Thursday, February 25, 2010

Breaking: Andrea Chenier interrupted ***Updated***!!!


Something quite weird has happened a few minutes ago in Madrid as the performance of Andrea Chenier at the Teatro Real starring Marcelo Álvarez and Fiorenza Cedolins, has been suddenly interrupted. The performance was being broadcast live by Radio Clásica and was cut for 10 minutes most probably due to the boos and whistles that Marco Vratogna received for his aria. The broadcast was finally cancelled by decision of the Direction of the Teatro Real . People that were in the theatre, report that the audience protested for the use of amplification before Vratogna going wild and starting shouting to the audience...

***Update!***

Here's how things happened as one can hear from the recording:

Vratogna sings his aria when a voice from the audience is heard

-¡Que quiten la amplificación!
-Tell them to shut down the microphones!


-¡Es una vergüenza!
-It's a shame!

Cedolins starts singing, the boos and the shouts go on, people are whistling while Cedolins continues.
The boos and the whistles get louder and louder while Vratogna and Cedolins sing their duet, and people shout "They should learn how to sing first" (¡Que aprendan a cantar)!

Cedolins speaks to the audience, then has a brief dialogue with the maestro and the performance is cut.

~~~Update~~~

Here's the audio of the incident.

Vratogna+Cedolins trying to sing despite the whistles and the booing, finally Cedolins speaks to the audience "If you want we can all go home...".
My favourite guy is the one who says "Qué aprendan a canta y a impostar" (They should learn how to sing and project).

Marcelo Álvarez singing "Un Di All´ Azzurro Spazio'.
Right after the aria a voice is heard saying

"Y el micro, qué?"


13 comments:

Opera Cake said...

Poo opera X poo production = a very poo result. The crowd boo.
Sounds logic to me. ;)

Thx for sharing

Hariclea said...

Hm seems the issue is the supposed amplification ISNIDE the house... now that would be a scandal... But i have not idea if it could be true, but it does cast a very nasty shadow on the performance! And it's horrible to think that singers who would resort to such means cast doubts on all the others.... i'm sure we will hear about it a lot....

Hariclea said...

And Cedolins said: Que problema teneis conmigo? Do you have a problem with me? Podemos continuar o nos vamos todos a casa? Can we continue or we can also all go home? And she tells the conductor/or whoever there that the audience is protesting against possible amplification.

John said...

and Cedolins, Vratogna and Alvarez are all in the upcoming ROH Aida....
Will this be the third disastrous production of that work in a row at the ROH?

Opera Cake said...

So whatever actually happened?

From a clearly unreliable source ["someone who knows someone else who actually was at the Teatro Real last night said..."], the sound amplification devices allegedly broke during an aria sung by Vratogna and his voice went from loud to inaudible ===> The crowd went mad... Cedolins wanted to remedy the situation but the result was worse.

Is that any close to the truth?

Del Monaco is selling this horrible production for 9 years already and it's like a jinx. Whatever the opera house it comes to, it brings some misfortune. Booooo.... ;)

Anonymous said...

Did the performance continue live or was that also cancelled?
Thanks for the post!

Anonymous said...

this raises more questions than it answers, i'm afraid...

Unknown said...

Just found the following in the Teatro Real de Madrid website:

"Debido a un problema técnico en la función del día 25 de febrero de la ópera Andrea Chénier, durante algunos minutos del primer acto se escuchó en la zona de paraíso de la sala el sonido que normalmente se destina al foyer del teatro durante las representaciones. Este hecho produjo una percepción acústica distorsionada que suscitó la queja de algunos espectadores, lo que obligó a detener la representación, que fue reiniciada tan pronto como se solventó el mencionado problema.
El Teatro Real lamenta la difícil situación que tuvieron que vivir los artistas que participaban en esta función y certifica que en ningún caso, como es pauta habitual en este teatro, se ha utilizado medio alguno que no fuese el instrumento natural de su voz.
Así mismo, el Teatro Real se disculpa por haberse visto obligado a suspender, debido a los motivos ya mencionados, la retransmisión en directo que estaba realizando Radio Clásica de RNE."

It acknowledges the technical malfunction during the Feb 25th performance which was that "the sound which is usually directed at the foyer of the theatre during performances" started coming out at the "paraiso" section of the hall. This caused the audience's outrage and the performance was stopped but was resumed as soon as the issue was resolved.

It goes on to apologize to the artists for placing them in a difficult situation and assures that under no circumstance does the theatre use anything other than the artists' natural voice.

Apparently the radio broadcast was suspended completely however.

Petra said...

I was there. Vratogna's voice went from inaudible to loud. Something was very wrong with the sound during the first few minutes.

Mocho said...

Curiosamente, Parsi, el mejor reparto de todos ha resultado ser el de "precios populares", el tercero, que no necesitaba de ningún tipo de amplificación.

The best cast of this Chénier has been the third one, with no need of artificial amplification.

Anonymous said...

More information and audio of the incident here:

http://listserv.bccls.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1002d&L=OPERA-L&P=174386

Parsifal said...

Mocho! si, ya he leido tu cronica en tu blog, la ShafaJinskaia siempre me ha gustado en papeles tipo Turandot, pero la verdad, si pudiera elegir, iria a ver a Álvarez y Armiliato :)

Jordana said...

PasaelMocho that is because people are not tired of the 'third cast' and are still giving them the benefit of the doubt. Let's give it a couple months and the "third" cast will get just as jaded a reception. I mean, come on. With the way people are behaving these days, bitching about spending their 'hard earned cash' on 'fraud', and hollering out from the audiences like idiots, why dont they just use the money to bloody drown themselves in Callas recordings and stay the hell home.