Why Glyndebourne Heir Sir George Christie Cut His Own Hair

Sir George Christie with Swedish soprano Elisabeth Söderström (Photo: Getty)

"One curious fact about Sir George Christie, who died last week, aged 79, was that he always cut his own hair, a notoriously difficult thing to do. He did it with a three-way mirror and, according to his wife Mary, did it very badly. His reason, apparently, was a reluctance to waste money on a barber. For while George was very well-off (and the epitome of generosity when it came to others), he hated to spend anything on himself. For example, he never took a taxi — he would always travel in London by Tube or bus, even to such an event as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee service in St Paul’s Cathedral — and he had his suits made by the wardrobe department of the Glyndebourne opera company rather than pay a London tailor. His thrift, however, didn’t extend to wine, which he loved as much as he hated water, and of which he possessed an excellent cellar. When he was weakened by his final illness, his main complaint was that he was no longer capable of walking off his hangover." [Source]

Isabel Leonard To Give Recital In Florida At Frost School Of Music

The mezzo-soprano relaxing for the camera. (Photo: Dario Acosta)

"Isabel Leonard is a glamorous young opera star, svelte and vivacious, whose career has rocketed into the stratosphere. But sometimes an opera star is just a mom. 'I’m trying to get the nanny and my son out of the house,' she said with a rueful laugh, apologizing for starting an interview a few minutes late. Based in Manhattan, Leonard and husband Teddy Tahu Rhodes well know the formidable challenge of corralling a toddler, namely their 3-year-old son, Teo. But in terms of her career trajectory, running late is not Leonard’s style. In September 2007, barely one year after earning her master’s degree from the Juilliard School, the mezzo-soprano made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Stephano, Romeo’s page in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. 'It’s hard to make a splash in a pants role in a long opera on a night when Anna Netrebko is singing,' wrote Washington Post critic Anne Midgette, 'but Ms. Leonard did.' Born in 1982, Leonard already has a jam-packed resume. In 2013 she won the Richard Tucker Award, a prestigious honor for promising young singers that carries a $30,000 prize and a concert appearance. In 2012, she starred as Miranda in the Met’s highly praised premiere of Thomas Ades’ 2004 opera based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by Robert Lepage. She has appeared in opera houses stretching from Vienna to Santa Fe. Her mezzo is a powerful instrument with an astonishing range, dusky and worldly wise in its lowest register yet silvery and agile in high-flying coloratura passages. South Florida audiences will get to see what all the excitement is about when Leonard makes her local debut Sunday as part of the Sunday Afternoons of Music series in Coral Gables. Her recital with pianist Vlad Iftinca will be the final concert in Doreen Marx’s series, which is closing down after a 33-year run." [Source] Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard will perform with pianist Vlad Iftinca at 4 p.m. Sunday at Gusman Concert Hall, Frost School of Music, University of Miami, 1314 Miller Dr., Coral Gables. For more information visit http://sundaymusicals.org/sam.html. A copy of the recital is after the jump.

Kiri Te Kanawa Acknowledged By Australian House of Representatives

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa bows as she is acknowledged
while attending question time in the House
of Representatives at the Australian Parliament
in Canberra. (Photo: Rick Rycroft/AP)

"New Zealand soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, touring Australia to celebrate her 70th birthday, makes a rule of never discussing retirement. In keeping with the philosophy she says she borrowed from her own theatric hero, Dame Judi Dench, Te Kanawa won't rule out returning to Australia for an 80th or even 90th birthday tour. 'You never know,' she told The Associated Press on Thursday at a Parliament House reception where she was a guest of House of Representatives Speaker Bronwyn Bishop, an opera fan. 'Never say never, but 90th - they'd be wheeling me in in a chair,' she quipped. Te Kanawa later bowed to the House of Representatives to the applause of Australian lawmakers, an experience she humbly described as 'pretty special.' She no longer performs in operas, shifting her focus to recitals and concerts. Her work schedule is less hectic than it has been, but she continues globe-trotting at a frenetic pace. Her current 11-concert tour will end in her native New Zealand in early June. She then flies to London to learn new music to premiere at Chicago's Martin Theater on Aug. 12 as part of the Ravinia Festival." [Source] Read more about the tour and her retirement activities by clicking here.

