The Netrebkos are to relaunch La Scala
mainMusic director Riccardo Chailly has announced that the 2018 season with open with Andrea Chénier, starring Anna Netrebko and her husband Yusif Eyvazov.
When was a major-house opera season last launched by a married pair of singers?
Quiz fiends, here’s your chance.
When was a married pair of singers so unequal in vocal gift? Eyvazov would be nowhere if he hadn’t married well…
That couple, putting family bonds before professionalism, is turning more and more into a travesty show. Sad artistic decline of a once stellar Anna Netrebko.
Not to mention the shocking change for the worse her voice has undergone. Another lyric with dramatic ambitions gone to seed.
Actually, she is sounding better than ever in her more dramatic roles. Everyone except you seems to love the change.
Not to mention married sopranos and their conductor husbands…
In 7 december, 1978, the same Teatro alla Scala opened its season with Ernani, starring Placido Domingo, Renato Bruson and… the couple Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov. Regards from Brazil.
Ernani was opening night in 1982
Yes, 1982 of course. My mistake.
Actually Freni and Ghiaurov opened two more La Scala seasons in 1970s with “Don Carlo” and “Simon Boccanegra” both conducted by Claudio Abbado. I am sure that Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry must have been involved in some season opener during their marriage in the 1960s (they almost opened the New Met at Lincoln Center in 1966 with “Die Frau ohne Schatten” which was performed during the first week of the new season in 1966.
To be fair, Freni & Ghiaurov were both famous before they got married.