Meanwhile, back to reality...   on the actual opera stage, in a theatre, where they do operas...  you could put Bride Of Frankenstein into the lead soprano role,  and if Make-Up have done a proper job, no-one will notice.  Even the front seats of the Stalls don't allow you to come much closer than about 30-40m,  and even that's assuming the diva comes down to the footlights for her big number, in the "stand-and-deliver" style of yesteryear's productions.  (There's now a noticeable prjeudice against using the extreme downstage for much in modern productions - except as an ironic use).   So this stuff about the niceties of facial beauty is really neither here nor there (except for photoshots of product endorsements in in-flight magazines, but that is external to what goes on in opera houses).

What is of colossal importance, however, is deportment and acting skills.  You must be able to "move" as your character would move.  This isn't about god-given natural luck, it's sheer bloody hard graft and you learn it as part of the Stanislavskian approach to theatre. Stanislavsky talks about "going limp" before beginning a role - removing everything of you, so that you can fill your body and mind with them.  Some performers are better than others at this, but ultimately it is something you can study and learn IF you wish to and can put aside your own pride and "stamps", and are willing to take the time to do so.  GITIS is the main college in Moscow that teaches "pure" Stanislavsky (it's the one he founded himself) and a course will take five years to learn the basic techniques.  You can learn to sing in parallel with that, of course.

All personal appearance questions aside, Netrebko is a super stage actress. Despite her "diva" image, she takes direction well, and seeks to fulfil the role as the Director envisages it.  I've seen her as Natasha Rostova in WAR & PEACE (a role which is completely unsuitable for her vocally, of course) and she credibly acted a ditzy 19-year-old,  cavorting and skipping around Prince Andrei (who is supposed to be 36, as he tells us in his opening aria).

However, in Russia at least, this isn't a "remarkable" talent, because you are made to learn it when you study.  If you want to see "remarkable", then take a look at Tatiana Kuinji in the title role of Rodion Schedrin's opera LOLITA.  She skips, dances, appears topless, and turns cartwheels,  whilst singing the most impenetrably atonal music imaginable for 3.5 hours, and credibly appears to be 14.  In fact she's my side of 40.  (She's also a PhD, btw).  I'm not saying that vocal skills aren't important - quite the reverse, top-level vocal ability is taken for granted as a bare minimum.

I'd continue to claim that a considerable part of the "Netrebko phenomenon" is down to the punishing hard graft of study in Russia, for which 3 years Music College in Britain can never be a substitute.  Five years is the minimum in Russia, and most people then do postgraduate study that brings the total to 7-8 years... during which you've not only done voice studies, but gymnastics, dance, stage fighting including firearms and fencing, straight dramatic acting, "body plastic", yoga, and a batch of other essential skills.  I am no detractor of Netrebko at all - she is excellent.   And there are lots more like her.  Watch out especially for...  Anna Nechaeva,  Marina Karpechenko, Anna Grechishkina, Marina Kalinina, Irina Zenkovich, Svetlana Sozdateleva....  and those are only the sopranos

All very good points, Reiner.

While I don't dispute that the systems in place in Russia are far superior in terms of 'holistic training' to those in the UK, the majority of young British singers emerging onto the scene as soloists will have done perhaps six years' study: for example, an undergraduate degree (3 yrs), postgraduate diploma (1 yr), specialist opera course (2 yrs) and in some cases a year after that at the National Opera Studio or two years on the Young Artists' Programme with a major performing company.

OK, there are those who "make it" after little more than a bachelor's degree worth of training, and there are also those who take their bachelor's degree in a different discipline while studying singing privately and then begin formal vocal training at the postgraduate stage (this was MY original intention, then I decided I didn't have an ambition to be a professional singer after all!)

Svetlana Sozdateleva - that rings a bell.  Is she the Lady Macbeth I'll be hearing in a few weeks' time?

If you mean the GTO production, then yes.  It's not really her Fach and her reviews have been mixed so far.  She is stronger in the heavier roles - Ekaterina Izmailova for example, and she got super crits in the Richard Jones production of FIERY ANGEL in Brussels. Having droned on about the Russian training system, she's the exception to it - appeared out of the Second Violins


What night are you going to MACBETH?

See ya there, then!!   

Now that you've mentioned Christine Rice, I'm wondering whether the EIF concert programme was the same as (or similar to) the one they did last year as a Proms Chamber Music concert.  I'll dig out the programme of the latter when I get home...

Yes, but who remembers Peter Hoffmann now?
He WAS good-looking, but that was all....I remember when he appeared in a Covent Garden performance of PARSIFAL, back in 1979, I think it was....there was an audible gasp from all the women in the audience when he appeared on the stage!!! (I understand he was attractive to gay men, too).

Now.....some you of may already know that I am 'not at all obsessed' withTHOMAS HAMPSON!!! (drool.....) Yes. he's drop-dead gorgeous - and doesn't he just know it!!! But what difference would that make if he weren't a gifted musician and a highly intelligent man? If it was just looks, we'd all have got bored with him years ago!!
And I will be attending a Wigmore Hall recital by THOMAS HAMPSON next month!!

Hi Ruth - should have said hello before, I did spot your name on several mailings!

I think you might have it there, IRF.  I usually can't get anywhere near the front row in places like the ROH* but I've had orchestra stalls seats in quite a few other places.  Dimensions vary, but 30 metres from the front of the stalls to the front of the stage is not something I've ever experienced.  30 feet is more like it, or maybe 30 metres from the front row to the back of a very deep stage.

*Actually I have been in the front stalls once, a very long time ago, and I wouldn't want to estimate the distances on the basis of such a distant memory.  It was when they used to sell standby tickets at incredibly low prices to various groups of people, including the unwaged.  It was quite a strange system of reverse-privilege as each person could only buy one ticket on production of ID (UB40, student card, pension book etc); so in theory I could afford to go but my girlfriend, who was in a modestly-paid job, couldn't afford to sit next to me (not that she'd have wanted to go to the opera but it's the principle that counts).