Watch Gheorghiu get booed off stage in Seoul
OperaThe Romanian soprano made a fuss over an encore sung by a Korean tenor. The public had the final say.
First video of the incident has just reached Bucharest, where it’s leading the news.
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Angela Gheorghiu is a martyr and selfless defender of artistic integrity, true heir to Toscanini in demanding artistic integrity in Italian opera.
She truely and honestly can claim “vissi d’arte”
Brava, bravissima, don’t ever give up your principles and values, they endure and are forever, and the only thing to be remembered in history.
Despite all the downvotes, this appears to me to be satire.
Hopefully.
Read more of the comments on Slippedisc and you’ll quickly decide it’s NOT satire. Self-importance and self-aggrandizement is typical, tacky and most common (it seems) among people who are already celebrated in their fields. Read enough and you’ll be a little embarrassed for them.
One can debate whether these BIS should be sung at all and if so by which singer’ but occasionally the mood in the audience is just like that’ people love the aria – no reason’ to act up and spoil the opera evening for an audience who wanted it – at least she got the well-deserved reaction for that!
Tosca enters right after the tenor aria, so she had to have been put totally off balance by the shock of the encore.
A true performer–a prepared performer–is capable of going with the flow. An ego-driven performer should restrict their work to solo appearances.
As for Gheorghiu, her career-long issues have been personal, not professional. A shame; I have witnessed many fine performances from her, albeit decades ago.
Bravo, audience. Her intervention was a disgrace.
However, given that she has form on this, the issue of “BIS” should have been settled in advance.
But even if this was a violation of a preperformance agreement, she did herself no favours on the night.
I’m surprised that the cast was clapping for her, even politely. She had just sabotaged a major part of their performance and they stand there meekly applauding her.
Bad luck for Vampira that her ridiculous spectacle was caught on video.
Seems the vocal decline is matched only by the decline in basic decency and humility.
Her antics aside, at her best, Angela Geoghiou has been one of the greatest singers of at least her generation. Why on earth is it worth watching a video of her being booed?
She made the evening about her. The audience demanded the tenor’s encore, but she cannot cope with sharing the spotlight, so she ruined his moment – even though she has had more than her fair share in her career. So, the audience treated her in kind. That audience were far braver than most of those in her orbit. I think that’s worth watching.
If a criminal goes to jail, do we have to watch them leave the courtroom in handcuffs?
To address your question; It is common practice for this to occur in most jurisdictions where this would be considered part of justice being administered in public. Hard to see how this is relevant as there was no crime committed here (to the best of my knowledge).
To address my point; the story is how the soprano was disrespectful to all around her, the audience reacted as they saw fit. The story is the disrespect. The booing was a direct consequence of this. Notwithstanding her considerable talents and career, it is a noteworthy story to report.
I agree about your take on the story. My point was about the video.
Exactly. This trial by media should end now. It has gone on for too long whether people agree with her actions or not.
This continuation of this ‘event’ is unfortunate because whether Angela Gheorghiu was right or not has been the subject of fierce debate, plenty of it attacking the soprano with hate speech on social media. No one is a winner in this case and it should be dealt with by the opera house and the management. We do need an extension of this trial by media. Please remember that in 2017 the talented tenor who gave the encore, Alfred Kim, was charged in Toulouse after a violent attack on his girlfriend in an apartment. He appeared in court and was handed a suspended prison sentence and an 8,000 euro fine. He was barred from performing in France and dropped from Verdi’s Ernani.
Is it in her contract that she gets to unilaterally stop a performance? If not, she needs to sing her part, collect her pay and tell her agent not to book her again with this company or with this tenor.
She’s just jealous because her “Vissi d’arte” did not get a bis.
Reports suggest that she was offered a bis for her “Vissi d’arte”, but that she declined the opportunity.
However, I don’t think that gives her the right to veto a bis for a fellow singer.
What a pair! Gheorgiu and Alfred Kim….don’t forget he was arrested in 2017 for banging his girlfriend’s head against a toilet bowl. Did that company even double check on who they hired for that production?
https://slippedisc.com/2017/12/the-tenor-who-smashed-his-girlfriends-head-is-back-in-business/
Yes, I just wrote about the Kim case too. Glad someone else remembered the incident. He got barred from a few opera houses after that.
Typical behavior from Draculette.
At this stage in her career, she should stick to solo concerts and recitals.
She has previous on this. When Kaufmann received a never-ending ovation for ‘E lucevan le stelle’ (in Vienna, I think), he had no option but to sing it again.
She then failed to materialise and Kaufmann famously commented that they were missing a soprano.
You can see why she and Alagna were known as the Ceasescus.
I believe they were dubbed “The Bonnie and Clyde of opera”.
Yes: the “Tosca” with Kaufmann was at Wiener Staatsoper. I offered my insight in a post when this story first broke, but I will repeat it.
After the encore, and despite still more applause, the conductor (Lopez-Cobos) kept going (as in the score; the aria flows directly into the next scene); Kaufmann turned to face the top of the stairway where Tosca was to appear from below and then on the notes written for “Ah! Franchigia a Floria Tosca…” instead sang “Ah! Abbiamo no soprano…”
Gheorghiu was not stuck somewhere; to make the entrance from below stage level she had to leave her dressing room and go down one flight and stand by.
I have it from an inside source that she uttered “They make me wait, so I make them wait”, referring not to Kaufmann but to the audience for demanding the encore.
I expressed a thought about the encore on an earlier post. However I see comment here about the cast onstage politely clapping.
The cast clapping for each other seems to have become the norm in many theatres, which means that the events of that evening would make the curtain call tricky for them.
Personally I prefer the older tradition. The curtain call is for the public to show their appreciation or not. The cast take their curtain calls and then a final bow together, but don’t applaud each other.
I always feel that when the performers applaud each other it looks as if they are trying to oblige the audience to clap.
I have a feeling Callas would have done the same thing.
Another diva Soprano? what a surprise.