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Como creo que no sobra, incluyo un comentario sobre el Boccanegra de Domingo que he encontrado en un foro en inglés sobre ópera (el primero que seguí en internet y por el que siento debilidad, aunque mis participaciones en el mismo son tan poco fructíferas y sólidas como mis participaciones en éste) que me parece bastante sensato y equilibrado:
As a devoted fan of Placido Domingo, and one who has defended him
on this list for the fifteen years I have been here, including a couple of
pretty nasty fights with Ed Rosen on the subject, I will cry "uncle"
about Domingo in baritone roles, and say only, that, if this is the point to
which opera has come - If a great tenor who has lost his range, and who
is reduced to singing baritone roles in order to sustain himself upon the
stages of the World, is now a standard for that repertoire,
opera is in much worse shape than even I had thought, and I haven't given
it much of a chance for a while. Domingo's Boccanegra was not a disgrace
- his tone is still rock steady, his intonation is excellent, no hint of dryness
- but it is all wrong. Teresa, it is an assault on my sense of what
opera is all about, and what it should be about - voices that can do
justice to music has been a part of our lives for a very long time,
at least in my case. Frank Guarrera was a far more satisfactory Simon
than Domingo will ever be, but who even knows who Guarrera was
except for the few who were there then and are still here now.
You ask what harm? Let's start with the wallet! His is a name that draws
people to the theater. Now, you say, well, they were happy enough.
And that is the problem. There are no standards anymore. And no one
cares. I sound like one of those old ladies in the Rasponi book, and right at
this moment that is exactly how I feel. They knew something that we are
just finding out. Opera as they knew it, as the composers knew it, and even
as some of us knew it fifty years ago, is dead. Everyone
wants to be part of something special, and by God, they will make it
special if it kills them, and music, in the process.
It is not a sin for Domingo to get out there, and to please whomever it is
that he pleases. It is, though, a sin of ignorance and perhaps deliberate
intent, that some who should know better, critics in particular, parade
Domingo's Boccanegra as a sign that God is in his heaven and all's right
with the world. It is not!
Bob [Rideout]
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