Limelight Magazine Picks Their Top 10 Opera Film Selections

Catherine Zeta-Jones look-alike
Sylvia Sass doing Bartók.

Paulo Montoya chooses from a plethora of operatic depictions on celluloid and narrows the best down to the top 10. Directors include such luminaries as Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Robert Dornhelm, Miklós Szinetár, Gianfranco de Bosio and Götz Friedrich, while some of the greatest opera singers in the last 60 years featured include Mirella Freni, Teresa Stratas, Plácido Domingo, Leonie Rysanek and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The most recent film on the list is Puccini's La Bohème featuring Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón from 2009. Chances are many of the titles are available on demand through Netflix. Sounds like a good chance to stay inside from the summer heat and see some cinematic excellence. View the full list.

"Rigoletto" With Plàcido Domingo Available on PBS Website

"From Andrea Andermann comes a visually and musically spectacular production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, filmed last September on breathtaking locations in and around the Renaissance splendor of Mantua, Italy, in the places and hours specified in the libretto. Starring tenor Plàcido Domingo in the traditionally baritone role of 16th-century court jester Rigoletto, Julia Novikova as his innocent daughter Gilda, Vittorio Grigolo as the womanizing Duke and Ruggero Raimondi as the assassin Sparafucile, the production is directed by Marco Bellocchio, and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Zubin Mehta." [Source]

Watch the full opera by clicking here.

Plácido Domingo Tapped For FIFA "Council of Wisdom"

The "Wiseman" with Fernando Torres after
Spain's victorious 2010 World Cup win.

"Spanish opera great Placido Domingo is considering a formal invitation from FIFA president Sepp Blatter to help solve the problems of the world's governing body. Blatter was re-elected as president for another four-year term last week and has promised to clean up the corruption scandal at FIFA. Domingo has been offered a role on a 'council of wisdom' alongside former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff. However, the 70-year-old opera star is not committing to the role until he recieves more information form Blatter. He told the Associated Press: 'Since 1970 — with the exception of 1978 — I have been at every World Cup final in every host country. 'In my amateur way, I am an expert in football. I am happy to have been asked to be involved with this great sport and have requested more details to see if I can be of help.' The new commitee will have the power to investigate the problems at FIFA and solve the bribery scandal that saw Jack Warner and Mohamed Bin Hammam suspended." [Source]

Plácido Domingo Surely Does Not Endorse This Product

Check out the background music to this cheesy product advertisement for the "Facial Flex" by clicking on this link.

Bryn Terfel Stunning in Domingo Celebrity Series

(Photo: Deutsche Grammophon)

Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel had a successful evening of arias and show tunes at the Kennedy Center last week: "It is always a pleasure to see a superstar at the top of his game in a relaxed, unbuttoned performance....Terfel is by now perfectly at ease onstage, making frequent eye contact with audience members while singing and between selections...It is in the extremes - high, low, loud, soft - that his natural gifts most clearly set him apart from others; the sound pours out like warm honey without any sense of strain...At this point in Terfel's career, every performance is a master class in singing and stagecraft."

The maestro conducting the performance did not fair so well: "Domingo's conducting continues to unimpress. While his hand was relatively sure in the numbers he knew from his own repertoire, the difficult 'L'onore!' from Verdi's Falstaff was a mess; he repeatedly allowed the orchestra to swamp Terfel in the show tunes; and he could not find the Viennese lilt in Strauss's Die Fledermaus overture. The Opera House Orchestra is playing well these days, but not always well enough to cover for weak conductors." [Source]

Royal Wedding Music, Part 2: Who Would Be Available To Sing?

POTENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR ROYAL WEDDING SOLOIST
In a business where professionals are contracted out five years in advance, what singer could possible be free to sing for the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 29, 2011? Checking schedules of the top dozen front-runners for the job discloses that some could be a private jet ride away from the event:

Renée Fleming will have completed her last performance of Strauss's Capriccio at the Metropolitan Opera on April 23 and has a Strauss concert of orchestral songs and scenes from Arabella with the Berlin Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann.

Anna Netrebko sings the Pergolesi Stabat Mater on April 28 in Geneva, Switzerland, and again on May 2 in Toulouse, France.

Kate Royal makes her Metropolitan Opera debut the night of April 29 in Orfeo ed Euridice. The second performance of the run is May 4. There are only five performances of the Gluck opera.

Angela Gheorghiu has concerts on April 27 and May 1 at the National Concert Hall in Seoul, Korea.

Marina Poplavskaya is performing The Tsar's Bride of Rimsky-Korsakov at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden during the month of April and her penultimate performance in the run takes place at 7PM on April 29.

Anja Harteros just canceled her appearances at the San Diego Opera as the Marschallin in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, but is to appear in that very role on May 4 in Wiesbaden. She will be singing performances of Mimí in La Bohème at the Hamburg State Opera on April 23 & 30.

Cecilia Bartoli makes her way to Down Under for concerts in Australia on March 15 & 18. Then there is nothing in her schedule until a May 5 concert performance with Orchestra La Scintilla in Berlin.

Elīna Garanča the mezzo-soprano is singing the role of Giovanna Seymour in Donizett's Anna Bolena with a last performance at the Wien Staatsoper in Austria on April 17 and the first performance of the same work at the Opernhaus Zürich in Switzerland on May 21.




What about the possibility of a male performing during the ceremony?

Rolando Villazón will be in rehearsals at the Royal Opera House for Massenet's Werther which will have its opening night on May 5.

Plácido Domingo sings a concert with Ana María Martínez in Puerto Rico on April 17 and then will head to Washington, D.C., for Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride opening on May 6.

Jonas Kaufmann can be found at the Metropolitan Opera in the middle of performing the role of Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walküre. Performance dates bookend the nuptials date: April 28 and May 2.

Bryn Terfel is also at the Metropolitan Opera taking on the role of Wotan with performances scheduled on April 28 and May 2.

Plácido Domingo Continues to Break Records Despite Age

The tenor during a rehearsal break at the MET
(Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP)

"Domingo is a conductor as well as an artist who has a record-setting 134 career roles; the celebrated tenors Luciano Pavarotti and Enrico Caruso performed far less -- Caruso about 60 roles, Pavarotti fewer than that. Domingo is booked through 2015 and still adding roles at an age when most top-notch singers retire from the stage. He regularly sells out theaters including the Met's 3,800-seat auditorium. 'Very few singers can sing at all at the age of 70 -- he sounds great; it's absolutely extraordinary,' says James Conlon, music director of the Los Angeles Opera....Domingo acknowledges that he's no longer comfortable with the highest tenor notes, and in recent years has taken on parts that show off his rich, vibrant middle and lower registers. Among them is Orestes in Iphigenie [en Tauride]....Verdi's Simon Boccanegra and Rigoletto. And he's polishing the part of Athanael in Thais, by Jules Massenet, to mark the centennial of the French composer's death next year." [Source]