Alagna 2.0

A few years back, following the infamous 'Radames incident' at La Scala, Roberto Alagna seemed to be vocally tired. Many critics were busy making sarcastic comments about his flirt with crossover, insisting that his best singing years were long behind us...

Alagna as Rodrigue in Le Cid produced at Opéra Marseille [photo R. Terzian]

Whatever the routine change Roberto's made in his vocal training, the result is that he definitely regained the full beauty of his voice [In your face critics!]

The other day we could see on Mezzo TV the premiere of a new production of Le Cid --a rarely staged opera by Massenet-- live broadcast from Marseille, with Roberto in the role of Rodrigue.

Apart from being a rarity, the show itself was totally uninteresting: the stage design was good but most of the stage action was reduced to a bunch of people standing and pointlessly staring at Rodrigue, Chimène and the King (excellent Franco Pomponi btw), just like in the pic above. In short: Naive met uninspiring!

However, Alagna actually made the evening interesting as he sang one of his best roles so far (and the role is very tough). There are in fact two famous arias in that opera, one of which is "O Souverain, Ô Juge, Ô Père" that Roberto killed that night. See video below.

Celle qui aimait Wagner in cinemas in May 2011

Roberto Alagna is a cast member of the movie called "Celle qui aimait Wagner", directed by a French director Jean-Louis Guillermou. Shooting is underway. Besides Alagna (as Josef Tichatschek), the cast includes Jean-François Balmer, Julie Depardieu, Stéphane Bern, Arielle Dombasle.
The story is apparently about a woman who works at the supermarket, who's a passionate admirer of Wagner and his music, and she tells the story about Wagner... 



Je baille déjà...

Tosca at Chorégies d'Orange

Yearly opera festival in the small town Orange [Provence - South of France], is the most popular operatic event in France. The festival has a great tradition (it was inaugurated in 1869) and takes place in a magnificent Antique Theater --open air amphitheater-- which can host up to 8,600 people [This is how the theater looks during an operatic evening.] Every year one opera from Chorégies d’Orange is live broadcast on the French national television.

Tosca at Chorégies d'Orange, Catherine Naglestad, Falk Struckmann and Roberto Alagna

Quite honestly, I'm fed up with Tosca because I saw 2 productions in a span of less than 40 days: first there was that shabby production in Berlin with super-duper-Pieczonka, and then --less than a week ago-- we were overbored by the show from Munich on Arte.

HOWEVER, I must admit that I'm tempted to see it again next Sunday when it will be live broadcast from Orange. The production was premiered last night and the first reviews are excessively good (which is not a good sign as far as quality of the staging goes), the cast is terrific Catherine (the Great) Naglestad, Roberto Alagna and Falk Struckmann [plus always reliable Wojtek Smilek], so... so I guess I'll give it one more shot :)

If you're tempted too, live broadcast on  France2 will start next Sunday, July 18 at 21:30 (Paris time). I am sure you can find a way to see France2 on internet if you don't have it already in your package...
If not, you can follow it on the radio -- here is the link. For more details about the production team see here.

Below I attached 3 short videos from the last night premiere (2nd and 3rd videos are complete arias E lucevan le stelle and Vissi d'arte sung by Mario and Floria respectively.)

Ed1: I'd like to urge you to listen to Catherine the Great Naglestad's perfect singing of Vissi d'arte (last video below).  Bless her

Ed2 (after the show): To me this was the best of all three productions of Tosca I could see over the past 40 days or so. The staging was not great but it was very well sung by all the cast members.  OK, now I think I've had enough of Tosca ;)