Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Schumann

Robert Schumann: Kerner-Lieder, Liederkreis, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1954, 1955)
par Anthony Goret
Audite nous ofre une excellente occasion d'écouter Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau dans un enregistrement des Kerner-Lieder et Liederkreis (Eichendorff) de Robert Schumann. Fraîcheur vocale et spontanéité juvénile imposent l'interprète qui est au début de sa carrière. Un témoignage incontournable.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau a enregistré ces monuments du répertoire du lied à de nombreuses reprises tout au long de sa carrière. On redécouvre un chanteur au faîte de la maîtrise de son art, et la fraîcheur vocale et la spontanéité dont il fait preuve, contrastent avec les versions futures. Son enthousiasme juvénile et les nombreuses couleurs vocales présagent déjà de l’évolution de son chant vers une intellectualisation et une colorisation du mot. Sa voix chaude, soyeuse et caressante, évoluera vers un timbre plus granuleux mais offrant les possibilités infinies d’expression vocale qu’il saura exploiter même lorsque sa voix sera quelque peu fatiguée dans les dernières années de sa carrière. Lors de l’enregistrement des Kerner-Lieder avec Sawallisch en 1975 et Eschenbach en 1977, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau adopte des tempos plus rapides et se montre déjà beaucoup plus extraverti que dans la version actuelle. Le timbre déjà un peu plus fin et moins doux sculpte chaque phrase et attribue à chaque mot, une couleur particulière. Les tempos subiront de subtiles variations dans le prolongement de son expression musicale. Même si la version Eschenbach nous paraît plus captivante, cet enregistrement plus spontané, révèle le chanteur dans un timbre que l’on n’a pas coutume de lui connaître. Autres versions: Liederkreis 1954 : Gerald Moore 1955 : Günther Weissenborn 1959 : Live à Salzburg avec Gerald Moore 1975 : Extraits d’un Live à Salzburg avec Sawallisch 1977 : Christoph Eschenbach 1986 : Alfred Brendel Kerner-Lieder 1954 : Hertha Klust 1957 : Günther Weissenborn 1959 : Gerald Moore : Live à Salzburg avec Gerald Moore 1975 : Wolfgang Sawallisch 1977 : Christoph Eschenbach Robert Schumann (1810-1856) : Kerner-Lieder Op. 35 (*), Liederkreis Op. 39. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baryton. Günther Weissenborn, Hertha Klust (*), piano

Ruth Ann Swenson

Mainstay Soprano Feels Snubbed by the Met

• Ruth Ann Swenson, a mainstay soprano at the Metropolitan Opera, will take the stage tomorrow to begin a run of Handel’s “Giulio Cesare” just six weeks after finishing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Ruth Ann Swenson as Cleopatra at the Met.

But her performances as a regal yet coquettish Cleopatra will be bittersweet, because the Met, for reasons unrelated to her illness, appears no longer to want her services after nearly two decades of regular performances.

Ms. Swenson, known for her creamy sound and superb technique, has no more engagements there beyond a string of “Traviata” performances next season. Further, the Met has given one of the “Giulio Cesare” performances to her understudy, Danielle de Niese, described on the Met Web site as “the young star of the recent celebrated Glyndebourne production.” The site makes no reference to Ms. Swenson’s merits. And next year four of her nine “Traviata” dates have been handed to another star, Renée Fleming.

“It’s hurtful,” Ms. Swenson said. “I’m a New Yorker. I’ve sung here for many, many years. I’ve had great success. I’ve never let them down.” She added: “It’s so stressful to get up onstage and realize that the top guy doesn’t like you, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing.”

