319 thoughts on “Ceci n’est pas un liveblog”

    1. oh, you’ve got the shortcut. may be we just start there and you give a quick short executive summary of what she’s singing? then i can just go with the italian libretto?

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            3. realy, thsoe pink attendants with the mirror would only be fun of it were the Met “ORy” all over again where JDD goes home with the soprano in the end.

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  4. Sounds like someone has been working on her lower range. Like.
    (as of upper middle, it sounded a tad strained in the first minute – now the pit is lower, or she adjusted.)

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      1. nice floating piano in the upper range there now. (I think upper middle costs the most – consumes more breath because it burns more energy?)

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        1. jeah, esp. if she doesn’t take it “soft” . as you said, as soon as it becomes very high but floating piano it’s quite “relaxed”.

          oh, i *LIKE* the low notes!!! L.I.K.E.

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    2. she has a curious voice to me (readjusting ears):
      it’s quite bigger than you think, and just when you thought it’s strained, she sorted it out, opened it up, and it sounds comfortable

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          1. but it’s SO NICE to get to hear/see her in something this year at all, I missed that sound. (can’t say much about acting since it’s pretty much reduced in this ‘staging’)

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            8. well, THAT is an entrance.
              but she does that scream intelligently – not all out, but just enough push for a moment to get through.

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            10. ok, started!
              that background looks like a cheap nutcracker christmas ornament.

              oh God they did NOT jsut carry in a fake falcon. how can that guy keep a straight face.

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            11. Boccanegra looks like Oscar Wilde’s evil older lesbian sister. Which I can totally work with. (something Connolly would excel at in 20 years as a role)

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  5. (ps- before i move on, may i make a tiny suggestion of hiding the comment with all the video links ? is that possible)? else i just have to scroll down quite a bit before we get to this block here (and then we move that comment to after this whole block?)

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    1. I can edit it.
      And I just saw I missed to jot down the MP sene around Minute 50, before the testosterone assembly. Should we do that one, too, or continue at 1:04?

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            1. any quick summary? 🙂 . she has just been given something to read? let me open the google translate page and type on the go the italian libretto while this bass is blah blah-ing

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            3. of course, she is not actually part of their family because she is an orphan (she still doesn’t know the Doge is her father), and she tells him the tale here.

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            9. and he is recognizing his daughter here, and she is trying to remember details from her childhood and then they finally figure out (loud music).

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            11. it’s that ideal of a “boomy” voice, I guess (but even apart from that, that top projection is not my cup of tea, does not sound free)

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            14. she gets to act a bit more when it’s not romance conventions but she can use the whole parent/child thing?

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        2. (and i found out she had just reviving this exact role with Savall in Leipzig this past July, as part of some Bach and Monteverdi festival there, also singing from the audience centered aisle…)

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          1. she was at Bachfest? Sigh.
            Ah well… Savall is at the Resonanzen festival this winter in Vienna, but without Mingardo.

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            2. just put this Messagiera or a Penelope next to the sly role she had in Aix, then the Polinesso, the Ottone… really a very varied repertory, and she finds very individual and convincing solutions for them all.

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            10. I don’t get it, either. I mean it IS nice that the Haim one with Kozena got a release, but I’d still rather have a Mingardo one.

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          2. I never realized how straight-aced her vowel work is, at least in the top. And not that it’s bad it’s just something that really shapes the colors.

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          1. We still have that Vienna version saved where she eats through the scenery and the tepid production. (but Puccini really is another notch up from Verdi if it’s about tacky romance cliches and screeching)

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      1. yes, very much so. He always had good stage instincts.
        same piece, again, and sounding so different. Harteros does more big arcs. – and not sure what the staging concept is here, but look how little contact she is establishing.

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            2. yes, those two would work well, probably, in reating to each other.
              Harteros is just lovely, she doesn’t even have to act much (but it might depend on the production.)

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            3. (i think she’s known for less acting and more phrasing, which i love. because subtlety is my thingy, all is in phrasing and tiny body angle 🙂 , hands too, cough.. )

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        1. they’re acting 🙂 , and interacting. the problem over there was MP was singing to a column, she has to do all the acting, the smiling, the attempting to make eye contact..

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          1. but I’d still say that MP really stands out in adapting to stage partners and trying to establish some kind of chemistry (with the exception of the ‘misses’), even in that Raphaelite trainwreck. Small anges again – stances, looks, small gestures…

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            2. even with the post, she makes the post appear somewhat sentient and you can she how she tries to give cues… and also how she is immediatyely better (since there seems to have been not much personenregie) when there is someone else on stage here in this sad tie-dye setting.

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          2. wait to we get to the screeching tenor being halfway contained by to munchkins from Oz. No wonder the soprano has to cut in at that point.

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            2. you know how we have had great discussion about SM’s acting, how she moves, how she positions / angles herself?

              I think i’ve discovered the years when she was working through this!! 🙂

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  9. Next set is back-to-back! we’re going to see first MP *already* established body position and angle in a male role, then roll back 2 years before where i saw she was still “learning” how to do it!

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            1. yes, really giving her space. Not quite the same freedom as in early Baroque, but for belcanto, really sensitive!

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          1. yes, more , i snapped the 2nd aria right behind it, call it a “short-billowy-coat and stance” case-study, to be contrasted with the clip in 1994 coming up right after this clip!

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            2. musically it’s all there i think! i can hear the difference in how she tackled the loud orchestra and rode it much more in 1996…

              anyhow, back to screaming thingy? which time-tag? 🙂

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            6. tenor is mad because he thinks the Doge (evil lesbian in red) abducted the soprano. Who now storms in.

