Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Ladies & Gentlemen, his Royal Hawtness, Don Simon Keenlyside





Exclusively @ parsifal's

Photos from last night's premiere at the Royal Opera House with Simon Keenlyside rawking as Don Giovanni.

Reports talk about a performance where Joyce DiDonato triumphed as Donna Elvira (I was pretty sure about that, the Yankee Diva is da best!)

Mei reports: La DiDonato como Donna Elvira ha estado estupenda en el papel,
(DiDonato as Donna Elvira was stupendous in the role),

while Master of the Amphitheatre and the choir stalls Intermezzo says:
Joyce DiDonato gave the most consistent and impressive performance of the evening, totally uninhibited as the combustible Donna Elvira.

and Hariclea at Opera is Magic!:
Well Elvira definitely stood out tonight!!! Joyce DiDonato was fantastic!!!!! Her singing was as great as it comes, but her greatest contribution was to make Elvira not only stand out but be in terms of weight in the story equal to the Don and Leporello and that is no small victory! Her character was so well defined, she was powerful and captured you every step of the way, from her first appearance to the last contribution to the final sextet. And she always stood out and never got drowned out or even covered by the rest. I wouldn’t have believed Elvira was such a woman, could feel so strong, could suffer so, could have such depth of feeling and humanity in her. Joyce made her strong and soft, humanly flawed but engagingly so. You feel for her, she is funny at times but deep down you know she will survive this Don and you just wish until the very end that he would open his eyes and really see her! Joyce has been saying the rehearsals were short but from the result I can only applaud her for her work and her dedication. It was not only worth it, it was a total success!! This is not an Elvira anyone will ever forget!

Read the wonderful review @ Intermezzo & Opera is Magic!

and listen to Joyce DiDonato, the YankeeDiva, singing Gershwin's "The Man I Love" at Wigmore Hall, on the 6th of September, 2008 (after a short prologue where she talks about this song, her husband and Donna Elvira, all in the same sentence)...

The Man I love, Joyce DiDonato, London 6.9.2008


And some miscellaneous pics I fished @ the web.


31 comments:

Mei said...

Great screencaps...!

Joyce DiDonato is a great Donna Elvira...

YankeeDiva rocks...!

Anonymous said...

Thanks parsifal, now I'm in the good chronology, today's post

Parsifal said...

Good! Hey, the reference that lead you to the Rene Pape post was the Rolanditious fancy shirt that Rene was wearing?

Here's ROlando wearing a look-alike shirt (by Paul Smith)

http://tinyurl.com/5b8poo

Anonymous said...

Nice picture, shirt fits to his lovely caracter!

Hariclea said...

No, si la proxima no escribo cronicas de mil paginas sobre cosas vistas a las 2 de la noche, solo para q ...amigos... no las lean..snif snifff!!! core ingratoooo!!!

Parsifal said...

Haricleaaaa! Uuuy joer! Perdon perdon! No lo vi!!!! Me disculpo y voy enseguida....

Hariclea said...

juassss q no pasa nada... pero de verdad q lo mio fue antes q nadie, pero solo porque una no es gente normal y duerme por la noche como deberia de ser, sino q anda como los vampiros pululando ;-)
io ti perdoooonoooo :-p

Hariclea said...

y el enlace de la cronica es http://operaismagic.blogspot.com

q tu los mandas directos al ROH y desgraciadamente las entradas ya estan agotadas ;-))))

Parsifal said...

Hey! Yo solo he copiado el enlace del titulo de tu post....grrrr....Acabo de arreglarlo!

Hariclea said...

ya, es anoche despues de q el don me canto dehh vienii a la finestraaa oh mioo tesooorroo me sentia tramposa juasss ;-)
Por cierto espero que al final pasen el espectaculo por mas teatros que de verdad valio la pena

Parsifal said...

Si, si, lo mismo me ha contado la Teresita que tambien me ha mandado las fotos (taaaaan amablemente)

Hariclea said...

las senoras jovenes, viejas, delgadas, no tan delgadas, altas, bajas, inglesas o extrangeras salieron ayer con unas sonrisas encantadas del cine.....pa flipar!! porque seraaa???

Parsifal said...

Por los pechos de Keenlyside supongo??? Aunque en las fotos me parece un poco...flojo.

Teresa G. said...

Flojo...no diria yo...su personaje y su interpretación emanaban brutalidad...mmmmmmmmmmmm....si lo dices porque alrededor de la cintura habia un cierto espacio sin muscular...bueno, puede...pero a eso se le llama confortabilidad...

Hariclea said...

flojooo?? ay madre perdonaloo, que no sabe lo que diceee!!! si conte que estaba escalando el solico una pared lisa con solo una cuerda y las botas que resbalaban.... y cantaba colgando de por ahi... flojo dice!!! yo quiero un flojo como el pa mi solica ;-)) y tiene unos brazos y unas piernas... q ni las estatuas de tu pais! y no me hagas decir mas q me ruborizooo ....

Parsifal said...

Locas perdidas.... ROLANDO O SIMON???? CON QUIEN TE CASARIAS TERESA????

JONAS O SIMON???? TU HARICLEA???

Hariclea said...

oye disfrutar con los ojos es innocente ;-) y yo siempre fui adepta de las buenas y sanas epocas del matriarcado!!

Teresa G. said...

por favor, darling, ¿pero quien habla de matrimonio?

Parsifal said...

Jejejeje, una matriarca y una adultera! Salome y Herodiade????

Teresa G. said...

A eso, en psicologia, se le llama proyección

Parsifal said...

Ay cuánto ha dañado Irvin Yalom a las mujeres de hoy!

Teresa G. said...

si, hijo mio, es que desde que nos dejan hasta leer libros, hemos cogido unas ínfulas...

Parsifal said...

Y ademas os dejan votar...

Teresa G. said...

fíjate, y encima nos quejamos, verdad...

Hariclea said...

juasssss y luego dicen q la opera es elitista, aburrida y seria!

a ver si volvemos a poner un poco de decoro en estooo....a que es bonita la cancion que Joyce dedico a su maridooo :-)

Parsifal said...

Te dedico aquella otra cancion muy bonita de McCoy -q ha sido cantada por Ella Fitzgerald , Kiri Te Kanawa, even Sinead O'Connor q dice

¨Why don't you do right,
like some other men do?

Get out of here,
get me some money too."

Hariclea said...

jajajajjaja..quien diria que esta opera es la que mas tiene lo de "empower the women" ;-)) pero si, el efecto es totalmente este ;-)

Kenderina said...

El otro dia veía una peli en que una mujer le decía a su hija : "Los hombres son la cabeza y las mujeres el cuello...y la movemos para donde queremos" , jejejejeje.

Por cierto, la peli era de griegos, aunque era americana pero no me acuerdo como se llamaba :)

Christine said...

The Giovanni performance on Monday was awesome!!! Hope it will be released as DVD!

Christine

Hariclea said...

yes, there will be a DVD, probably with a mixture of that recording and the one they are doing on Friday !

And isn't Simon spectacular? :-) And the climbing scene is not skewed like in the picture but totally perpendicuar on a high flat, smooth wall, you see his feet actually slipping sometimes in those boots!! Heartstopper!!!

Vissi d'arte said...

WOW!!!Where the hell did you get those incredible pictures????????????You even got the one with the very last moment!!!!I'm impressed O_o

By the way, I'm so in love with Simon since the other night...