More about this go to NY Times page

Siegfried No Met de NYC

Siegfried - R. Wagner

Friday, July 20, 2007, 6:00 pm 

CAST

Conductor: Valery Gergiev  Brünnhilde: Olga Sergeeva  Forest Bird: Anastasia Kalagina  Erda: Zlata Bulycheva  Siegfried: Leonid Zakhozhaev  Mime: Vasily Gorshkov  Wanderer: Alexei Tanovitsky  Alberich: Edem Umerov  Fafner: Mikhail Petrenko 

Siegfried

In this drama, the human element takes center stage as a young man struggles to find his identity and destiny in a world of deceitful gods, dragons, dwarves, and the scariest monster of all – love. Filled with fantastic yet thoroughly recognizable characters, Siegfried is a towering challenge for the performers, orchestra, and production team.

Kirov Ring Cycle 2007

Lincoln Center Festival and the Metropolitan Opera co-present Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, performed by the Kirov Opera under the baton of Valery Gergiev, acclaimed artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Uma tragédia em São Paulo ... mais uma no Brasil

Fotos tiradas da janela do quarto do Lucas ontem à noite.
Imaginem que moramos aproximadamente 7 a 8 km do Aeroporto de Congonhas e
podiamos ver toda fumaça e ainda dava até para sentir cheiro de queimado !!!
Que Deus console as famílias enlutadas e que tenha piedade do nosso pais, tão maltratado por autoridades irresponsáveis e ganasiosas que só pensam nos seus bolsos !

Morre o tenor Jerry Hadley

Jerry Hadley, Operatic Tenor, Is Dead at 55

Published: July 18, 2007

The American operatic tenor Jerry Hadley, noted for his bright lyric voice, lively acting and adventurous choice of repertory, died today in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He was 55.

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Jerry Hadley as Jay Gatsby and Dawn Upshaw as Daisy Buchanan in the Metropolitan Opera production of "The Great Gatsby" in 2002.

Related

Video Clips of Jerry Hadley in Performance

'Il lamento di Federico' from 'L'Arlesiana'

'It Must Be So' from 'Candide'

With Diana Soviero in 'La Traviata'

His death was announced by Celia P. Novo, a longtime family friend. He had been on life support at a Poughkeepsie hospital since July 10, when he shot himself in the head with an air rifle, causing severe brain damage, at a house in Clinton Corners, N.Y., near Poughkeepsie, where he lived with a female companion, the New York state police said.

Friends and colleagues said Mr. Hadley had suffered from severe depression and had had financial difficulties, troubled personal relationships and professional setbacks.

His death ends a career that in the 1980s seemed one of the most promising in American opera. Mr. Hadley made his professional debut in 1976 in a Lake George Opera production of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte.” Two years later he was heard by Beverly Sills, who was in line to take charge of the New York City Opera. She immediately offered him a contract, and he made his City Opera debut the next year.

ANIVERSÁRIO DA IBPP - 45 ANOS !!!

Pr. Marcos Petriaggi

Conjunto da Congregação

Congregação durante o culto

Pr. Marcelo Jorge

A turma depois do culto e da festa !

Nossa igreja completou hoje 45 anos de existência !
Tivemos um culto muito abençoado com a presença do Pr. Marcelo Jorge e o conjunto de sua igreja - Congregação da Igreja Batista do Morumbi.
Que Deus continue usando nossa igreja e que possamos como tal ser usados intensamente na evangelização, não somente do nosso bairro, mas de nossa cidade, de nosso estado , de nosso país, apressando assim a volta gloriosa de Nosso Senhor e Salvador Jesus Cristo !! Maranatha !

Abertura Pan Rio 2007

Festa inesquecível de luzes, sons e cores no Maracanã abre oficialmente os XV Jogos Pan-americanos RIO 2007 RIO DE JANEIRO, 13 de julho - Toda a energia do templo do futebol irradiou para as Américas nesta sexta-feira, dia 13, quando foram abertos oficialmente os XV Jogos Pan-Americanos RIO 2007. O Estádio do Maracanã foi palco de uma festa inesquecível, que encantou 75 mil pessoas.

