From Berlin to Vienna, I am getting sick: Neil Shicoff Gala 2015-05-03

Traveling by train to Vienna via Munich. The quiet coupe is not that quiet, but better than the Budapest train. 11 hrs by train, I think. Theoretically I was in Vienna in time to Don Pasquale, but now I have seen it on www.staatsoperlive.com and I am fine with resting in my hotel room. I am not fine with the room Ibis Mariahilf tried to give me, it was almost 18 o'clock but wet towels and an unmade bed, no, that is not ok. But I got a decent room that was cleaned quickly enough. It was not the best start in Vienna. Then came May and shopping in Mariahilferstrasse and so I did not buy much but I got this nasty Cold.    Ok. It was probably Eugen Onegin first that I missed and then Don Pasquale. Then it was Neil Shicoff gala something that the tenor himself had proposed to the opera director. My reason was Agnes Baltsa as Carmen even it is just the last act. Elena Maxinova, never heard of her, sang instead. So I was both disappointed and rather ill. How I longed to be in Berlin for another Don Carlo (also on May 3rd)!

2015-05-03 Neil Shicoff Gala, Wiener Staatsoper

NEIL SHICOFF - 40 JAHRE BÜHNE

Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Jacques Offenbach) – Prolog 

Hoffmann: Neil Shicoff 

Lindorf: Paolo Rumetz 

Nicklausse: Stephanie Houtzeel 

Andres: Thomas Ebenstein 

Luther: Marcus Pelz 

Hermann: Clemens Unterreiner 

Nathanael: Carlos Osuna 

Pique Dame (Peter I. Tschaikowski) – 2. Akt, 2. Szene 

Hermann: Neil Shicoff 

Lisa: Krassimira Stoyanova 

Gräfin: Anja Silja 

Mascha: Hyuna Ko 

La Juive (Jacques Fromental Halévy) – 4. Akt 

Eléazar: Neil Shicoff 

Kardinal Brogni: Ferruccio Furlanetto 

Rachel: Krassimira Stoyanova 

Eudoxie: Simina Ivan 

Carmen (Georges Bizet) – 4. Akt 

Carmen: Elena Maximova

Don José: Neil Shicoff 

Escamillo: Clemens Unterreiner 

Frasquita: Simina Ivan 

Mercédès: Juliette Mars 

Frédéric Chaslin, conductor

What a disappointment, coming to Neil Shicoff 's Gala and no Agnes Baltsa as Carmen to his Don Jose. From the greatest Don Carlo of Rolando Villazon et co. in Berlin. Had I known that Baltsa would not sing I would have seen Don Carlo for the 2nd time on this day instead I got the cold in Vienna and Neil Shicoff. 

Having just seen Les Contes d'Hoffmann with Rolando Villazon in a great production seeing the prolog was nothing much. Shicoff can act and sing, but he is not my guy.

Pique Dame - Shicoff was great as Hermann. Anja Silja was not that audible. Krassimira Stoyanova was having an Off day, or maybe it was just that I was OFF.

Interval

La Juive - not the whole end but we got the Aria from Eleazar. Simina Ivan and Krassimira Stoyanova could have been the Duet of the Ages but they had aged since I saw them in the of Eudoxie and Rachel. Ferruccio Furlanetto as Brogni, he only gets better with age but then he is a bass.

CARMEN - the end

Elena Maximova is the new CARMEN on the block. Neil Shicoff acts but he is no Carreras, Domingo, Cura & Alvarez. Clemens Unterreiner was Escamillo and a good, solid one.

Frederic Chaslin conducted it all.

Then  when we thought it was over we got 45 minutes or so with speaches. Shicoff ended it with his I am so nervous, the most nervous if them all. The audience gives us the energy not the other way around. And thank god for my wife, Dawn Kotoski.

And I am still not cured. Kleenex forever!!!

The Day After going home worrying about having enough Kleenex and to endure the 3 plane trips back home. Survival modus needed...