Barbara Bonney to retire from opera
ursula scherer
Attention all Bonney fans.
In an interview given to Opéra International when she was singing Sophie
in Paris, Barbara Bonney said that she had sung by now all the roles
that her voice permitted her to sing and that she would slowly give up
opera completely and only sing Lider and concerts.
What a shame.
Very sorry about the bad new
Ursula Scherer
Salome45
>that her voice permitted her to sing and that she would slowly give up
>opera completely and only sing Lider and concerts.
>
>What a shame.
>
>Very sorry about the bad new
>
>
Bad news? I think it's GREAT! It;'s about time there was a good, dependable,
TALENTED lieder singer!
The only other one singing right now that I care for is Nathalie Stutzmann,
who's a contralto
Amanda, working on Wie Melodien by Brahms for a competition next weekend <wish
me luck!!>
emott
Salome45 wrote:
>
> >that her voice permitted her to sing and that she would slowly give up
> >opera completely and only sing Lider and concerts.
> >
> >What a shame.
> >
> >Very sorry about the bad new
> >
> >
>
> Bad news? I think it's GREAT! It;'s about time there was a good, dependable,
> TALENTED lieder singer!
> The only other one singing right now that I care for is Nathalie Stutzmann,
> who's a contralto
What about Anne Sophie von Otter?
John Borstel and Charles Gravitz
> Attention all Bonney fans.
>
> In an interview given to Opéra International when she was singing Sophie
> in Paris, Barbara Bonney said that she had sung by now all the roles
> that her voice permitted her to sing and that she would slowly give up
> opera completely and only sing Lider and concerts.
>
> What a shame.
>
> Very sorry about the bad new
>
> Ursula Scherer
Don't take this sort of thing too seriously. I distinctly remember an
interview in the Sunday New York Times in the mid-to-late 70s in which
Monserrat Caballe stated that she would retire in three years. She kept
going at full strength for at least another 10!
--
Bosco
Silver Spring, MD
bor...@his.com
Celia A. Sgroi
salo...@aol.com wrote:
> Bad news? I think it's GREAT! It;'s about time there was a good,
>.dependable, TALENTED lieder singer!
> The only other one singing right now that I care for is Nathalie
> Stutzmann, who's a contralto
As it happens, there are a great many talented young lieder singers
active right now. There are more males than females, perhaps, but
Christine Schaefer, for example, is extremely talented. Another is Juliane
Banse, who is making her New York debut at Alice Tully Hall on March 1st.
Two others are Christiane Oelze and Angelika Kirchschlager. Keep
listening. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Celia A. Sgroi
State University of New York
College at Oswego
sg...@oswego.edu
Preferred Customer
Thank you Celia for your comments; however, the sad thing is that we live
in a time where the lieder recital has lost its 'pull' on both audiences
and performers, and that unlike the period when great singers of the stage
were very happy to give recitals [DFD, Baker, Ludwig, Norman et al], lieder
singing is sadly '2nd class'. Only the continued support of singers like
Bryn Terfel, who are equally convincing in opera and recital, can keep this
moribund form alive. If the audiences of today only knew what they were
missing... the incredible excitement, the sheer exposure (a kind of
nakedness), the vulnerability of the lieder recital will remain
irreplaceable for a small audience including ourselves.
Jim
Celia A. Sgroi <sg...@news.oswego.edu> wrote in article
<Eo8tG...@oswego.Oswego.EDU>...
> As it happens, there are a great many talented young lieder singers
> active right now.
Opvidfan
>The only other one singing right now that I care for is Nathalie Stutzmann,
>who's a contralto
>
>
My God HAVE you ever been able to HEAR her live. The voice is totally
inaudible. I have seen not heard her twice and it is a total strain on the
imaginatioon and ears. The voice simply is tiny and refuses to carry. And I
heard her in small halls in SF Bay area.Tghe second time in the third row.
During the interval all people were talking about wast the strain and effort to
hear her not the interpretation. It wasn't worth the energy!
She has sung twice in NY and the same complaint there. She makes Battle and
Bartoli sound like Flagstad and Elmo.
This is strictly a studio voice. A salon singer. She is also very dull and
extremely awkward on stage very little stage presence and looks like a tall
frightened deer. She projects a very flat affect and looks as if she wanted to
be anywhere but in front of an audience sharing her art. AND I love her
recordings. But in person forget it.
Ray in SF
Jim Frey
Wow! I heard her this past year singing Mahler 2 with Christine Schafer
and the Philadelphia Orchestra and had no problem whatsoever hearing her
and heard very positive remarks from the audience. But then the Academy
of Music is a faily small hall. Interesting.
Jim in Philly
Opvidfan
>Wow! I heard her this past year singing Mahler 2 with Christine Schafer
>and the Philadelphia Orchestra and had no problem whatsoever hearing her
>and heard very positive remarks from the audience. But then the Academy
>of Music is a faily small hall. Interesting.