Saturday Movie: "Charlie Chan At The Opera" (1936)

"Gravelle, a former baritone believed dead after an opera house fire, has been languishing in a mental institution for the past seven years, an anonymous amnesiac. When he fortuitously sees a news story about his former wife's current appearance at the local opera, his memory returns. He escapes, and, disguised in costume, seeks revenge for a failed attempt on his life years earlier. When the guilty parties are found stabbed to death, Charlie Chan and son Lee try to find out if the dangerous fugitive is the one responsible." [Source] Despite looking like a production of Faust, the music for the on-screen opera Carnival is by Oscar Levant. [Source] Watch the entire film after the jump.

Experienced Publisher Diane Silberstein Joins Opera News Magazine

WQXR is reporting on a new position filled at Opera News magazine: "Opera News magazine has named Diane Silberstein as its new publisher. Her résumé includes work as the publisher of Penthouse and Playboy adult men's magazines, as well as work at more traditional glossies. Silberstein, who started on May 9, has a remarkable background even by the hurly-burly standards of magazine publishing. Having begun her career at Glamour, she worked her way up to publisher roles at Elle (1992-1994), the New Yorker (1994-1997), Playboy (2003-2006) and Penthouse (2006-2008), before eventually launching Silberstein Media, a company representing media brands for advertising and sponsorship sales. The appointment was reported Thursday by Mediabistro. Silberstein's time at Penthouse had its colorful moments: In 2008, the magazine was one of several publications to pursue a cover story with Ashley Dupré, the 22-year-old call girl involved in the scandal of resigning Governor Eliot Spitzer. 'We would love to have her in the magazine,' Silberstein told the Associated Press at the time. 'We would even consider offering her a cover. We think we could also be very helpful to her in her music career.'" [Source] The official Opera News press release can be found here.

Dairy Queen's Confetti Cake Waffle Cone Inspires Wagnerian Reactions

Get A Glimpse Into Montserrat Caballé's Early Career Life

Watch Montserrat Caballé in a 1971 conversation with Bernard Levin as they discuss the first moment she knew she would be an opera singer; early rejections auditioning in Italy; debuting at Glyndebourne by learning the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier over the course of 20 days; stepping in for Marilyn Horne to make her New York debut singing in Lucrezia Borgia; why she sang the bel canto repertoire; and the demands of scheduling performances four years in advance. Bonus studio performances of arias from Tannhäuser, Le Nozze di Figaro, Lucrezia Borgia, Norma, and Il Trovatore, are sprinkled throughout the interview. Watch the entire 72-minute clip after the jump.

Margaret Lattimore Joins Stephanie Blythe For "America Sings" Concert

Margaret Lattimore

"SUNY Potsdam alumnae Stephanie Blythe and Margaret Lattimore will join forces for a gala concert to benefit the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar on May 20 at 7:30 p.m. The two celebrated mezzo-sopranos will team up with pianist and composer Alan Louis Smith for the opening gala concert entitled America Sings in the Proscenium Theater at SUNY Potsdam's brand-new Performing Arts Center. The America Sings! concert will encourage audience participation and will feature Americana favorites from across the ages. Blythe and Lattimore will also perform a song cycle composed by Smith. This concert is the opening public event for the 2014 Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar. Now in its third season, the seminar was founded by Blythe along with Executive Director Dr. Carleen Graham, a professor of opera at SUNY Potsdam's Crane School of Music. This year, the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar

Stephanie Blythe

will return to Crane from May 19 to May 24. Six singers and three pianists (ages 23-35) from across the country were selected through a competitive, national audition to work with Blythe and Smith for the 2014 festival....Tickets for America Sings! are $25 for the general public and $20 for SUNY Potsdam faculty, staff and students. All proceeds will benefit the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar. Contact the Community Performance Series Box Office at 267-2277 or www.cpspotsdam.org to purchase tickets. Tickets may also be purchased at the CPS Box Office in SUNY Potsdam's Performing Arts Center, or at Northern Music & Video in downtown Potsdam."[Source] For more information about SUNY Potsdam, and The Crane School of Music, click here.

