MICROPHONES AT THE OPERA – TEATRO REAL MADRID INCIDENT!!! Andrea Chenier Review
This is what is destroying opera. IT IS EVERYWHERE! the Met, La Scala etc. These fake artists and especially the directors who are hiring them. Here is what happened. Just after Gerard’s (Marco Vratogna) first aria, some of the people in the upper rings started yelling and booing and shouting “verguenza”(“Shame!”)because he seemed to be mic’d. There was a loud feedback -he would turn around and it would sound the same as if he was facing forward; some sound coming from the left and some from the right and it was reverberating. So they were pissed. Then, Fiorenza Cedolins (Maddalena) came in the first scene and she seemed to be mic’d, too. The audience didn’t stop booing, and then the conductor paused the performance and the curtain came down. Then Cedolins herself (THE FAKE) came out and said in broken Spanish, “excuse me, we can keep going or if you’d like, we can all go home.” Then she talked with the conductor about what to do. There was a pause for a few minutes, the radio host tried to kill time with the synopsis of the first act (which he had already given…) while they tried to figure out what was going on. So someone came on stage and apologized for the “technical difficulties,” said that they were going to start the performance from the beginning; and that things were straightened out. And the performance continued. Later, Marcelo Alvarez, who had already been having a rough time in the production, pulled out after the second act and was replaced, prompting …
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25 Responses to “MICROPHONES AT THE OPERA – TEATRO REAL MADRID INCIDENT!!! Andrea Chenier”
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Yeah, I can sing better. Not that I am the best ever, but I am surely better than that. And mic’s are being used. People have witnessed it. People I know personally and some I don’t know. Denial changes nothing.
so, you can sing better? I don’t think so! You obviously don’t know what you are talking about. Hear him live and then we can talk.
That is such a crock. That baritone has NO RING to his voice whatsoever. Just look up “San Francisco Opera Otello Preview”. He is singing there. It is horrible.
I agree with mrlammermoor, this was PURELY a technical problem due to the broadcast. I think it’s a crime to throw Mr. Vratogna into the mix of singers that need enhancement or need to be mic’d. I heard him live sing iago at a closed orchestra rehearsal in San Francisco last november- his voice rang throughout the war memorial opera house (which is twice the size of the real) with no problem at all! Shame on the audience in madrid to blame the singers for what was clearly a technical error.
Seriously… I tend to believe that the “technical problems” due to the radio broadcast are true. Why wouldn’t there have been a scandal MUCH earlier in the run? This was about the 10th performance or something like that.
Technique is not just up to the singer when very few teachers have a clue about what they are doing enough to take singers to their full potential. The universities and conservatories are rank with incompetent teaching. So the students *cannot* just get what they need. And what gets the audience to come to the opera are phenomenal voices. It is first and foremost a vocal art. Villazon had major problems early on that they tried to cover up with mic’ing and enhancement. And hence polyps.
I agree. And they started mic’ing Pavarotti so he could do roles that were too heavy for his voice; like Aida. He was a lyric tenor. It was not a HUGE dramatic voice.
In my opinion opera was doing quite well also before Pavarotti “revived it”, as you say. I don’t think there was a need of revival in the sixties or in the seventies. I will go further and I’ll say that the same Pavarotti and his pop concerts can partly be blamed for the idea than now every “pop” singer can sing opera.
I concur!
if only they took the time, they would see instant gratification is not really all that gratifying, but they prefer beyonce (whom i love) or Britney Spears, or Crhistina Aguilera, who, surprisingly is regarded as a great vocalist (beats me) Now of course they would call you snob, after all, they may have uneducated eyes and ears but dont exactly love being called ignorants, they just like to hear songs with beats
take for example Tosca, what music today can suck you in, hold you at the edge of your seat, and make leave the theater depressed as if something changed your life (for the worse)? that sensation is really something, but you need to work for it, you need to be patient and closely follow the subtleties of the music, how it enhances the tragedy that is going on before you, i truly feel sorry for those who cant experience something so trascendental
i forgot to add uneducated eyes too. nothing new, often Opera people get labeled as snobs, not every1 can be moved and touched by it, thank god i can and not because i want to set myself apart from the bulk of society, just because i truly believe nothing else can give so much pleasure to your eyes and your ears, today’s music deadens your nerves and your sensibility, what is the reward in a song that lasts 5 minutes and has an insistent background beat that won’t quit through the whole song?
