrified composer Massenet, who meant the role for a tenor. Garden's undertaking of the role was in the tradition of actresses of that era playing Peter Pan. The opera was popular in the early part of the twentieth century, due partly to Mary Garden's appearances in it, but it soon disappeared from the world's stages, as did many of Massenet's other operas. In the mid-1970s, the complete opera was recorded in stereo for the first time, and this recording, with the late tenor Alain Vanzo as Jean and the late baritone Jules Bastin as Boniface, was released on compact disc most recently in 2003, closely followed by another CD containing a live performance of the work, again with Vanzo. This has subsequently led to new revivals of the opera in the United States, usually in more modern dress." [Source]
"Fiesque (The Genoese Conspiracy) is an opera by the French composer Édouard Lalo. The libretto, by Charles Beauquier, is based on Schiller's 1784 play, Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua, an account of the conspiracy in 1547 led by Fiesque against the ruling Doria family. It had its first staged performance at the Nationaltheater, Mannheim on 16 June 2007. The concert premiere was on July 27, 2006 at the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier with Roberto Alagna in the title role. The UK premiere took place on March 10, 2008 in a production by University College Opera." [Source]
If you can't get enough of Mr. Alagna, his former label EMI is putting out a 3-CD set of what they deem to be his best works from the back-catalog (well, most of the French works at least that make up most of the set). This compilation takes excerpts from albums of arias, duets and even full opera recordings dating back to 1996. A complete track list for Mes plus grands rôles à l'opéra is after the jump.
And if you're looking for something on the less operatic side, wait until DG releases Pasión in November 2001. The album will feature Cuban boleros and Argentinean tangos.
Listen to four different interpretations of "Rossignol de mes amours" from Le Chanteur de Mexico performed by international tenors Luis Mariano (Spanish), Roberto Alagna (French), Ismael Jordi (Spanish) and Corneliu Fanateanu (Romanian):
"Le Chanteur de Mexico is a French film directed by Richard Pottier starring Luis Mariano and Bourvil, released in 1957. It was a screen version of Francis Lopez' operetta that premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet on December 15, 1951.
'Francis Lopez composed for Le Chanteur de Mexico one of his best scores in which the arias integrate well into the atmosphere of the action; the airs were rapidly on everybody's lips: 'Mexico,' 'Rossignol de mes amours,' 'Acapulco,' 'Il est un coin de France,' 'Maïtechu,' 'Quant on voit Paris d'en haut,' 'Quant on est deux amis.' The operetta was revived in 2006 at the Théâtre du Châtelet with a cast that included Ismaël Jordi, Rossy de Palma, Jean Benguigui and Clotilde Courau." [Source]
Complete lyrics can be found after the jump.
Opera blog Intermezzo reports today that Cecilia Bartoli has joined the ranks of fellow opera singers Maria Callas, Roberto Alagna and Luciano Pavarotti, by becoming a was figure herself at Musée Grévin in Paris, France. Check out another shot of Ms. Bartoli at the unveiling as well as photos of the other singers after the jump.
Click over to Broadway World for some beautiful quality images from the January 10 performance of Puccini's Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera featuring Sondra Radvanovsky, Roberto Alagna and Falk Struckmann. Images by Marty Sohl.
The French-born tenor of Sicilian descent talks about his first memories as a child of his mother putting a tape recorder up to the television to capture the soundtrack of a certain singer named Luis Mariano. Once the music played, it was perfectly clear this was going to be his new hero. In 2005 he finally got a chance to pay tribute to his favorite singer by recording an album for Deutsche Grammophon titled C'est magnifique! His schedule only now allows for him to do concerts that correspond to the music on the album.