A festa foi aberta com a música tema do RIO 2007, "Viva essa energia", interpretada pela cantora Ana Costa, dando início ao espetáculo de cores, luzes e sons, que encheu de emoção todos os que estavam no Maracanã.
Leia mais Pan 2007

Le Voyage Dans La Lune (Star Film, 1902)

The classic film by George Méliès, the famed French pioneer of film. If you haven't seen this one, see it - and if you have, see it again! A group of French scientists "travel" to the Moon and find a race of crazed savages...and it becomes a race back to Earth!

BALLET DE L‘OPÉRA

La Fille mal gardée - Frederick Ashton

Ballet en deux actes - D'après Jean Dauberval

ENTRÉE AU RÉPERTOIRE

Musique Louis Joseph Ferdinand Hérold
Arrangements de John Lanchbery
Chorégraphie Frederick Ashton (1960)
Décors et costumes Osbert Lancaster
Lumières George Thomson

Les Étoiles, les Premiers Danseurs et le Corps de Ballet

Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris
Direction musicale Barry Wordsworth

Palais Garnier
Première 22 juin 2007 19h30
Représentations 23, 25, 26, 28^*, 29 juin, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 (14h30) juillet 2007 19h30
^*Soirée réservée
Durée du spectacle 2h avec 1 entracte
Prix des places 80€, 60€, 38€, 20€, 10€, 7€, 6€
Ouverture des réservations individuelles
Internet 14 fév. 2007, Correspondance 14 fév. 2007, Téléphone (province) 23 avril 2007, Téléphone (île de france) 24 avril 2007, Guichets 21 mai 2007

• À lire avant le spectacle >>>
• Distribution >>>
• Présentation de la saison >>>

Opera de Paris

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)

Un bal masqué

Melodramma en trois actes (1859)
Livret d’Antonio Somma inspiré de Gustave III ou Le bal masqué d’Eugène Scribe
En langue italienne

Direction musicale Semyon Bychkov / Paul Weigold (13, 16 juin ; 4, 7, 10 et 13 juillet)
Mise en scène Gilbert Deflo
Décors et costumes William Orlandi
Lumières Joël Hourbeigt
Chef des Choeurs Peter Burian

Riccardo Giuseppe Gipali (7 juin) / Marcelo Alvarez (19, 22, 25 et 28 juin ; 1er et 10 juillet) /
Evan Bowers (4, 10, 13 et 16 juin ; 4, 7 et 13 juillet)
Renato Ludovic Tézier
Amelia Angela Brown / Aprile Millo (7 juillet)
Ulrica Elena Manistina
Oscar Camilla Tilling
Silvano Jean-Luc Ballestra
Sam Michail Schelomianski
Tom Scott Wilde

Orchestre et Choeurs de l’Opéra national de Paris

Opéra Bastille
Première 4 juin 2007 19h30
Représentations 7, 10 (14h30), 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28 juin, 1^er (14h30), 4, 7, 10, 13 juillet 2007 19h30
Durée du spectacle 2h45 avec 1 entracte
Prix des places 150€, 120€, 100€, 80€, 60€, 40€, 20€, 10€, 5€
Ouverture des réservations individuelles
Internet 14 fév. 2007, Correspondance 14 fév. 2007, Téléphone (province) 26 mars 2007, Téléphone (île de france) 27 mars 2007, Guichets 4 mai 2007

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• Présentation de la saison >>>

Gian Carlo Menotti

Changing Fortunes

BARRY SINGER assesses the legacy of Gian Carlo Menotti, whose Saint of Bleecker Street arrives this month at Central City Opera.

When Gian Carlo Menotti first surfaced, in 1937, as a twenty-five-year-old Italian-born prodigy from the shores of Lake Lugano in Lombardy, by way of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, the world of American opera was waiting for him — or for someone, anyone like him. The Depression had taken down a number of America's major companies, including the Chicago Opera, and had pummeled the Metropolitan Opera to the brink of bankruptcy. Accessibility was suddenly a paramount concern within these infamously elitist institutions — accessibility in the populist sense of new social equality for potential ticket-buyers, but also in the hardcore marketing sense. American opera companies needed new operas they could sell

To read more Opera News

Golden Standard

San Francisco's venerable Merola Program — training ground for stars from Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Patricia Racette and Deborah Voigt to Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón — is turning fifty. ALLAN ULRICH reports.