>
>Jim in Philly
>
>
>
>
>
I am very pleased to hear that and dearly hope that my two personal experiences
were atypical. I love the basic dark contralto sound of the voice. With
Spence and Poodles there are now appearing some true contraltos.
Ray
Erik Jan van Sten
Relax - she is still scheduled well into the next century:) Only the roles
she will sing are slightly different, suitable to a more aged singer.
Interview in Gramophone, 2/98
EJ
Rosario Gennaro
In article <34E324...@wharton.upenn.edu> ji...@wharton.upenn.edu writes:
>
>Wow! I heard her this past year singing Mahler 2 with Christine Schafer
>and the Philadelphia Orchestra and had no problem whatsoever hearing her
>and heard very positive remarks from the audience. But then the Academy
>of Music is a faily small hall. Interesting.
Not here in Carnegie Hall when they came to perform the same
programs. And I have never heard an uglier rendition of Urlicht ...
---Rosario
--
ros...@theory.lcs.mit.edu -- http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rosario
"... la tua loquela ti fa manifesto di quella nobil patria natio ..."
Inf. X
Salome45
> AND I love her
>> recordings. But in person forget it.
Well...I'll have to take your word for it..I've never seen her live..but her
Wagner/Liszt and her Schumann cds are very good.
That's what I've heard, and I like it.
Amanda, not a contralto
Erik Jan van Sten
Hmmm...this is a very unlikely story. I saw her in November, singing in front of
the full Concertgebouw Orchestra and not exactly being drowned out - she stood like
a rock.
And while her recordings aren't very exciting - she sounds too wobbly and unstable
for me - in the concert hall she sounded truely unique.
> My God HAVE you ever been able to HEAR her live. The voice is totally
> inaudible. I have seen not heard her twice and it is a total strain on the
> imaginatioon and ears. The voice simply is tiny and refuses to carry. And I...
"salon singer"? Well, you must have some pretty awesome salons there in San
Francisco.
> This is strictly a studio voice. A salon singer. She is also very dull and
> extremely awkward on stage very little stage presence and looks like a tall
> frightened deer. She projects a very flat affect and looks as if she wanted to be
> anywhere but in front of an audience sharing her art. AND I love her
> recordings. But in person forget it.
To each his own - but I doubt it you know what you are talking about.
EJ
Eduardo Gabarra
That's my experience, too. I saw a piano-accompanied recital with
Stutzmann in Madrid a few years ago and she couldn't be heard from
the sixth or seventh row of a not very large auditorium. A very
different singer from the one I knew and admired from recordings.
A phonogenic phenomenon, im sum.
Eduardo Gabarra
Opvidfan <opvi...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19980212152...@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> >The only other one singing right now that I care for is Nathalie
Stutzmann,
> >who's a contralto
> My God HAVE you ever been able to HEAR her live. The voice is
totally
> inaudible. (snip). She makes Battle and
> Bartoli sound like Flagstad and Elmo.
>
> This is strictly a studio voice. A salon singer. She is also
very dull and
> extremely awkward on stage very little stage presence and looks
like a tall
> frightened deer. She projects a very flat affect and looks as if
she wanted to
> be anywhere but in front of an audience sharing her art. AND I
love her
> recordings. But in person forget it.
>
> Ray in SF
>
Opvidfan
>
>Hmmm...this is a very unlikely story. I saw her in November, singing in front
>of
>the full Concertgebouw Orchestra and not exactly being drowned out - she
>stood like
>a rock.
>And while her recordings aren't very exciting - she sounds too wobbly and
>unstable
>for me - in the concert hall she sounded truely unique.
>
>> imaginatioon and ears. The voice simply is tiny and refuses to carry. And
>I...
>
>"salon singer"? Well, you must have some pretty awesome salons there in San
>Francisco.
>
>> extremely awkward on stage very little stage presence and looks like a tall
>> frightened deer. She projects a very flat affect and looks as if she wanted
>to be
>> anywhere but in front of an audience sharing her art. AND I love her
>> recordings. But in person forget it.
>
>
>EJ
>
>
EJ,
You wrote: <<To each his own - but I doubt it you know what you are talking
about.>>
Thank you for your comment and I will give it any consideration it deserves.
But I do KNOW what I am talking about when I am talking about my own experience
and my observation and conclusions. These I maintain have the same value as
yours, no more but certainly no less. From that experience I drew a conclusion.
That it is an anectdotal quite subjective and specific in tone is no different
in process or significance or weight from yours. It is of no consequence to me
that you doubt my knowledge l as my opinion of you, which is so ephemeral as to
border on the non existant, should possibly matter to you.
