The octogenarian ex-tenor will jump in as Giorgio Germont in Bavarian State Opera’s La traviata on June 16.
Domingo has been hanging out for much of the past few months with his new best friends in Moscow.
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He will also be taking part in a concert at La Scala on December 2.
In fact his diary is a great deal fuller than I suspect you would wish it to be. Paris in June as well.
I suggest we all meet in the arena.
https://www.arena.it/en/arena-di-verona/gala-domingo-opera-night
Sounds like a plan.
As long as he doesn’t conduct and behaves properly backstage…
Funny. I’m getting tired of both Domingo and the almost daily Domingo-bashing.
Oh, joy.
Playing Dvorâk four hands with Alexis Weissenberg no less. A mishap towards the end which is deftly handled :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yl2nS5lFRs
I am also tired of Domingo bashing which Mr Lebrecht constantly does.
Making snide remarks about “hanging out with his new best friends in Moscow “ is uncalled for.
No mention of his conducting Verdi’s Requiem in Piacenza to honour those who died from covid. Or that he will give a concert for the Spanish Red Cross.
If opera houses and concert venues think he is worth engaging and are happy to do that, so be it. Insulting the man at every opportunity reflects badly on you Mr Lebrecht. The old saying “if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything “ is very appropriate.
Totally d’accord.
“If opera houses and concert venues think he is worth engaging and are happy to do that, so be it”
– Actually, concert venues and opera houses act on public demand and nothing else. What sells sells.
“I am also tired of Domingo bashing which Mr Lebrecht constantly does.
Making snide remarks about “hanging out with his new best friends in Moscow “ is uncalled for.”
So he hangs out with the Mafia mob, so what. He donates regularly and visits the church every Sunday.
See how one thing doesn’t necessarily outweigh the other?
Next week on this very channel: Nazis are bad, but let’s not speak up against them, because their fanboys think that’s uncalled for.
Some of them were vegetarians and loved dogs. Can they really be all bad?
I’m a basher, too, because I know the difference between a great baritone and a formerly great tenor (I was at his ROH Otello with Kleiber and will never forget it) who is not a baritone and should not be taking work from those baritones whose time is now. I’ve often said that Domingo the tenor would never have accepted to share a stage with Domingo the fake baritone. If you don’t believe me, listen to Bruson, Warren, Nucci, Cappuccilli, Bastianini, Milnes, Battistini, Herlea, Merrill, Macneil, Zancanaro, Tezier….then listen to Domingo. He doesn’t even belong to the same sound world, let alone the same stages. He destroys the entire aesthetic of the Verdian, baritone tradition and compensates with by over-acting. It astonishes me that major companies still hire him, thus denying audiences the chance to hear that tradition. Maybe nobody really listens, or knows any more, or cares…
Unfortunately there are not many good, let alone, great Verdi baritone.
Tezier, Kelsey, Salsi, Lucic, Ruciński. Just to name the great ones.
Sadly everything youve just said is irrefutable. Domingo’s continued ubiquitousness is reflective of the incredible degradation of artistic standards and their replay by marketing and hype throughout the opera world.
Doesn’t he bash everyone? I wonder what instrument he failed at.
Your information is not right. He will not „jump in“, the Staatsoper München cancelled a Ballett and replaced it through 3 performances of Traviata. In the first of them Plácido Domingo will sing, in the other two Petean.
“ex-tenor”? Placido has been singing as a baritone for ages now, so what is the piece of news here? Many artist change voice ranges, and a few go trom tenor to baritone or vice versa: are they to be called ex-tenor or ex-baritone for the rest of their lives?
Not quite. The voice type, or “fach”, is determined by a combination of colour and range. Some high baritones make the change to tenor, sacrificing some of the darkness and low end for the extended range at the top. But the reverse is extremely rare, since it is almost impossible to create the colour required to sing the dramatic baritone repertoire. To make it more complex, the passaggio – the area of the voice where open vowels transform into covered vowels – is baked into the Verdi baritone repertoire as a function of the baritone physiognomy. That’s what made Verdi the great and detailed composer for the baritone voice that he was. (Germont’s aria, in d-flat, is a great example, navigating the passaggio by pivoting around the E natural, where most natural baritones experience the passaggio, without touching the E. This creates the Verdian aesthetic, which Domingo obliterates). It is almost impossible for a tenor to reconstitute his physical instrument to become a legitimate Verdi baritone. I know of no example in history of such a transition made successfully. (Educate me if I’m wrong.) To anyone who knows anything about opera, none of this is a mystery. But all of that falls by the wayside where there is money to be made. I get the strategic hiring part. I just don’t buy it, because it is detrimental to the beautiful art form to which Domingo the tenor once contributed so supremely.
He is no longer capable of being either.
I’m also tired about your Domingo’s bashing . The fact is that the opera houses reopen after long months of pandemia and audiences want the best singers , and Domingo is the best alive , audiences want to hear him and to see something else that Regietheater
I don’t know why so many people are complaining about “Domingo bashing”. Personally I rather enjoy Norman’s rather quixotic campaigns against his pet peeves. As well as the ire they raise from certain commentators. Keep it up I say.