I agree. Where I teach I constantly hear teachers letting students belt and shout. I want to open the door interrupt and say “stop what you’re doing and find another teacher because this person is ruining your voice”. I can’t tell you how many classically trained singers I meet that can’t hit an A below male High C without straining. Its pitiful.
Right, and that is based on a great voice. And that is developed through correct teaching. Obviously the universities don’t have it. So the talents need to wake up to the fact that the institutions are not good for voice training.
There will NEVER be media hype for Opera until some new superstar comes along and shakes things up. Pavarotti was the last of the great tenors who was was a trailblazer like Caruso before him. Opera was dying for a few decades before Pavarotti revived it. That will have to happen again if Opera is to be brought back to its former glory. But in this current culture I don’t see it happening.
I remember then saying Rock ‘n Roll was a fad. Half a century later and its still here.
This type of cultural elitism you display isn’t going to do Opera any good. This is how the bulk of society see you when you say things like “uneducated ears”. Society will not take you seriously and will brand you as musical snobs who have their heads in the 1700′s.
Yes, that is what I am saying the whole time. You should read my comments more carefully.
@GentleSavage1
Yes, orchestras are getting louder and higher !! It’s killing the singer. It’s about the SINGER !!
They are totally forgetting this. People don’t care about sets, fancy lights etc. They are there to hear the human voice with no microphone!
@vanderLuedenscheidt
Bocelli & Potts are not opera singers !!
“Opera training is not just for the wealthy anymore.” What times are you refering to?Which great opera houses are gone?There is a lack of great singers, but there are still good ones around, who are not that famous, because there is no media hype. That you name Bocelli shows me that you don’t understand really much about opera singing. Why do you mention Paul Potts? Nobody on earth who knows something about the subject listens to Potts. He is a popsinger and doesn’t get hired from Opera.
I agree. I cringe at what passes as “music” today. Even in my time, the 1980′s, during the “heavy metal” explosion you had virtuoso players who were the best in the world at their instruments and many were inspired by classical music. Yes the music was mostly shallow but the musicianship was top notch. Sadly once simpletons like Nirvana hit, all that went out the window and musicianship died. Its crap music played by crap musicians & singers. I haven’t bought a new artist CD in almost 20 years.
Opera isn’t alive and well – its suffering greatly. Gone are the great Opera houses aside from a few. if it was “alive and well” you wouldn’t have what went on in this broadcast. Competition in art breeds innovation and dedication. The great voices of decades past are mostly all gone or retired. For Opera to revive itself you need a NEW breed of singers on the Pavarotti/Bocelli caliber. In today’s “make a buck” culture you’re going to be hard pressed to find them and you get Paul Potts.
your arguments are so weak, 60´s pop music was 50 years ago and it´s dead, Opera was more than 300 years ago and it’s alive and well, no matter how many generations pass, the beauty of Opera will still be there, the way it is now. This is not stuff you are going to hear at the grammys or whatever “music” awards ceremony, or appeal to the masses with uneducated ears, that’s the type of music that dies out, not Opera
Still, all this discussion about amplification in opera houses raises another issue… not only of singing technique.
Don’t you all think that orchestras are gettnig too big & loud, like everything else, outside opera? I mean, even with the best technique, there are limits to what a human voice can do unamplified…
But they can stack up ever more musicians.
yeah, I thought at the beginning of his career, villazon sounded okay-ish,
but then near his vocal collapse he sounded like he pretty much repeated di Stefanos mistake, barking instead of singing, to sound fatter.