Merola artists in performance at the 2006 Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

Check the roster of any major American or international opera company and you will likely find the name of a Merola alumnus.

To know more Opera News

Jerry Hadley

Star tenor Jerry Hadley on life support after suicide attempt

POUGHKEEPSIE, New York: Tenor Jerry Hadley, whose voice was heard at top opera houses and graced Grammy and Emmy award-winning recordings, was on life support Wednesday after shooting himself, police said.

Hadley created the title role in composer John Harbison's "Great Gatsby" at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as the lead in Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio." And Leonard Bernstein had chosen Hadley to sing the main part in Bernstein's musical "Candide."

The 55-year-old singer, who has been struggling recently with his career and finances, was arrested last year in Manhattan on a charge of driving while intoxicated — at the wheel of his parked car. Prosecutors later dropped the case.

On Tuesday morning, he shot himself with an air rifle at his home near Poughkeepsie, said Robert Rochler, a senior investigator with the New York State Police.

State troopers found Hadley on the floor of his bedroom, unconscious from a self-inflicted head wound, Rochler said in a statement.

An ambulance took Hadley to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, where doctors determined that he had a severe brain injury and put him on life support.

Medical staff will evaluate his condition Thursday to determine if he is to remain on life support, according to the statement.

Hadley has been tackling "financial problems and was in the process of filing for bankruptcy. He has been very depressed and was under a doctor's care for the depression and being treated with several medications," the statement said.

A native of Manlius, Illinois, Hadley started his career in regional companies around the country, singing everything from Mozart to Broadway. His agile romantic tenor was noticed in the late 1970s by the late Beverly Sills, then general director of the New York City Opera, which hired him.

Hadley made his European debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1982 in Gaetano Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore," famed for its tenor aria with nine high C's.

He then performed at Milan's La Scala, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the San Francisco Opera, the San Diego Opera and the festivals in Glyndebourne, England, Aix-en-Provence, France and Salzburg, Austria.

In 1996, Hadley commissioned composer Daniel Steven Crafts to write music for poems by Carl Sandburg. The work, "The Song and The Slogan," was made into a PBS video that won an Emmy.

Hadley was featured in the 2004 Grammy-winning recording of Leos Janacek's opera "Jenufa."

He also excelled in more popular music, including a best-selling recording of "Show Boat.

Beverly Sills at the Met

Taking a curtain call after her Met debut in The Siege of Corinth.

“Sills and Burnett at the Met”—with Carol Burnett, March 1976.

With Sherrill Milnes in Massenet's Thaïs in January 1978.

Beverly Sills in her Metropolitan Opera debut as Pamira in Rossini's Siege of Corinth on April 7, 1975.

A light moment during rehearsal for The Siege of Corinth with bass Justino Díaz.

Photo: Gerald Fitzgerald

A rehearsal for The Siege of Corinth with director Sandro Sequi and bass Justino Díaz.

Photo: Gerald Fitzgerald

With her brothers at a Met party after her debut.

Photo: Paul Seligman

Kirov Ring Cycle 2007

Lincoln Center Festival and the Metropolitan Opera co-present Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, performed by the Kirov Opera under the baton of Valery Gergiev, acclaimed artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

Kirov Ring Cycle 1

• Das Rheingold - Friday, July 13, 2007. 8:00PM
• Die Walküre - Saturday, July 14, 2007. 6:00PM
• Siegfried - Friday, July 20, 2007. 6:00PM
• Götterdämmerung - Saturday, July 21, 2007. 6:00PM

Kirov Ring Cycle 2

• Das Rheingold - Monday, July 16, 2007. 8:00PM
• Die Walküre - Tuesday, July 17, 2007. 6:00PM
• Siegfried - Wednesday, July 18, 2007. 6:00PM
• Götterdämmerung - Thursday, July 19, 2007. 6:00PM

‘Ring’ Pilgrims: On the Horns of a Devotion

Arve Dinda/Bayreuther Festspiele, via EPA

Richard Wagner’s “Ring” cycle (a scene during the 2004 Bayreuth Festival) exerts a strong influence over its fans’ choice of headgear.

