[Pugg]

Well, I think it goes without saying that if you don't like something, you won't listen to it unless you have to. But it seems to me that the point of this thread was to give us a place write about only the positive aspects of things we personally dislike (which involves looking at those things with a certain amount of objectivity). As for criticizing performances you yourself could never "top," I actually agree that one should take care not to make critical statements that are rash or presumptuous; on the other hand, if we all avoided criticizing what we couldn't do better ourselves, then forums like this couldn't really exist, could they. I mean, I can't sing opera myself, but I can tell if someone's rendition of an aria isn't to my taste, and attempt (politely) to point out what I think is wrong with it. It's absolutist statements that cause trouble.

That's what I meant , tanks you for this :cheers:

 

[Becca]

To return to the thread...

My antipathy towards Zubin Mehta is well known and based on much experience, however tonight I have been watching the 1977 Royal Opera House New Year's Eve performance of Die Fledermaus conducted by Mehta and I have to say that many of the characteristics that I find annoying in much of his conducting, are just about perfect to drive along this frothy celebration.

 

[The Conte]

Why one earth starts such a horrible thread, this will end up in a blood bath

I think it's a wonderful thread and funnily enough I was going to start a similar one yesterday! (Great minds think alike?) As I have posted before, I found it frustrating when people made predictable choices in the 'best recordings' thread. (E.g. Passing on voting for a recording because there isn't one with the person's favourite singer in, or always voting for the Callas recording because 'she is so wonderful' it doesn't matter if the sound, conductor and rest of the cast are worse than all the other contenders, or other voting patterns that can only be described as based on prejudicial bias, rather than objective, open minded voting.)

I could partake in such a partisan approach and declare that all Fleming's recordings and performances are worthless and to be avoided, but I recognise that all singers have something to bring to the table. That is what this thread is for, it's a positive thread, not a negative one.

N.

 

[The Conte]

I agree with you (about Renee Fleming). I don't have a passionate dislike for her but I prefer a cleaner, more precise tone. I find her sound a bit "woolly". Although I don't know if that is the right word to use to describe her. Gundula Janowitz (who sang a lot of the same repertoire as Fleming) is the type of sound I prefer in Mozart and Strauss. Or Lucia Popp. And I also agree with you that I've never heard any great interpretative insight from Fleming (I presume that's what you mean by 'a beautiful voice is not enough'). She's very musical and her singing is always very polished but she's never really done it for me.

That's exactly what I mean! Although I don't find her musical, she quite often mangles the phrases (particularly in Italian opera). I agree that her singing is very technically polished.

N.

 

[The Conte]

You must be tone deaf

That seems a somewhat rude comment to me. From what I've seen from your comments in other threads one of the singers that you don't like is Maria Callas. Do you have anything nice to say about her singing? And perhaps it's time to have a thread dedicated to Renee where you can post the things you like about her and some YouTube clips to illustrate your comments?

N.

 

[nina foresti]

What kills me about Renee is that her voice is so exquisitely gorgeous she didn't HAVE to do those things.
What bothers me is that she CHOSE to do them. She's not blind, nor deaf. She's read and heard these comments ad nauseam before and just didn't care.
I'll give her this: She's a smart cookie. She knew when to close the curtain and, unlike Pav and some others, end up on top.
She deserves accolades. She brought one of life's most stunning voices to the world of opera. Whether some of us found her actions exasperating, or not, we're all lucky she came around in our lifetime.

 

[Woodduck]

I want to say - because this is a nice thread and I'm (basically) a nice guy and this is New Year's Day and I'm hoping this year will be nicer than last year - that the first time I heard Renee Fleming was as Desdemona with Domingo at the Met. She was young then and her singing was less mannered. She was perfectly lovely. I wasn't much aware of the progress of her early career, and the next thing I recall hearing was a concert performance of the "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka. I was just bowled over by its beauty and poignancy. Since then Renee has often given me pleasure; I even like some of her forays into popular music and jazz, and love her virtuoso rendition of Joni Mitchell's "River." See what you think:

 

[Pugg]

That seems a somewhat rude comment to me. From what I've seen from your comments in other threads one of the singers that you don't like is Maria Callas. Do you have anything nice to say about her singing? And perhaps it's time to have a thread dedicated to Renee where you can post the things you like about her and some YouTube clips to illustrate your comments?