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            10. (but this is louder, and she does not get to work as much with single accents on her own time, and she is limited by having to produce a denser sound. Le sigh.)
              (okay, it also shows that she hasn’t sung this one 50+ times yet, it’S her second production, right?)

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          5. also the more elbows held more in, and with less angle, and then the way she still slides feet while standing, breaking the stance.
            oh, and the sitting down. yep, somewhat ladylike.

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            1. so cute. adorable cute young girl’s crush. jeah, jsut very tiny thing, like neck angle, body + shoulder angles, sitting tilt, very tiny thing. by 1996 it seems everything was just now the character. this 1994 is still a bit like “adapting” to the character but not quite in the body…

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            3. and cute 🙂 . but i love this discovery. because we’ve been asking for quite a while now about her subtle movements and angles.. and she started singing this role already back in 1991, though i don’t know if it was staged..

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          1. oh Gd there is another? I don’t care, we all have limits and screeching+no staging…
            I am at 1:39 now She gets a few low notes in there. 🙂 (not as nice as the earlier ones, though)

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            1. oh? i’m still at 1:29 .. where she has some nice low notes, that’s all i can say about that, pining why this tenor is pouting is not my thing.. let me go where you are, 1:39…

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        2. look how she stands in the middle and is the only one not just striking a pose, but making is someone trying to mediate just be small hand gestures, portraying the tension.

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            1. (secretly, between you and i, wouldn’t you say Smeton is more our thing? 😉 )
              ok, fine, i’ll switch brain back to MP trying to comfort this whiny tenor.. while also somehow trying to do something to that bass who pretends to be upset(?)/sad(?)

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            4. Lesbian Oscar Wilde has been poisoned and will die on those sacks/bed/whatever… probably in shock over seeing the dress MP has been put into.

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            5. oh, that upwards look with blink reminds me on the Aspasia/Sifare moment around the table.

              And at least the music is quieter here.

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            7. this is Vienna DonG levels.
              Well, at least there are not wigs involved.

              Oscar Wilde clearly isn’t very apt at stage dying.

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            8. so he can sing more quietly, but it still does not sound free on top because it is so boom-boxy.

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        5. and now she has to pray to her dead mother to stop her dad from doing something stupid – not exactly agency, but she is not just standing around crying.

          (tenor is singing: “Kill me now”, but nobody takes him up on it)

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          1. what’s his problem? wow, this is the definition of park and bark staging? you know what, may be that staging in Belgium (where she made her debut) is better? (has to be?) this is her 3rd time singing it..

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            1. ah right, uxembourg, too, right?
              (and Antwerp will definitely have been more of an actual staging).

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            6. this is an insut to all fruit baskets.

              aso, where did they get the 60s linoleum hallway pattern of Tenor’s coat?!

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            7. okay, some mistreated Eastern European folk festival threw up all over that dress but I will admit that I am distracted by that descending mezza voce line MP just got to sing.

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  11. how are you doing? we have 2 more clips left (6min and 12min), can you handel both? or just one? one is of ACA’s seroius shoulders (which i’d be willing to skip because we can put it back into any program….) and one of SM’s very serious piano singing (and very curious staging… though it’s a long 12min aria..)

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        1. it should be back!
          I tried to answer really quick to a comment and accidentally trashed it, Had to go back and rescue it.

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          1. (she didn’t take it off, Medea took it off for her, after hearing the first “si”, then then 2nd “si”, then reached over to caress her face, then looked, then took off, then lied down.., that’s the sequence..)

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            1. and there’s really no reason to dress her like this as Neris (in suit & whiteshirt), then have this sequence.. and the way Neris reacted, pulling on the collar.. actually already pulling on the jacket when Medea was resting on her shoulder…

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            2. yes, smal sublte moment of being conscious of the undercurrent!

              off to bed over here on an intriguing note. 😉 Thanks for a Verdi & Monteverdi night!

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            4. there is first face caress, then leaning head onto shoulder – and Medea is already short of a psychotic break, here fantasizing about a memory of wearing that dress with Jason? – and the whoe oper ais Jason cheating on Medea and leaving, and here is Neris saying she will always be there…
              And Nris gets caught up in the moment, too? Looks as if she is half pondering to unbutton her collar? Or being conscious of her dress stye?
              And then, after moving away and breaking the moment, Medea is picking up on it and perhaps uses her as a stand-in for Jason? And Neris may not be all THAT adverse to the tension? Interesting.

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            5. jeah, i was just curious about the staging idea for this..
              in any case, this might be the limit for you as far as Medea is concerned 😉
              that aria is quite nice though, solo bassoon. i’ll let you zz while i ponder some more.. acting is nice (a bit underdeveloped in this scene, hihi) .. phrasing is nice too..

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        2. well, in the end she leaves becaus she wants to save the children. Which is understandable.

          And this shirt is also distracting.

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          1. no no, i’ll let you at your leisure time to go back, but i still would like to understand Medea’s look just before and when she took that jacket off, it was very precise! and since i’ve watched this clip a lot (cough) i’m getting more and more confused about the staging idea.. particularly Medea’s decision

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          1. but jeah. i think 1 sit on this and you miss about 90% (i tell you, i’m reading into this more than i should be) hiih.

            thanks for surviving this with me! was a fun program no? except for that screamfest.. as much as i like seeing/hearing MP, that’s really is my limit..

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