Opera's "Love Couple" Calls it Quits

Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu announce divorce.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Better days: Robert Alagna (l.) and Angela Gheorghiu as Ruggero
and Magda in Puccini's La Rondine.
Image © 2009 The Metropolitan Opera.

Tenor Roberto Alagna and soprano Angela Gheorghiu, whose 1996 marriage catapulted both singers to operatic stardom, have announced their "imminent" divorce after 16 years of marriage.

The report comes from an interview the soprano gave with the news agency Mediafax.

"We have decided to divorce by mutual agreement and in perfect friendship," Ms. Gheorghiu said. (Her remarks are translated here from the French.)

The Alagna-Gheorghiu story begins at Covent Garden, when the singers met in a performance of Puccini's La bohème.  They played Rodolfo and Mìmi. She was a divorcée and he was a widower with one daughter.

 In April of 1996, they were performing the same roles at the Metropolitan Opera, marking Mr. Alagna's house debut. Ms. Gheorghiu had bowed in La bohème in 1993.

On April 27th, the singers arrived at a gala concert celebrating James Levine's 25 years at the Metropolitan Opera. They had been married that day. They celebrated by singing "Suzel, buon di" by Pietro Mascagni, (also known as the "Cherry Duet" from L'Amico Fritz) and brought down the house. The marriage was blessed by then-Mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani.

The Superconductor Interview: Angela Meade

A conversation with the next queen of bel canto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"I don't read blogs." Soprano Angela Meade in Ernani.
Photo by Marty Sohl, © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

"The essence of a great bel canto opera is beautifully written melodies that seem extremely organic." Soprano Angela Meade should know. In the last five years, Ms. Meade has taken the spotlight as a bel canto specialist, reviving this lost operatic form (the phrase is Italian for "beautiful song") for a new generation of opera lovers.

Memories of Herbert Breslin

Luciano Pavarotti's longtime manager dies at 87. 
by Paul Pelkonen

Herbert Breslin (right) and friend. Photo by Alan Malschick from The King and I
© 2004 Broadway Books, Herbert Breslin and Anne Midgette.

It is with great sadness that we report the passing of opera super-agent Herbert Breslin. Mr. Breslin managed Luciano Pavarotti for 36 years, elevating the Italian tenor into a household name. He died yesterday in Nice, France, of a heart attack. The news was reported by my colleague Anne Midgette in The Washington Post. 

Mr. Breslin was 87. 

I want to take a moment to say a few words for Mr. Breslin, who helped a young writer beginning a career in the world of opera. Through his firm, the Herbert Breslin Agency, I was able to do my first interviews with singers and gain invaluable experience as I started in this business.

It began when the Metropolitan Opera chose to cancel a 1997 run of Verdi's La Forza del Destino. Luciano Pavarotti was supposed to learn the role of Don Alvaro di Vargas, which would add the last major dramatic Verdi tenor role to a resume that included attempts at Don Carlo and Otello, operas that were far too heavy for his voice.

Obituary: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

The master of lieder dies at 86.

by Paul Pelkonen

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in a publicity still for his
1968 recording of Hindemith's Cardillac.
Image © 1968 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics.

German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau died earlier today. He was 86. According to the Berliner Morgenpost, the Berlin native was in the Bavarian mountains "near Starnberg" when he passed away. The death was announced by his wife of many years, opera singer Julia Varady. 

Mr. Fischer-Dieskau was one of the most important German baritones of the recordings era. His signature achievement was his cycle of Schubert lieder, consisting of over 400 songs. Mr. Fischer-Dieskau's recordings (most made with accompanist Gerald Moore) were instrumental in bringing the lied relevant in the 20th and 21st centuries, allowing listeners to have the experience of a song recital in their own homes.

Although his voice was considered a "light" baritone, Mr. Fischer-Dieskau was a master at driving every syllable of a lyric home, bringing deep, profound meaning to song cycles like Winterreise and Brahms' Four Serious Songs. The singer's signature sound, rich, mellow and pliant in both its upper and lower ranges became one of the most recorded voices of the 20th century. 

Concert Review: The Pants Come Off

Susan Graham returns to Carnegie Hall.

by Paul Pelkonen.

Angelic, yet heroic: the sublime Susan Graham.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham is a paradoxical artist. Her rich, agile instrument is lush and seductive, but New Yorkers usually see the tall Texan in travesti roles: Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.

This recital, her first solo appearance at the Hall in five years, ignored that image with a program focusing on heroines from history and literature. It opened with the singer coming onstage in a shell-like white gown, to sing "Tell Me, Some Pitying Angel." In Henry Purcell's scena, the Virgin Mary worries about the absence of her Son. Ms. Graham used several different approaches to this music, producing smooth, sweet tone but also evoking the Madonna's distress.

She then produced a ravishing effect in a second monodrama: Berlioz' La morte d'Ophelia. Ms. Graham sounds especially at home in French repertory, producing ravishing tone and lush, smooth vowels. This was the Ophelia of Berlioz' obsession, a Romantically heightened version of Shakespeare couched in rich piano figurations supplied by accompanist Malcom Martineau. (This is also one of Berlioz' few works for that instrument.)

Then, Ms. Graham embarked on a fascinating exercise. She sang a cycle of art songs by Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Duparc, Tchaikovsky and Hugo Wolf, all depicting this tragic heroine Mignon from Goethe's play Wilhelm der Meister. The works increased and developed in harmonic richness, starting with Schubert's sturdy accompaniment and climaxing in the Wagnerian excesses of wolf. New light emerged from each song, as Ms. Graham explored different aspects of her personality in multiple musical voices and three different languages. A tour de force. 

The second half of the program began with a change in wardrobe and attitude for the mezzo. She offered another monodrama, the little-known Lady Macbeth by composer Joseph Horovitz. This is a different, more melodic take on the character than that in Verdi's opera, with tremendous opportunity for psychological exploration in the spare, haunting chords. Ms. Graham shifted rapidly from the Letter Scene, to the Murder, then bringing pathos to her final "to bed, to bed, to bed" at the end of the Sleep-walk.

Mr. Martineau and Ms. Graham then leapt into Fiançalle pour Rire, a cycle of six songs by François Poulenc that sit in the center of this singer's comfort zone. She alternated between joy and grief in these moving songs, based on poems by Louise di Vilmorin and reflecting on the rapid cycle of emotions caused by the onslaught of World War II.

The program seemed short, but a note in Playbill mentioned further selections "to be announced from the stage." These proved to be an entertaining potpourri, in a lighter vein. Highlights included comic songs by Cole Porter ("The Physician" and Stephen Sondheim ("The Boy From...") The concert ended with "Sexy Lady," a reflection on Ms. Graham's own career on the operatic stage, which pastiched the travesti scenes of Strauss and Mozart with the alternating with the original music of composer Ben Moore. 

Listen to Susan Graham's 2006 Carnegie Hall performance of "Sexy Lady."

The concert ended with Ms. Graham returning for one last song: À Chloris by Reynaldo Hahn. Introducing this melodie as her "favorite song", Ms. Graham caressed its curves with her lush instrument, crafting a sensual spell that stopped the audience in its tracks to reflect on the brilliance and invention of this sublime singer. With singing like this, who needs trousers?


Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.