By CHARLES McGRATH

Published: July 8, 2007

A CERTAIN class of operagoers, sometimes known as Ringnuts or Wagnolaters, is to classical music what Deadheads or Phish followers are to rock — except that they’re more apt to stay in four-star hotels and sip white wine than to sleep in their vans and pass the bong.

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Wagner Society

Metropolitan Opera orchestra members brandished their Wagner tubas in 1993.

They obsess about Wagner’s “Ring” cycle and will travel anywhere to see a production, but especially to Bayreuth, in Germany, home of the theater Wagner designed for himself. You see them every five or six years in New York, Seattle, Chicago, Berlin. They can quote extensively from the operas — not just “Ho-jo-to-ho!” but whole chunks of actual German — and will debate for hours the virtues of, say, Patrice Chéreau’s 1976 centennial production, controversially set at a hydroelectric power dam and featuring gods in business suits, as compared with Georg Solti’s 1983 version, which had the standard spears and Viking helmets.

Ringnuts have been known to wear plastic versions of those helmets while standing in line outside the opera house. Mary Brazeau, the executive assistant to the director of the Seattle Opera, also recalls a fan, a borax miner from Death Valley, who used to attend the Seattle “Ring” productions while for some reason wearing two suits at the same time. But true Wagnolaters are more easily identified by a certain dreaminess of expression, a result of musical transport.

The record holder is probably Sherwin Sloan, a retired ophthalmologist from Los Angeles, who has attended 82 “Rings” so far and has tickets to Bayreuth in August. Recalling his first “Ring,” at Seattle in 1975, he said recently: “I went by myself, and I came back just mesmerized. After two or three days my kids came up to me and said: ‘Dad, there’s something wrong. You’ve been a zombie.’ ”

Starting next weekend, “Ring” lovers from all over will be flocking to the Lincoln Center Festival, where the Kirov Opera is landing with a production that has been on the road, on and off, for four years. There were earlier stops in Tokyo; Seoul, South Korea; Baden-Baden, Germany; Southern California; and Wales, and the show will eventually move on to Beijing. Along the way the production has gathered mixed reviews, though not as mixed as Mark Twain’s verdict after hearing the “Ring” at Bayreuth in 1876, when he famously said that Wagner’s music “isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

Depending on which critic you believe, or perhaps on which performance you happened to attend, the Kirov “Ring,” under the conductor and impresario Valery Gergiev and featuring an enormous, assembly-line cast, is either ragged or sublime. Either the Russians have no feel for Wagner or else they bring to him a dramatic and passionate intensity. George Tsypin’s sets are sculptural and postmodern, or they put you in mind of Al Capp’s shmoos.

All the same, a complete “Ring” doesn’t get put on every day. The Lincoln Center Festival is presenting the Kirov production twice, over two consecutive weekends (Friday and Saturday, and July 20 and 21) and also, as Wagner preferred, on four consecutive evenings (July 16, 17, 18 and 19), and, as always whenever a “Ring” takes place, the clan will gather.

After being thwarted in two previous attempts to see the Kirov production, Philip Chevron, the lead guitarist of the Irish punk band the Pogues, is flying from Dublin. (Mr. Chevron is a little unusual among Wagner fans in that he has no use for CDs or DVDs. “Nothing on earth would persuade me to listen to a recording of ‘Siegfried’ or ‘Die Walküre,’ even a purportedly classic recording,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “Wagner is theater music and needs to be experienced in the theater as it was intended.”)

