Sunday, January 28, 2018

tosca: gheorghiu & kaufmann

saw the tosca, live from the met, yesterday -- plan to go back, wednesday -- great 'vissi d'arte,' by sonya yoncheva -- great screams too -- spine-tingling -- blood-curdling -- and a magnificent 'e lucevan' by vittorio grigolo -- pours it all out

here's the 2006 vienna pairing of angela gheorghiu and jonas kaufmann -- i saw them in the movie theater, from covent garden -- incredible -- i watched act three of the below, and act two and the 'mia gelosa' scene -- kaufmann encores 'e lucevan,' and gheorghiu doesn't come out, on cue -- terfel really has fun with his role

addendum: yoncheva and grigolo were singing their roles for the first time -- actually, grigolo sang in the opera, when he was 13 -- as the shepherd boy -- and, in the broadcast, he talked about being congratulated, after the opera, by luciano pavarotti, his cavaradossi, and looking forward to the day he'd sing cavaradossi -- here's the picture they showed, on the broadcast -- 27 years ago
turns out, yoncheva and grigolo were also replacements for the originally cast stars -- kristine opolais and jonas kaufmann -- wouldn't that have been great -- they've paired up, in europe, on at least two operas, i think

not only that, bryn terfel was replaced by zelko lucic, and opolais's husband, andris nelsons, pulled out as conductor, and his replacement, met music director james levine, was suspended by the met for sexual misconduct, and replaced, in turn, by emmanuel villaume