Placido Domingo
David Nice
"Oh, wretched old man! You are but the shadow of the king”, sings Plácido Domingo’s Nebuchadnezzar about himself in Lear-like abjection before his Goneril-Reganish daughter (the flame-throwing Liudmyla Monastyrska). It’s only true of this brief phase in the protagonist’s sketchy operatic trajectory from hubris brought low to piety raised on high. And it’s certainly not applicable to the one-time top tenor’s latest assumption of a Verdi baritone role, one which may lack the finer nuances of Rigoletto or Simon Boccanegra but which has its moments, all of which Domingo takes with aplomb.The Read more ...
graham.rickson
Does this disc succeed in doing what it sets out to do? Yes, it does, which makes my minor carpings irrelevant. It’s already selling in industrial quantities. But, to quote a review of another Christmas album on this site, “an album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention”, and too many of the traditional numbers featured here follow the same template – gloopy, synthetic sounding production values and glacial tempi. Experience has convinced me that carols can be most emotionally potent when they’re sung by untrained, youthful voices. We’ve all welled Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
First to crane his head anxiously in Plácido Domingo's direction was the leader of the Royal Opera House orchestra, Peter Manning. Then came an agitated look from conductor Antonio Pappano. Soprano Marina Poplavskaya clutched Domingo's chest as if to feel for a heart beat. "Is he ok?" we all mouthed. We had just seen Domingo slam his wizened Simon Boccanegra to the ground, dead. The music had rumbled to a close. The Prommers' applause had erupted. Yet, Domingo had remained grounded, motionless, eyes closed, face perhaps growing paler. As were ours. Was, er, Domingo, er, dead? For a few Read more ...
David Nice
I'll admit that many of us were spoiled by the last revival of Boccanegra at Covent Garden - also of Verdi's most often heard and masterly revision, like the current staging, but using Ian Judge's production of the original version - boasting a near-perfect quartet of principals who all meshed with each other. The only survivor from that team to be seen in the latest showing is Ferrucio Furlanetto (pictured with Domingo above), whose Prologue aria as the vengeful father of Boccanegra's ill-fated love was cheered to the rafters then but barely made an impact this time, oddly over-acted and Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Thus I approached What Makes a Great Tenor? in a spirit of moderate scepticism. Had appearing on Popstar to Operastar destroyed at a stroke the credibility of its presenter, the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón? In a bid for the dreaded "accessibility", were they about to propose Paul Potts, the Carphone Warehouse Pavarotti, as the answer to the titular inquiry? Happily neither. In fact the programme struck an almost perfect balance between erudition, entertainment and a genuine fascination with the historical lore and legend of the opera house.As a presenter, Villazón radiates a hyperactive Read more ...
igor.toronyilalic
Graham Vick's Tamerlano is less of an opera and more of a warning. In four and half hours you see 26 ways of how not to handle the Baroque aria. Dramatic success in Handel and his psychological flights of mainly soliloquising fancy is never easy but last night's ill-fated Royal Opera House production (Placido Domingo called in sick a few weeks back) was a lesson in abject theatrical failure. Or actually 26 lessons (there are around 27 arias in all). First up in the Graham Vick how-not-to-illustrate-an-aria class: clog-dancing. Particularly not to be used as an opener, particularly not Read more ...
theartsdesk
The Royal Opera House announced today that Plácido Domingo is withdrawing from next month's production of Tamerlano at Covent Garden. Domingo, who turned 69 in January, was due to sing the role of Bajazet in Handel's opera over seven performances between 5 and 20 March. But he has been suffering from lower abdominal pain while performing in Tokyo, and has returned to New York for preventive surgery. The hope is that he will be back performing in six weeks. The American tenor Kurt Streit, who was already going to sing the role of Bajazet on 13 and 17 March, is now taking over the entire run. Read more ...
Jasper Rees
In the next few weeks the wider public will be introduced to the charms of Rolando Villazón (b. 1972). Anointed as a star of opera houses around the world in the last decade, the Mexican tenor is about to participate in ITV1's Popstar to Opera Star. As singing celebs from the world of pop music take on the big arias, Villazón has been cast as mentor, panellist and figleaf. It is all a very long way from Covent Garden.His label Deutsche Grammophon is taking advantage of the exponential hoik in profile to release Tenor, a new CD of operatic favourites, some culled from his back catalogue, Read more ...
David Nice
How old Placido Domingo? Old Placido Domingo in not bad vocal health, to paraphrase Cary Grant's celebrated telegram reply. The other answer depends on your source of reference. Domingo is 68 in the eyes of last night's rather lazy, over-reverent Imagine, but 75 according to my not so New Everyman Dictionary of Music. Where did that come from? It would make him an octogenarian by the time of the date he proudly announced at the programme's end as the furthest-forward in his singer's diary. Perhaps this isn't that much of an issue. There are plenty of others that Alan Yentob Read more ...
frank.johnson
Frank Johnson, the great parliamentary sketch-writer who died in 2006, was a passionate fan of opera and ballet. While intensely admiring certain artists, he kept eye and pen sharp for his observations of cultural matters, mocking cabals of opinion-formers in the arts as ruthlessly as he quilled politicians. These extracts from a newly published collection of his writings, edited by his widow Virginia Fraser, show both sides of him. 5 March 1989: Benjamin Britten's whimsicalities As an impressionable youth in the 1950s and early 1960s, I endured the unceasing propaganda of the Read more ...