Jonas Kaufmann takes a swipe at the Netrebkos
mainRichard Morrison in the Times asks the tenor about the prospect of working with his second wife, the director Christiane Lutz.
Would Kaufmann want to be directed by his wife? “You mean on stage?” he says with a giggle. “In one way I would love to, but I would never push it. I’m not a big fan of those package deals you see a lot in opera, where if you hire one half of a couple you have to take the other half as well.”
No idea who he means.
Other examples: Kozena / Rattle, formerly Opolais / Nelsons…
Seiffert / Schnitzer
Car / Dupuis, Alagna / Kurzak… She would have been stuck singing Gretel in Hamburg and other smaller venues if it weren’t for him. Just the same as Yusif, opera frauds…
Hmmm…I have memories of people saying that in order to get Georghiu you used to have to take Alagna! 🙂
This is silly, Kurzak had and is having a major career before and after meeting Alagna, and rightly so.
Car and Dupuis are not quite in that category – they are both equally excellent. No case of packaging a mediocre singer with a star there.
Aleksandra Kurzak / Roberto Alagna
Hmm … I actually don’t think so. I’ve heard her before Alagna and I think she’s pretty good.
Damrau and her husband quite often
I’ve never got them together though I’ve seen her four or five times and him at least twice. And last year they didn’t work together. It was a Romeo et Juliette at the Scala this year when they were together.
Damau / Testé, Garanca/Chichon
In 2019 Ms Damrau didn’t work with her husband. In 2020 she did once. Doesn’t look for me like she’d force to have him sold as part of the parcel.
June 2019 Hamlet in Berlin…
LA OPERA Hoffmann 2017
With respect, that’s BS. Nelsons and Opolais very rarely worked together.
For once I fully agree with him. 😉
He has a point.
No idea who he means? There are plenty who can’t resist their power to secure the additional incoming cash flow, no matter how much it stinks, particularly if public subsidies are used to finance the performances, which in my eyes renders this kind of practice as straight forward corruption and abuse of public subsidies.
He’s risked upsetting the ROH orchestra with that interview. On being asked to turn away from very nearby musicians in a sitz he says, “I found it quite odd. I would have thought that if you signed a contract to pay in an opera orchestra you would be aware that there is singing involved”.
Firstly, not everyone in that room is on contract – there will be many freelancers there. It’s also simply at odds with ROH policy on hearing protection and if any ROH musicians read the Times they’d have every reason to feel annoyed that he’s shown them such a lack of consideration in print.
Opera singers are fekking LOUD, especially when they’re nearby and aiming their sound in your direction.
We had Frederica von Stade as a soloist many years ago — not considered an especially “big” voice, a Cherubino rather than an Amneris. In rehearsal she sang facing out into the hall and sounded gorgeous; then she turned around and sang facing the orchestra and it was like getting blasted by a fire hose. Still gorgeous, but also kind of painful on a simply physical level.
I understand that Kaufmann may feel a little put-upon that they asked him not to blast right into the players (and of course singers are always worried about being drowned out by orchestras, so perhaps he felt like a delicate flower), but he really could damage someone’s hearing.
It’s not just about the cash flow. It is about being able to spend time with your partner – which can be very hard when you are a successful singer or conductor.
Male artists wives either travel with them and stay bored at the hotel or they stay at home with the kids and their husbands cheat on them.
But for female singers it is even more difficult. Anna Nebtrebko was in her mid fourties, when she married Yusif Eyvazov. She had given most of her time to her work and her career. I completely understand she wants to spend as much time with her husband and it is probably much nicer for her to kiss him on stage than his colleagues. 🙂
Mrs. Beczala is a singer too, she is with her husband all day, but never wanted to be hired …….
So was Marta Domingo.
Third option: Give up your own career for your husband.
…or vice versa…..
His colleagues probably aren’t wild about the idea of kissing him onstage…
I do understand she wants to spend time with her husband. But it’s simply not fair to expect the public purse to pay for that.
Many years ago Alagna and Gheorgiou.
love his comment….typical Jonas!!! he is so right but we need the couple as who else is singing….not a fan of Mr Netrebko at all and the hysteria around her goes on my nerves but let’s be honest: who else should sing their repertoire? Look at Italy? Where are the Frenis, Scottos, Ricciarellis of our time? Where are di Stefanos, Corellis, Raimondis (Gianni), Bergonzis etc? We only hear Meli and the crazy overrates Grigolo…Algana is a pain nowadays. Voila we need the Netrebkos…..
There are some very good Tenors around, much better than YE: Jagde, Spyres, Bernheim, Castronuovo and some more. No need to buy the “combination”…
As long as both musicians in the couple are up to the standard set by the company in question, it makes perfect sense, and is not corrupt at all. Musicians are human beings like anyone else, and have family lives to think about. Singers especially spend almost all of their lives in accommodation other than their own homes, and away from loved ones. They miss family occasions, key school days, and all the moments of family life that most take for granted. It is only sensible that, where artistically justifiable, couples be given the chance to work together. Sure, it becomes problematic if there is a gulf of difference between each, in terms of artistic level, but otherwise it should be encouraged for very obvious, human reasons.
F.e. Testé never sings major roles, he takes the smaller ones in productions with Damrau. Alagna and Kurzak in most operas are equal, but this is by far not the case with AN and YE!
For once I agree with you. Amazing, isn’t it? 😉
Dear Concert organizer,
I will be delighted to conduct your great orchestra. Yes, we can programme my Don Juan together with the Mozart concerto. I feel the public simply love my latest songs for voice and orchestra, and we could place a few in the second part, Before the Eroica. By the way, my wife has a wonderful soprano voice and (…)
Sincerely yours,
Richard Strauss
Were but these others of the same quality as our dear Richard Strauss…
I can never understand why when there are so many couples who worked together – Sutherland and Bonynge did many years ago – why you pick out the Netrebkos unless you have a particular axe to grind.
Perhaps the difference is that Sutherland & Bonynge were utterly terrific together. How about Freni & Ghiaurov? Christa Ludwig & Walter Berry? I’d love to hear them (again)…
Bonynge/Sutherland, by all accounts a great duo.
Her Lucia with Bergonzi at the ROH (the last time he appeared there in an opera and not long before her retirement) was wonderful and the voice untarnished by age, for which Bonynge must be credited in part. He did not let her take on heavier roles. His reward was the same kind of hatred YE receives today : I remember being in the ROH amphitheatre in 1967 when he took his bow after conducting Norma with her. Two elderly , as it seemed to me, gentlemen went down to the rail and screamed “go home, go home”, anti-Oz as well as anti-Bonynge. Nothing has changed!
From personal experience as a principal flutist in an orchestra performing with them, I can testify that Bonynge’s conducting was certainly not on the same level as Sutherland’s singing. His rehearsal technique with an orchestra consisted mostly of being her vocal coach.
Bonynge was an excellent opera conductor, but we all know who really sold the tickets.
This is not new in opera. I remember when James McCracken sang Radames in Seattle and we had to take Sandra Warfield’s overparted Amneris in woeful condition. In the 19th century there were frequent complaints that in order to hear Adelina Patti you had to put up with her undertalented pet tenor husband, Ernesto Nicolini. Sound familiar?
Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton.
There’s a bunch of conductor/singing pairings.
Current: Yoncheva/Hindoyan
Garanca/Chichon
Ex: Opolais/Nelsons
Peretyatko/Mariotti
Buckingham and Nicks
Riccardo Muti and Chiara Muti