Perplexed opera queen

Dear Queen:

Peppy, upbeat Cecilia Bartoli represents user-friendly art in this weightless media age. Gifted though she may be, it's hard for me too to get excited about her since, as you note, she lacks those dark undercurrents I think vital for major stars. Your description of Bartoli made me think, in terms of sexual personae, of singer Connie Francis bopping her way through "Where the Boys Are" (1960), a canonical film of my adolescence. And before that, there was winsome Annette Funicello, who rose to ripeness on ABC's "The Mickey Mouse Club."

In general, there has been a flattening out of personality in all the performing arts. The Romantic assertions of the flamingly Byronic Rudolf Nureyev, for example, would seem out of place today. Audiences want to be soothed, not challenged. I mourn the passing of the impossibly temperamental bitch-goddess divas -- from Bette Davis to Maria Callas. In expanding career options in the social realm, feminism has reduced woman's archetypal power, which drew on elemental nature.

Yes, Bartoli is classic Rossini -- which puts my teeth on edge since in all those years I toiled in school bands, where I played clarinet very badly, I had to practice and perform those damned Rossini trills, like sticky curlicues of starchy egg noodle. My idea of vocal virtuosity was formed in early childhood by Yma Sumac, the Incan imposter, and by Risė Stevens as Carmen with that inexplicable rose between her teeth.

When I received your fascinating letter, I knew exactly whom to consult: my colleague Kent Christensen, a literature professor and opera expert who recently took into retirement with him the gigantic icon of Callas as Tosca that has always dominated our shared university office -- as staggering a cultic loss to me as the passage of the Palladium out of burning Troy. (The original Palladium, incidentally, was probably not a statue but a rough meteorite, worshipped as a goddess.)

The Christensen Report on La Bartoli, special to Salon: "She's an opera-house kid, with both parents in the Rome opera chorus. Her mother was her only voice teacher. Bartoli fears flying and travels around the U.S. in a limo. Her first big successes were in Canada and Houston and on records; then the Met caved in. But she's very careful about what she does there, with infrequent appearances. Every one of her Met roles has been in a new production, evidence of her star status.

"Her debut was as a 'working girl,' pulling a heavy piece of the set into view (Despina in Mozart's 'Cosi fan Tutte'). Notice the pattern here: next in her production of Rossini's 'Cenerentola' (Cinderella), she's mopping the floor as the curtain goes up. Then this season as Susanna, the maid in Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro,' she's making the beds as the opera opens. So she's kind of typecast herself as the clever servant, the Columbina or Pierrette of commedia dell'arte, a minx. But she also has a Betty Boopish appeal that crosses the footlights even at the Met, where some have complained at the small size of her voice.

"Bartoli has a wonderful spontaneity onstage: In 'Cosi,' someone dropped a prop by accident, and she glanced at the audience to keep it comic. Her voice is not dyke-y large like Marilyn Horne's, with her booming low notes, but perfectly placed and projected and easily audible. She's in the tradition of 'butterball' singers at the Met -- much beloved, like Lucrezia Bori, Bidu Sayao (whose voice was even smaller than Bartoli's), Victoria de los Angeles, Renata Scotto (who refused to be stuck in that category and shortened her career by taking on Callas' roles). Of these, Bartoli is probably most like de los Angeles vocally -- a warm mezzo sound with surprisingly strong high notes (on occasion Bartoli throws in notes above high C to everyone's amazement) and exceptional diction in all languages, even German.

"She's trying to stretch into new roles, like Elvira, the much-put-upon mistress to Don Giovanni, usually sung by sopranos. She did it this winter in Switzerland and then was in an AOL chat room as everyone's 'girlfriend' talking about what gifts she gets, her plans for the future, and warning us to stay away from Zurich in the winter -- she had fallen and hurt her leg but went on as Elvira with a crutch!

"She will be doing Debussy's Melisande soon (another role done by lyric sopranos and by mezzos more rarely), a real stretch, a pre-Raphaelite princesse lointaine -- she's either going to redefine the role or be laughable. As Carmen: I hope she has a chance to record the role. Some of the best never did it onstage -- Callas, Leontyne Price, even de los Angeles until too late. She has mastered the castanets, as she demonstrated in an insinuating Seguidille in the new PBS special filmed at the Palladian Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. I fear she may not be able to convey the fatalism in the role. Certainly Denyce Graves is more voluptuous, but she came to the Met too soon and has troublesome vocal problems.

"Bartoli's critics -- and there are quite a few: some say that they can't watch her because she is so animated, especially in the rapid-fire music Rossini calls for (her velocity and precision here are truly spectacular). She tends to move her shoulders up and down in tempo and to gyrate her eyes: She's always 'on' and watches her audience closely. And some say she works too hard to make every song in her large recital repertoire into a mini-opera, exaggerating vocal colors and characterization. A dish of ravioli is right -- but stuffed with truffles!"

I hope that's enough to start many a food fight in opera cells across the land -- those bastions of the arts that have stubbornly survived the last quarter century of dreary poststructuralism and postmodernism. Stars may be in short supply, but grand opera, which was born in Italy, will dance forever on Michel Foucault's grave!

Postscript As its provocative Mother's Day cover story, the May 9 New York Times Book Review featured new books on Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer, the latter reviewed by me. No article has ever drained me more: It was like being trapped in a telephone booth with Lady Macbeth!
salon.com | May 12, 1999

[GOT A QUESTION FOR THE ORACLE?:
ASK CAMILLE.]

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

  Get a printer-friendly version

  E-mail a friend about this article

  Backflip this article to find it again

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Salon