Dan Mozes, a retired executive, is coming from Israel, where Wagner’s music is unofficially banned. “To me this is most ridiculous,” he said in a telephone interview. “Why do we ban Wagner and perform the essence of fascist music, which is the ‘Carmina Burana,’ by Carl Orff? And the fact that Wagner was anti-Semitic is not sufficient. The Nazis also liked Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven. There’s no end to it.”

Yoichi Okuda, an information technologies executive and confessed “ ‘Ring’ maniac” from Tokyo, saw the Kirov “Ring” in California last year. He’s going to see it again in New York, he said by e-mail, because the tickets are much cheaper than in Tokyo. He added that he loved the Kirov orchestra and cast but didn’t understand all the production details, especially the decision to outfit the Valkyries in “caps like Indians.”

Still other fans are coming from Sweden, Bavaria, the Netherlands and Colombia, and there is a huge medical contingent, including, along with Dr. Sloan, Steinn Jonsson, a professor of medicine in Reykjavik, Iceland, and Ruy Lourenço, the former dean of the New Jersey Medical School. But Alex Kagan, a psychiatrist in Tallahassee, Fla., who once wrote a scholarly paper relating “Das Rheingold” to theories of neurotic character structure, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions about the Wagner-medico connection. “I think it’s probably just that physicians are the only ones who can afford the tickets,” he said.

AS SETE MARAVILHAS DO MUNDO

A Grande Muralha da China, o Taj Mahal, na Índia, o Cristo Redentor, no Brasil, Petra, na Jordânia, a estátua de Cristo Redentor, no Brasil, a cidade inca Machu Picchu, no Peru, a pirâmide de Chichén Itzá, no México, o coliseu de Roma, o único monumento europeu a ser eleito, são as novas Sete Maravilhas do Mundo.

Foi com grande pompa e circustância que foram reveladas esta noite no Estádio da Luz as novas Sete Maravilhas do Mundo, eleitas por 100 milhões de pessoas.

As novas sete Maravilhas da Natureza será o próximo concurso a ser levado a cabo pela mesma organização que trouxe a Gala 7 Maravilhas a Portugal, anunciou esta noite Bernard Webber, o presidente da New 7 Wonders Foundation.

Com as bancadas iluminadas com pequenas luzes que foram distribuídas ao público pela organização, a parte da Gala dedicada às novas 7 Maravilhas do Mundo começou às 21 e 30 horas em ponto.

O palco foi tomado por ginastas acrobáticos, bailarinos e meninas em patins, que traziam com elas as bandeiras dos 21 países com monumentos candidatos e a bandeira portuguesa, por ser o país que recebe o evento.

Minutos depois foi a vez de os apresentadores da parte internacional da Gala 7 Maravilhas, os actores Hilary Swank, Ben Kingsley e a também modelo Bipasha Basu entrarem em palco, pela escadaria em forma de sete.

Seguiu-se depois o «Momento de Conhecer Portugal», em que foi projectado um vídeo sobre o nosso país. Sem pausas, foi a vez de mais um momento musical da noite. A cantora portuguesa Dulce Pontes e o cantor lírico catalão apresentarem o Hino das novas 7 Maravilhas, em português, inglês e castelhano.

Seguiu-se um momento que misturou passado e presente. Num espectáculo conjunto foram recordadas as actuais 7 Maravilhas e as 21 candidatas a novas. De salientar que das antigas, apenas as Pirâmides de Gizé (Egipto) estão na corrida.

Para representar o passado foi escolhido um livro gigante, música clássica e bailarinos suspensos no ar. O presente esteve em palco na forma de um computador portátil gigante e através de um grupo de bailarinos de hip-hop.

Ben Kingsley regressou então ao palco, acompanhado de Bipasha Basu, para juntos apresentarem os 21 candidatos a novas 7 Maravilhas.

