Word: diaz
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...only a minor problem for him that in the most popular opera repertoire, tenors tend on the superstar level to eclipse basses, who often find themselves stereotyped as priests, old men, court advisers, and evildoers. Diaz recognizes this--"I have no choice, I'm sort of stuck with my voice range. What can you do? The repertoire has already been written"--but doesn't think it will stop him. He laughs. "I still have an enormous variety of roles to play, and I unrealistically expect my voice to laugh forever...
...Justino Diaz, her leading man in this opera, confirmed all the reasons she's been giving her interviewers lately about the origin of these offers tailored for refusal. "It could have been that they wanted her to say no; then they could have said. 'Well, we invited her but she refused.' It could have been a clash of personalities: maybe so-and-so didn't like her that much. Maybe they considered that she really was not that well known to deserve a new production in a really big role." He paused, and then added reflectively. "This happens...
Sills has stressed that she bears no grudges and is having the time of her life in this production, Diaz says, "She's very warm, has a terrific sense of humor, and is wonderful to work with." The first dress rehearsal, five days before the premiere, was chaotic--conductor Schippers was already exasperated, snapping angry commands at the musicians: Diaz, whose cape was falling off, was trying in vain not to trip on it; there were mistakes in blocking; an 'extra' kept dropping his spear with an audible clatter; and Sills handled it all by laughing. The more tired...
Sills came to the Met secure in her stardom. For Diaz's career, the principal male role in Siege means something completely different. Ten years younger than Sills, he has been at the Met for 12 and yet his greatest role to date--that of Count Cenci in Ginastera's Beatrix Cenci--didn't take place at the Met: Beatrix Cenci opened the Kennedy Center in 1972 and ran for two years at the New York City Opera. The role of Maometto, which he sang at La Scala with Sills in 1969 for his own debut there, is another crucial...
...favorite parts has been the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni: the Italian equivalent of Don Juan who, having seduced over 1000 women before the opera starts, goes on to seduce a few more before he's packed off to hell. Diaz says that he tries to portray this character as a glorious rebel rather than as a rank scoundrel, adding. "From a chauvinistic point of view you could say, look at all the women he made happy! Apparently he was an irresistible character--a terrific lover, a wonderful human being, at least for those few minutes or hours...