I have no desire to try and change your perceptions. I have no inclination to
the evangelical in matters of perceptins that determine behaviors. Been there
done that. I voiced an opinion that contradicted another opinion that also was
very personal and subjective and true to the writer's experience. That is that
and this is this!
Incidentally I was not going to address this on the list but after reading the
following re. my comments about Stutzman. I could not resist:
<<<<That's my experience, too. I saw a piano-accompanied recital with
Stutzmann in Madrid a few years ago and she couldn't be heard from
the sixth or seventh row of a not very large auditorium. A very
different singer from the one I knew and admired from recordings.
A phonogenic phenomenon, im sum.
Eduardo Gabarra
>>>
Will you also dismiss his knowledge and challenge his experience?
I send you good wishes.
Ray in SF
Jack Johnson
>One month later I heard her in Paris in La Bastille, an auditorium like an
>enormous swimming pool, and again the voice carried beautifully when she
did
>her well-known Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. The 2nd act duet with Susan
>Graham was unforgettable, as was the 3rd act terzet (with Renée Fleming as
>the Marschallin). It is a long time ago I heard one of her first Sophies
and
>although she may be a little bit bored by the part by now (you cannot sing
>15 year old girls your whole life) for me she still is the best Sophie
since
>Hilde Güden, maybe even more silvery then the young Lucia Popp.
I hate that she did not record this role on CD. What a dream cast to have
her Sophie, Fleming's Marschallin, and Mentzer or Graham as Octavian.
(Actually, there is an embarassing surfeit of suitable, unrecorded
Octavians). Why on earth EMI chose Barbara Hendricks for the Haitink
recording I will never know. Why don't these record companies call me for
casting suggestions!?!
Paul Korenhof
I have to agree with EJvS: Bonney in the Concertgebouw is marvellous. The
last time I heard her there, she was the equal of Thomas Hampson, who shared
honours with her that same, absolutely unforgettable evening - one of the
best (and longest) lied-recitals I ever heard, with Bonney reaching a peak
in the Sieben Frühe Lieder.
One month later I heard her in Paris in La Bastille, an auditorium like an
enormous swimming pool, and again the voice carried beautifully when she did
her well-known Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. The 2nd act duet with Susan
Graham was unforgettable, as was the 3rd act terzet (with Renée Fleming as
the Marschallin). It is a long time ago I heard one of her first Sophies and
although she may be a little bit bored by the part by now (you cannot sing
15 year old girls your whole life) for me she still is the best Sophie since
thinks she is inaudible, I only can advise him (or her) to see a good doctor
and stop visiting pop-concerts.
pk
Erik Jan van Sten <1274...@student.eur.nl> heeft geschreven in bericht
<34E5DF6E...@student.eur.nl>...
Paul Korenhof
I agree with EJvS. Last time I heard Bonney in the Concertgebouw, she was
marvellous, completely equal to Thomas Hampson, with whom she shared the
stage in one of the longest lied-recitals I ever heard, ans absolutely
fabulous in the Sieben Frühe Lieder. Four weeks later I heard her in La
Bastille in Der Rosenkavalier, that gigantic swimming pool, and again the
voice carried marvellous. She must be bored by Sophie by now (you cannot
sing 15 year old girls all your life), but her 2nd act duet with Susan
Graham was unforgettable, as was the the 3rd act terzet (with Renée Fleming
as the Marschallin). To me she still is the best Sophie since Hilde Güden,
perhaps even more silvery than the young Lucia Popp. If some has problems
hearing her, I can only advise him (or her) to see a good doctor and stop
visiting pop concerts.
pk
Sara Freeman
In <6c7vo5$ob4$1...@enterprise.cistron.nl> "Paul Korenhof"
<pa...@cistron.nl> writes:
>
>I have to agree with EJvS: Bonney in the Concertgebouw is marvellous.
The
>last time I heard her there, she was the equal of Thomas Hampson, who
shared
>honours with her that same, absolutely unforgettable evening - one of
the
>best (and longest) lied-recitals I ever heard, with Bonney reaching a
peak
like an
>enormous swimming pool, and again the voice carried beautifully when
she did
Susan
>Graham was unforgettable, as was the 3rd act terzet (with Renée
Fleming as
>the Marschallin). It is a long time ago I heard one of her first
Sophies and
sing
>15 year old girls your whole life) for me she still is the best Sophie
since
>Hilde Güden, maybe even more silvery then the young Lucia Popp. If
someone
>thinks she is inaudible, I only can advise him (or her) to see a good
doctor
>and stop visiting pop-concerts.
>
>pk
He was talking about Stutzmann being inaudible, not Bonney.
--
"If the Truth is Out There, what's In Here?" - Nick Humphries
Paul Korenhof
>He was talking about Stutzmann being inaudible, not Bonney.
>
PK