O público presente no Estádio da Luz manifestou-se à medida que as candidatas iam surgindo nos écrãs. Entre os preferidos estavam Machu Picchu (Perú), Stone Hedge (Grã-Bretanha) e o Taj Mahal (Índia), os três bastante aplaudidos.

Já a Estátua da Liberdade (Estados Unidos da América) não teve a mesma sorte. A reacção dos presentes - a candidata foi muito assobiada - já fazia antever que o monumento norte-americano não iria estar na lista das novas 7 Maravilhas.

Antes de serem reveladas as 7 novas Maravilhas houve espaço para muita música. Pelo palco do Estádio da Luz passaram, o tenor Jose Carreras, que interpretou «Mattinata», o bailarino Joaquín Cortés, que, ao contrário, do que seria esperado não dançou (o espanhol veio a Portugal mostrar a sua faceta de percussionista), Alessandro Safina, e a estrela mais aguardada da noite, Jennifer Lopez.

Chegou então o momento mais esperado da noite, a revelação das novas Sete Maravilhas do Mundo. Pelo palco passaram vários apresentadores. Entre eles, o internacional português Cristiano Ronaldo, o astronauta, e primeiro homem a pisar a lusa, Neil Armstong.

Representantes de cada um dos países com uma Maravilha recebeu um documento que certifica a escolha do monumento. A Gala terminou ao som de «What a Wonderful World», cantado por Chaka Khan, acompanhada em palco por 77 crianças de sete anos do Coro Infantil de Óbidos.

Em palco estiveram também os milhares de figurantes que ajudaram a fazer desta noite um momento inesquecível.

Morre a soprano francesa Régine Crespin aos 80 anos

Crespin como Sieglind na Ópera de Wagner Die Walküre

A soprano francesa Régine Crespin morreu nesta quinta-feira aos 80 anos em um hospital de Paris, informou sua gravadora, EMI. Nascida no dia 23 de fevereiro de 1927, Régine Crespin foi uma das grandes vozes da ópera francesa. Sua veia dramática ficou evidente nas interpretações de Wagner.

Ela interpretou Kundry, na ópera Parsifal, e Brunilda, nas Valquírias em grandes festivais, entre eles o de Bayreuth (Alemanha) e o de Salzburgo (Áustria).

A soprano era professora desde 1980 no Conservatório de Paris. Sua talentosa dicção foi expressada plenamente no repertório de obras francesas, destacando-se especialmente sua interpretação de Didon, no Troianos de Berlioz, ou de Margarita, no Fausto de Gounod.

_______________________________________________________________

Régine Crespin, a dramatic soprano who became one of the most acclaimed singers France produced in the 20th century, died today in a Paris hospital at age 80. Her longtime record label, EMI, revealed the news; her personal secretary, Mireille Gaucher, told The New York Times that the cause of death was liver cancer.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to the late singer today: "Through her voice and her talent but also through her humor and her generosity, Régine Crespin was a great ambassador for French culture. She leaves us today but we will always remember her enduring performances."

Born in 1927 in Marseilles, Crespin grew up in Nîmes and had planned to be a pharmacist, according to France 2. She won a vocal contest in her mid-teens and went on to study at the Conservatoire de Paris, where she took three prizes.

She made her professional debut 1948 as Charlotte in Massenet's Werther. By 1950 she was singing Wagner: she took the role of Elsa in Lohengrin in the city of Mulhouse. In 1951 she made her Paris debut at the Opéra-Comique; the following year she appeared at the Paris Opéra for the first time; her roles were Marguérite in Gounod's Faust and Tosca. Soon after, she sang her first Marschallin in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, a role that would become one of her most celebrated, and in which she made her Vienna State Opera and Glyndebourne debuts in 1959.

This variety points up a key aspect of Crespin's career: she regularly performed in the German and Italian standard repertoire alongside her work in French opera. (She was renowned for her acting skills, and her diction, in all three languages.) In her memoirs she observed proudly that she sang German roles in Bayreuth and Vienna and Italian roles at La Scala, while (for instance) Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Renata Tebaldi never sang in French at the Paris Opéra.

