Natalie Dessay Claims No Opera Roles Left For Her To Sing Onstage

Dynamic Duo: Dessay (left) with recital and recording partner
Philippe Cassard in a photo from their most recent release.

"French soprano Natalie Dessay gave a recent recital in London that one critic called 'sublime' and her latest CD of French art songs has been well received, but she says her fans will never see her again on the opera stage that made her famous. Dessay, the petite gamine of the French opera world, soared to fame as the mechanical doll Olympia in Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann and scared the living daylights out of her male counterparts as the mad, knife-wielding Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. But at age 50, she says the opera is no longer for her. 'I have no roles anymore, I've done everything I could do and I don't want to repeat myself over and over,' Dessay told Reuters in an interview at London's Barbican....With opera behind her, Dessay is alternating song recitals, with piano accompanist Philippe Cassard, and tours with the French pop song and film composer Michel Legrand, but her real passion is for live theater. She recently starred in a French revival of the British playwright Howard Barker's dark, one-woman play Und, about a Jewish woman whose guest is overdue for tea, and who will not accept that the reason her house comes under a series of escalating malicious attacks is because the visitor is a German camp officer. She is looking for more such roles, but in the meantime she hopes her opera audiences will look out for her in the different venues where she will still be performing. 'It turns all the time around the same thing,' she said. 'How to make people travel with me, how to tell them stories in different ways.'" [Source]

Renée Fleming Uses Longtime Photographer For Broadway Ads

Bubbly Broadway Diva: Renée Fleming as
 Raquel de Angelis (Photo: Andrew Eccles)

On April 1, 2015, soprano Renée Fleming will take up residency at the Longacre Theatre in Manhattan to perform in Joe DiPrieto's new comedic play Living on Love. The official website features a hilarious photo of the entire cast from the play. The photographer? Andrew Eccles. Fans of Ms. Fleming will recognize his name from her CD covers and liner notes for the Decca Classics label. The British-born photographer worked with Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Steven Meisel before going solo in his career. He now shoots celebrities, models, athletes, politicians, musicians, and dancers. Get tickets to the performances of Living on Love by clicking here and visit the official website to learn more about the production here. A biography of photographer Andrew Eccles and memorable photos he has taken of Renée Fleming, as well as the full-page New York Times ad for the play, after the jump.

Photographer Andrew Eccles captures the play's plot marvelously in this full-cast image.

Stage Partners: Fleming and Sills

"The world's most famous opera singer Renée Fleming plays the world's most famous opera singer in the hilarious new screwball comedy Living On Love. Direct from a smash-hit run at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, this glamorous romp through the world of music, marriage and celebrity is written by two-time Tony Award® winner Joe DiPietro (Nice Work If You Can Get It), adapted from a work by Garson Kanin (Born Yesterday) and directed by three-time Tony Award winner Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes). Fleming stars alongside Tony nominee Douglas SIlls (The Scarlet Pimpernel) and Emmy® nominee Anna Chlumsky (Veep). When a demanding diva (Fleming) discovers that her larger-than-life maestro husband (Sills) has become enamored with the lovely young lady (Chlumsky) hired to ghostwrite his largely fictional autobiography, she retaliates by hiring her own handsome, young scribe to chronicle her life as an opera star. Sparks fly, silverware is thrown and romance blossoms in the most unexpected ways." [Source]