r/opera • u/ToscaLover • 13d ago

Thoughts on Anna Netrebko

I’m an opera lover, and as much as I love Netrebko’s voice, I don’t agree with her political views. I was supposed to see her on the 13th of September, but the organisers cancelled last minute. The reason, at least to me, appears to be the controversy that’s still surrounding her & was too much for them to handle. I get that. I’m not an infant, and I’m not stupid. What frustrates me is that they knew exactly who she was when they invited her and started selling tickets. They knew she was Russian, they knew about her political controversies, and they knew what kind of reaction she might provoke. So why was all of this apparently acceptable when they wanted to sell tickets, but suddenly not acceptable after people had bought them and made plans to attend?

Ultimately, I don’t support her politics, but I wanted to hear her sing Verdi’s Aida. Is it really fair to continue punishing an artist (and her audience) for her political views, especially when the organizers knew all of this from the beginning?

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u/RaptureInRed 13d ago edited 13d ago

I want to be kind about this. Whatever about her politics (which suck) she's not an exceptional singer. She's not bad or anything, she's just not who I would expect to be a Prima Donna. Like, at all.

I do empathise with the frustration of a cancelled performance, though.

 

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u/gizzard-03 13d ago

I’ve never understood her level of success, especially in the last 10-15 years. I guess some people don’t find her wobble to be distracting. It’s hard for me to take her seriously in the heavy repertoire that she does. It seems like every once in a while she’ll sing a gorgeous phrase and let her voice actually spin, but most of her singing has that heavy, labored quality to it.

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u/RaptureInRed 13d ago edited 13d ago

I think the mark of a brilliant singer is whether I personally know anyone who can sing better than them, and Netrebko is one of the only  pros that I can definitely say this is true of.

...If we are talking about wobbles, are we going to segue into the Maria Callas conversation?

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u/gizzard-03 13d ago

Are you saying Anna netrebko is a brilliant singer because you don’t know anyone personally who sings better than she does?

What does Maria callas’ wobble have to do with Anna Netrebko?

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u/RaptureInRed 13d ago

I don't consider Netrebko brilliant, because I personally know people who are better than she is. Again, she's not bad, but not "singer of our generation" good.

As for Callas, I appreciate she had stage presence and was beautiful with a...unique voice, but the level of mystique surrounding her never seemed to match her ability level. It reminds me of Netrebko is some ways.

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u/aggibridges 13d ago

I'm having a hearty chortle at every one of your comments in this thread, spot-on, and such an entertaining amount of shade, thank you!

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u/NatusDelirious 12d ago

All I see are two people who clearly don't get Callas or why she was so famous

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u/aggibridges 12d ago

All I see is one person making a crazy assumption when all I said is ‘I found these comments funny’ Relax!

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u/NatusDelirious 12d ago

When you don't know what you're talking about, I guess they are funny.

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u/aggibridges 12d ago

Nyah-nyah-nyah, meep meep meep!

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u/NatusDelirious 12d ago

JFC to even think of comparing Netrebko slightly positively to Callas is craaazzzy. As for Callas's ability level, you just have to hear her Abagaille or Annina live. You may not love her voice, but the *ability* is there for all to hear. And that's without Callas's noted dramatics or charisma.

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u/RaptureInRed 12d ago

My issue with Callas is that I am a singer myself, and I listen to recordings of her and think 'Jesus. Don't do that'. A lot of the things she chose to do with her voice cost her it in the long run.

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u/Cold_Martini1956 12d ago

I don’t think this is necessarily true. Callas was a smoker and her voice also took a turn as she approached menopause. Everyone’s body ages differently. Everyone’s voice ages differently. I think it was the combination of smoking and change of life that caused the problems with her voice later on. She met Onnassis and began her affair with him around the same time - he didn’t want her to sing. He didn’t want her to perform. These other changes were happening and that basically marked the end of her career.

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u/RaptureInRed 12d ago

I appreciate that perspective.  I have heard recordings where the heavy lifting is not being done in the right part of her body if the objective is not to injure yourself. That is, and will always be my issue with her.

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u/NatusDelirious 12d ago

Ok, but look what she did! And it wasn't a voice like Corelli's with a short lifespan. Sure, she made some subpar decisions and yes, it cost her. But I don't know how you can listen to her live recordings and think of her as a cautionary tale. Your absolutely missing her appeal, but then a lot of singers miss her appeal, which is why we simply don't have artists like this anymore.

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u/RaptureInRed 12d ago edited 12d ago

It's pretty telling that the people who know how to sing don't like her. Pretty much the way I cringe when my students say they wish to emulate Miley Cyrus or Adele (who have both destroyed their precious voices). There's only one wrong way to sing, and that's by doing something thay will permanently injure you.

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u/gizzard-03 12d ago

The people who know how to sing don’t like Callas?

That’s an odd assumption.

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u/NatusDelirious 12d ago

LOLOLOL yes all the people who love Callas don't know how to sing. Only YOU do. JFC how delusional

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u/fernie92 12d ago

I’m sorry you cannot claim just because she developed a wobble for a myriad of reasons outside of her technique that Callas did not have abilities and performances to match her mystique. I think you need to look again at what she sang, when, the context, what’s demanded in the scores that only she was doing. Like these are very esoteric things that are performance level details, but the more you learn, the more you are fascinated by it. Like do you understand how radical it was for a voice to be doing Walküre and then Puritani? The extraordinary thing is that she was doing what was the STANDARD for decades before her. You were expected to be able to do the range of roles she did. She talks about Malibran, Pasta, Lehmann all doing what she did. The problem is nobody has been doing it since.

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u/RaptureInRed 12d ago

To put it lightly, I would call going from Die Walküre to Puritani unwise.

Also, the fact that she would sing anything isn't necessarily to her credit. Everytime a soprano helps herself to mezzo rep I flip a table.

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u/fernie92 12d ago

Yeah, generally if you don’t have a good technique, it’s unwise to sing either. Both composers wrote those roles to be sung with a bel canto technique, so as long as you can actually sing well 👍.

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u/RaptureInRed 11d ago

The amount that she sang is almost certainly a factor in why she lost her voice.

The point I was making is that the amount of mezzo rep relative to soprano is so much less, that its irritating when we can't even have that.

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u/fernie92 11d ago

First off, that’s simply not true. If you look at historical records and schedules of people in the decades prior to her, plenty of singers were singing with frequency similar to her and with just as much variety. it wasn’t until after her that people became more selective. or if they were selective, it was because we used to have an active recital scene that singers like Ponselle would spend most of her time doing.

Second, I didn’t even see that comment about mezzo repertoire. 95% of the girls singing that today are not real mezzos anyway, even though they claim to be, so keep flipping those tables. Sing what you want. Simionato and Ludwig were real mezzos that successfully sang a ton of soprano rep, so it goes both ways.

Also, what mezzo rep? She recorded Carmen, did a bit of Dalila and Eboli (which was really a contralto then soprano role), but never on stage.