N.

http://www.talkclassical.com/40950-melody-day.html

 

[The Conte]

http://www.talkclassical.com/40950-melody-day.html

Thanks for the link. I was thinking of a thread specifically dedicated to Renee here in the opera forum, not just for posting videos, but also exchanging the things you like about her. If you fear it being 'hijacked' by Renee haters you could have a rule against negative comments.

Just a suggestion.

N.

 

[Tsaraslondon]

This thread seems to have become a discussion of the relative merits of Renee Fleming, and I don't really wish to de-rail it, other than to say I have first-hand knowledge of the lady, having worked with her in the London Symphony Orchestra's semi-staged version of A Streetcar Named Desire at the Barbican. I had the tiny role of the doctor who takes Blanche to the lunatic asylum at the end, and played one of Stanley's cronies, as well as one of the ghostly figures of the soldiers Blanche imagines, with Fleming at one point draping herself over my naked torso.

On a personal level, I found her absolutely charming, and not in the least prima donna-ish, a complete professional and serious about her work. At one point we had a discussion about how much more she had enjoyed doing the role of Blanche this time round, having been able to dig deeper into the character. Actors often say the same thing about re-visiting a role they've played before, so she is evidently a thinking artist. Hearing that voice close to was something else as well. It was actually much larger than I'd imagined and arrestingly beautiful from top to bottom.

That said, like Woodduck, I have certain reservations about her work in certain fields, and I too am irritated by the jazzy swoops and slides, which increasingly crept into her performances in later years. I don't like her in Italian opera at all, and, though her Violetta was technically well-sung when I saw her do it at Covent Garden, I didn't feel she was really inside the role, the gestures, both musical and physical, seeming more applied than felt from within. On the other hand I absolutely love her recordings of both Rusalka and Thais, both gloriously sung, and I enjoy many of her recital discs, the American I Want Magic album, Strauss Heroines and Great Operatic Scenes in particular. In none of these is she either un-musical or interpretively bland.

I'd certainly place her as one of the greatest sopranos of recent times.

 

[Bellinilover]

GregMitchell: I've watched Fleming's Violetta on Youtube, in the Los Angeles Opera production with Rolando Villazon as Alfredo. I suppose I'd agree with you that during Acts I and II she didn't seem totally "inside" the role; however, Act III was a different story, IMO. In that act I believe everything -- voice, acting (vocal and physical), costuming and makeup -- came together to produce a truly moving death scene.

 

[Tsaraslondon]

GregMitchell: I've watched Fleming's Violetta on Youtube, in the Los Angeles Opera production with Rolando Villazon as Alfredo. I suppose I'd agree with you that during Acts I and II she didn't seem totally "inside" the role; however, Act III was a different story, IMO. In that act I believe everything -- voice, acting (vocal and physical), costuming and makeup -- came together to produce a truly moving death scene.

I'm prepared to believe you. After all, artists are human. There are times when everything comes together and times when it doesn't. There is so much intangible that goes into the creation of a great performance.

When I saw her in the role in London, I was strangely unmoved, nowhere near as touching as Cotrubas, who was vocally much more fallible, Gheorghiu or Josephine Barstow, who was devastating in the role with English National Opera back in the 1970s.

