Word: madama
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...played the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly every year since she was 19 years old. Inevitably, Soprano Renata Scotto has developed some strong ideas about the role. Now she has a chance to test them: next month, in a revived production of Butterfly, Scotto will become the first diva ever to direct herself at the Met. "I'm really looking forward to seeing the role from another perspective," she admits. There is a disadvantage to wearing two hats, of course. "I'm used to relaxing in the dressing room when I'm not in rehearsals, or during...
Mitchell's triumph has come just in time. In any generation, the number of sopranos who can superbly handle the most demanding dramatic roles in the Italian repertory (Verdi's Leonora or Aida, Puccini's Tosca or Madama Butterfly) is always small; these days it is minuscule. Montserrat Caballe, 49, has the right combination of fire and ice to make for a memorable Tosca, for example, but she often cancels performances. Price, 55, still makes occasional forays into what was once her strongest territory, but she wisely no longer sings as frequently as she once did. Enter...
...Paris premiere of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring in 1913? The hostile demonstration in Vienna that prevented the first performance of two of Alban Berg's Altenberg Lieder a couple of months earlier? The disruptive reception accorded Verdi's La Traviata or Puccini's Madama Butterfly...
Freni is familiar to American audiences from several excellent popular opera recordings-La Bohème and Madama Butterfly with Supertenor Luciano Pavarotti, Aida and Don Carlos with Tenor José Carreras, all conducted by Herbert von Karajan-as well as from films of Bohème and Butterfly shown here in 1965 and 1976. She captivated audiences at her U.S. debut as Mimi at the Metropolitan Opera in 1965 with her technical accomplishment and winsome vocal timbre. But Freni's talent still far outshines her American reputation. Her career has been primarily European: between...
Other composers have turned turgid melodrama into art--Puccini exhumed Belasco creakers to create Madama Butterfly and La Fanciulla Del West--but Sondheim's score achieves little distinction. It flounders in a pool of notes instead of gushing with passion. Only the lushness of "Pretty Woman," the dissonance of "Epiphany," and the insouciance of "A Little Priest" salvage the first act from musical banality. Even here, the Metropolitan Center's gully of an orchestra pit prevents Sweeney's blazing razor attack from terrorizing even the first...