Word: alagna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Several young singers have been touted as possible successors to the first two tenors, but so far they have had about as much luck as Joan Rivers had in giving Johnny Carson the push. Roberto Alagna, 34, was heavily promoted by EMI as "the tenor of our generation" (a not so subtle dig at the advanced ages of Pavarotti and Domingo), but he had a rocky Met debut three seasons ago and is looking increasingly like an also-ran. Andrea Bocelli, 40, the hugely popular blind Italian tenor, is unlikely to parlay the success of his best-selling CDs into...
...while love in bloom may dazzle audiences, in the music business it can incite suspicion and jealousy. Some agents and managers hint darkly that Alagna has used his clout to get plum recording deals for Gheorghiu. Others say Alagna doesn't need to throw his weight around; Gheorghiu can scheme quite nicely on her own. Certainly some intricate maneuvering took place during negotiations for a new recording of Romeo et Juliette, masterminded for RCA by Placido Domingo, who plays the hero. Gheorghiu backed out of a pledge to the project--but guess who she will record the opera with...
...Alagna is not about to settle for just Pavarotti's mantle. This media dream child comes complete with his own legend. Try this one. Nineteen months ago, when he was beginning to make breaker-size ripples in the international opera pool, his wife died of a brain tumor, leaving him with their toddler Ornella. Then last year in London he fell in love with a beautiful Romanian soprano, Angela Gheorghiu, 30, who was making headlines at Covent Garden as Violetta in Sir Georg Solti's production of La Traviata. The pair have been together ever since, as inseparable...
...surprising, because Alagna and Gheorghiu have a rare ability to reach beyond the boundaries of the ordinary operagoing public and create visceral excitement. Call it plain old sex appeal. The audience enjoys seeing real-life lovers playing doomed heroes and heroines onstage. Alagna plays the 19th century romantic lover with a modern twist, reinterpreting a vanished ideal for the 1990s--no sobs or lunges here. Gheorghiu's calling card is the home video of the Solti Traviata (London). This is an opera in which the soprano must rule the stage, and she brings a riveting combination of glamour, poignancy...
...weeks ago, the pair sang together in La Boheme for the first time in New York City at the Metropolitan Opera House (they have sung together in Europe before). The night was charged with theatrical glamour, marred by the fact that Alagna had a cold that uncovered what seemed to be a break in his voice; he had to cancel a subsequent appearance. Gheorghiu, however, was an ideal Mimi, vocally lustrous and with the strange radiance that consumptives are alleged to have...