 

[number9]

Composers:

I appreciate Berlioz' contributions to both orchestration and the Romantic cultural movement
Holst's Planets can be fun

Performers:

Lang Lang does give off a Lisztian flair that would be fun to see live

 

[silentio]

For Anna Netrebko, the only nice things I can say about her: after she butchered Mozart (Don Giovanni), bel canto (Puritani, Anna Bolena, Lucia Di Lammermoor), Verdi (La Traviata, Macbeth, Il Trovatore), Massenet (Manon), Puccini(La Boheme) and Strauss ( Four Last Songs), there are still musics I enjoy that she has not touched just yet.

...And at least she seems a little bit humble.

 

[nina foresti]

For Anna Netrebko, the only nice things I can say about her: after she butchered Mozart (Don Giovanni), bel canto (Puritani, Anna Bolena, Lucia Di Lammermoor), Verdi (La Traviata, Macbeth, Il Trovatore), Massenet (Manon), Puccini(La Boheme) and Strauss ( Four Last Songs), there are still musics I enjoy that she has not touched just yet.

...And at least she seems a little bit humble.

How lucky we are to have a soprano of that caliber in our lifetime.
I think I'll zip my lip on my reply. As Thumper once said, "If ya can't say nuthin' nice, don't say nuthin' at all!")

 

[Bellinilover]

Composers:

I appreciate Berlioz' contributions to both orchestration and the Romantic cultural movement
Holst's Planets can be fun

Performers:

Lang Lang does give off a Lisztian flair that would be fun to see live

My mom, a classical musician, once remarked while listening to one of his pieces on the radio, "Berlioz has got to be the dullest composer on the planet." I don't know enough about his music to know whether I agree or not.

 

[Tsaraslondon]

My mom, a classical musician, once remarked while listening to one of his pieces on the radio, "Berlioz has got to be the dullest composer on the planet." I don't know enough about his music to know whether I agree or not.

Then she must have heard a very ordinary performance. Berlioz is one of the most original, most thrilling, most exciting composers I know, but difficult to bring off. Too many conductors in the past didn't really understand him, and tried to iron out his idiosyncrasies. Try Colin Davis in anything by Berlioz really. I guarantee you won't find him dull.

 

[Bellinilover]

The baritone Leo Nucci is one of the very few opera singers I literally cannot bear to listen to. That said, based on what I've seen he was a truly great Rigoletto from the acting perspective.

 

[Woodduck]

I envy anyone having only a few opera singers they find unbearable! I suppose I felt that way once. After listening to opera for fifty-some years I now find listening to a majority of present-day singers, perhaps not unbearable, but far from a satisfying way to spend my time. At the end of the average Met broadcast I feel pleased mainly at having satisfied my curiosity and made a gesture toward being up-to-date, and only occasionally at having been given an encouraging demonstration of vocal and artistic prowess, or evidence of the health of the art of singing. So far this season I've come away feeling, "Is this the best the Met can do? Wasn't the Met once home to the greatest voices in the world - or are these now in fact the greatest voices in the world?" I don't in fact believe that to be the case; I suspect that the Met no longer has quite the pre-eminent position it once had among the opera houses of the world, and that there are many fine artists we've hardly even heard of happy to be concentrating their efforts elsewhere. That isn't such a bad thing; at least it's pleasant to think that operatic singing might be in better shape than I'm aware. Still, it's the Met, at least in America, that has for generations reliably brought opera to vast numbers of people unable to get to live performances, and the name "Metropolitan Opera" has traditionally been a symbol of culture, as well as many people's introduction to opera and great singing. So far, this season, I've heard some opera classics presented to us by singers who've come nowhere close to some who've sung this music in the past, and on the Met's own boards.

But I guess if I'm supposed to say something nice here it would be that they brought us a lovely young Gilda in Nadine Sierra to relieve what was otherwise a Rigoletto at a level of provincial routine.

 

[number9]

My mom, a classical musician, once remarked while listening to one of his pieces on the radio, "Berlioz has got to be the dullest composer on the planet." I don't know enough about his music to know whether I agree or not.

Since this thread is about nice comments, I won't add more than saying I agree with your mom.

But don't take our words for it, listen and decide for yourself. You might find him to be great!