Christine Brewer Talks About Doing Musical Theater For The First Time

The soprano leads a chorus of nuns in The Sound of Music. (Photo: Todd Rosenberg/BWW)

"Christine Brewer usually goes several days between performances. As a dramatic soprano who specializes in the taxing roles of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner, rest is important to conserve her voice and her strength. Not this time. This time, as the Abbess in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music at Lyric Opera of Chicago, she’s on a musical theater schedule of eight performances a week, including just one day off and two days with two shows, a matinee and an evening performance. 'This is an unusual schedule for me,' the Lebanon, Illinois-based singer said in a telephone interview last week. 'I’ve never done a musical theater piece before. I don’t sing that much (in the show), but when I do, it’s big guns. I'm eating a lot of chicken soup and taking my vitamins.'....Brewer worked on her dialogue in St. Louis with her voice teacher, Christine Armistead, and with director Mark Bruni, 'and then it was Jenn [Gambatese]. She'd say, 'Let’s just run the lines.' We’ve developed a really nice relationship on and off stage. Words are so important in singing, and this is really giving me a chance to bring that to my mind in a different way.' She's connected with others in the cast, too. 'When you’re in an intimate, very emotional preparation and performance, it’s like family,' Brewer said. 'I knew (soprano) Elizabeth (Futral, who plays Elsa), and some of the women from the chorus, and that was it. The first days were a little tense; the musical theater people had never worked in an opera house, with such a big space to rehearse in, such a big stage, and a full orchestra.' They had some trouble adjusting to the idea that singers regularly fill that giant auditorium with sound with no amplification....In her free time, Brewer is working on her music for Dialogues of the Carmelites at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. 'I'm feeling holy,' she joked, with back-to-back nun roles." [Source] A picture of Elizabeth Futral, as Elsa, is after the jump.

Pretty Yende Answers Ten Questions Posed By Arts Desk

"Everyone who heard it must have been charmed by South African soprano Pretty Yende’s Radio 4 chat in which she recounted what hooked her on opera. It was a coup de foudre, watching a British Airways ad on telly at home in Piet Retief, and the sound of those two female voices entwined in the Flower Duet from Delibes’ Lakmé. Quite a catchy tunesmith, that Delibes: for those of an older generation, like myself, it was Lakmé's Bell Song which parents remembered from old films, occasioning in my case a trip to Sutton Record Library to find it on The World of Joan Sutherland. I became infatuated with opera on the spot, but I didn’t become a soprano. Yende did, and from a careful training in Cape Town and a key role as 'Summertime' Clara in Porgy and Bess, she blossomed at La Scala’s Young Artists’ Training Programme under superstar eyes and stepped in with a month’s notice to sing opposite Juan Diego Flórez at the Met. She hasn’t looked back, and to go with a beautiful voice that’s much richer than she or others first thought, a lyric soprano that can also cope with Sutherland-style coloratura, is a personality that’s both absolutely self-assured and totally adorable with it. Yes, she has the star quality, the professionalism and the staying power, you can be sure of that. Catch her at her second London recital in the Cadogan Hall tomorrow tomorrow....next stop, the Royal Opera (though she can’t as yet reveal in what). When I met her – she was on a flying visit from Milan – I had to start at the usual place." Read the full interview here. [Source] One more gorgeous photo of Ms. Yende is after the jump.

Listen To Jessye Norman Discuss "Marvelous Living" On NPR

The soprano signing copies of her book in the Metropolitan Opera gift shop. (Photo: Rex Bonomelli/Facebook)

"When it comes to singers, there have been few voices considered as majestic as soprano Jessye Norman's. The celebrated opera singer from Augusta, GA, has meticulously built a career on her own terms, choosing her projects intelligently and carefully guarding her vocal resources, which have often been described as a force of nature. Now the 68-year-old artist can add author to her list of accomplishments. Norman has written a memoir, Stand Up Straight and Sing! From experiencing racism as a child to watching the fall of the Berlin Wall to her storied opera career, Norman talks with NPR's Rachel Martin about the book, her life and her music with an openness rarely heard before in her interviews." Listen to the audio by clicking here. [Source] Additional audio interviews for WQXR can be heard below:

Deborah Voigt Recognized By Casita Maria Center For Arts

Honoree Deborah Voigt is seen at far right.