Other Italian parts for which Crespin was known, in addition to Tosca, were Desdemona in Verdi's Otello and Amelia in the same composer's Un ballo in maschera. Other prominent Wagner roles she sang included Kundry in Parsifal (with which she made her Bayreuth debut in 1958) and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser. In the French repertoire she was noted, in addition to Charlotte and Marguérite, for Cassandre and Didon in Berlioz's Les Troyens.

One opera with which she is indelibly associated is Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. She sang the role of the New Prioress in the French premiere of the work in 1957; 30 years later, she played the Old Prioress — in English — in the Metropolitan Opera's televised production which also starred Maria Ewing, Florence Quivar and Jessye Norman.

During the 1970s Crespin gradually gave up the soprano repertoire and moved into mezzo roles; she sang her first Carmen in Miami in 1972.

In 1989 she undertook an international farewell tour and gave her final stage performance at the Palais Garnier.

Among Crespin's important recordings are the Marschallin in Rosenkavalier (with Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic), Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été and Ravel's Shéhérazade (with Ernst Ansermet and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande), and two different roles in Wagner's Die Walküre: Sieglinde (with Solti and the Vienna) and Brünnhilde (with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic).

In later life she was a widely respected teacher: She was on the faculty of the Paris Conservatoire from 1976 to 1992 and gave master classes across the world. She was named a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and a special hybrid rose was created in her honor in 1990.

Beverly Sills, a "rainha da ópera americana", morre aos 78 anos

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Beverly Sills, a soprano mundialmente renomada que se tornou a cantora de ópera mais popular dos Estados Unidos em tempos modernos, morreu em Nova York na noite de segunda-feira de um câncer do pulmão inoperável, disse seu empresário.

Sills, que tinha 78 anos, morreu em sua casa em Nova York, depois de receber alta na sexta-feira de um hospital onde foi tratada por ter quebrado uma costela, disse à Reuters seu empresário Edgar Vincent.

A cantora recebeu o diagnóstico do câncer em maio, mas a notícia só veio a público no final de junho.

Beverly Sills destacou-se entre outras sopranos e se tornou a maior diva da ópera americana nos anos 1960 e 1970. Ela ampliou sua carreira para além do canto, tendo dirigido duas grandes companhias de ópera, a Metropolitan Opera e a New York City Opera.

A cantora premiada gravou 18 óperas integrais e vários álbuns solo, tendo aparecido em especiais de televisão e apresentado seus programas próprios nos Estados Unidos.

Amada tanto pelos conhecedores de ópera quanto pelo público comum do gênero, em sua infância Sills foi apelidada de "Bubbles" (bolhas) por sua efervescência e seus cabelos ruivos. Mais tarde, sua voz de soprano talentosa intensificou sua personalidade esfuziante.

Ela nasceu em 1929 em Brooklyn, Nova York, tendo recebido o nome de Belle Miriam Silverman, e apresentou-se pela primeira vez em 1933 num programa de rádio em Nova York. Três anos mais tarde, mudou seu nome para Beverly Sills e continuou a se apresentar. Em 1939 ela já era participante regular no programa "Major Bowes' Capitol Family Hour", da mesma rádio.

Ela estreou cantando para a New York City Opera em 1955, na opereta cômica "Die Fledermaus", de Johann Strauss, e recebeu seu primeiro reconhecimento amplo fazendo o papel de Cleópatra na versão criada pela mesma companhia da ópera "Giulio Cesare", de George Frideric Handel.

A performance que a consagrou aconteceu durante o fim de semana de estréia de um novo teatro de ópera do Metropolitan, numa noite em que o "Met" ficou às escuras.

Os muitos jornalistas presentes à abertura foram em vez disso assistir à performance de Sills, e as críticas foram altamente elogiosas.

Argentina Autumn

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