"Casita Maria Center honored Deborah Voigt for her outstanding contributions to music at its Musicale benefit on Tuesday, May 13th at 6:00 pm at the home of Maria Eugenia and William Haseltine in Manhattan. The Musicale featured performances by the acclaimed pianist Alexander Romanovsky and the students of the Casita Maria Music Program. The proceeds from the Musicale will benefit Casita Maria’s Music Program, founded by Gaetana Enders, a board member of the organization." [Source] Also check out a video of Ms. Voigt, performing with soprano Kristin Chenoweth for "The Evolution of the Soprano" at Carnegie Hall that took place on May 3, 2014, after the jump.

Renée Fleming Will Not See Plácido Domingo Shirtless In LA

Performing together for nearly two decades, Domingo and Fleming share a moment at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles. (Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

"'We've been trying to get Renée here for a long time. It was difficult. Her girls were in school. But now, they are grown up,' the Spanish singer said. Domingo is the general director of L.A. Opera. Domingo said he saw Fleming in Streetcar in London and was impressed by Previn's 1998 adaptation of the Tennessee Williams plays. Since Fleming appeared in a new semi-staged production last year at Carnegie Hall, he has been working to bring the opera to L.A. 'The dates have been hell,' he said. Fleming said that when she first performed "Streetcar" in 1998, she was going through a difficult personal time and that actress Julie Harris, who had played Blanche on stage, gave her a good piece of advice. 'She said that this role can get you through the day,' said Fleming. The soprano noted that this production of Streetcar features an abundance of shirtless male performers on stage, which prompted Domingo to joke that he failed the audition for the opera. 'I cannot stay onstage without my shirt,' he said." [Source] For more information about Ms. Fleming's performances of A Streetcar Named Desire, click here. Pictures of shirtless male performers from the opera production can be found after the jump.

Florin Ristei Transforms Into Angela Gheorghiu For "X Factor"

"Câştigătorul de la ultimul X Factor, Florin Ristei va avea sâmbăta aceasta va avea parte de o transformare spectaculoasă. Una dintre cele mai spectaculoase transformări ale penultimei ediții a acestui sezon al emisiunii este cea realizată de Florin Ristei. El o va imita pe celebra soprană Angela Gheorghiu și va cânta aria 'Habanera,' din opera Carmen de Georges Bizet, acesta fiind, conform spuselor juraților, cea mai dificilă transformare a lui Ristei de până acum. Contrar așteptărilor și din fericire pentru vecinii săi, Ristei nu a repetat această arie la el acasă. "Am repetat-o o singură dată, în dimineața asta, la platou", ne-a declarat acesta. 'Pentru că asta este o piesă pe care o poți cânta din prima sau nu. Dacă știi să cânți pe voce de cap, o poți interpreta foarte bine. Și nu, nu am studii de belcanto (n.n. stil de interpretare în muzica vocală, originar din Italia secolului al XVII-lea),' a continuat Ristei. De la masa juriului, Horia Brenciu l-a fotografiat cu telefonul pe Florin și i-a trimis poza Angelei Gheorghiu, însoțită de un mesaj. Care a fost reacția celebrei soprane, aflați sâmbătă, 10 mai, de la ora 20.30, numai la 'Te cunosc de undeva!'" [Source] Watch the video, after the jump.

Anna Netrebko Becomes Official Face Of Austrian Airlines Ads

"Austrian Airlines has launched a new advertising campaign featuring Anna Netrebko and Austrian Olympic gold medal-winning downhill skier Matthias Mayer. Anna’s ad, which portrays her impromptu in-flight encounter with a fellow passenger, can be watched here. The campaign will run in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland on television, in cinemas, in print media, and on the airline’s digital channels. 'I love to fly with Austrian Airlines,' says Anna. 'For this reason, working together with the airline gives me great pleasure. As a frequent flyer for professional reasons, Austrian Airlines is practically my second home when I am traveling.'" [Source] Watch the video advertisements after the jump.

Visit Sondra Radvanovsky At Home In Canada During Interview

 

Watch a video interview by Canadian Opera Company as they visit soprano Sondra Radvanovsky where she reveals her love of chopping wood, collecting red cars, and special opera memorabilia from past performances. Once more photo after the jump.