I just saw Angela Gheorghiu perform La Rondine at San Francisco Opera and came to several conclusions.

1) Puccini was and will ever be the greatest opera composer who ever lived. If you disagree, you either haven't heard Puccini performed well or you have no heart or soul.

2) Just because an opera singer is famous these days, doesn't mean they have to be bad. I was very skeptical of Gheroghiu because of her media hype and the fact that she is married to Alagna (thus got fame through him), but she is the only case in recent years where the hype is really deserved. I was also concerned because everyone always describes her voice as "dark" which usually means ugly. Her voice wasn't dark, it had that same velvety warmth that Anna Moffo's had (although Moffo's still wins the award).

Her sotto voce in her amazingly difficult aria was fantastic, and was the only modern production I've heard that has produced the sounds that Puccini wanted. (Since he was a 20th century composer, we do have the luxury of listening to recordings of the singers he chose, and yet opera casting directors everywhere seem to continue to ignore that fact and cast vibrato-heavy, ugly, old women as mimi, butterfly and doretta).

3) San Francisco Opera choses the WORST singers in the professional world to coddle and develop. Gheorghiu was amazing but her little chirpy maid set a new standard for chirpy annoying soubrettes. If that girl had played Susanna I would have walked out of Figaro. Yet, here she is, playing a compremario to Gheorghiu, but with a long resume of real roles at SF Opera, where the key voice type was not ugly, nasal, and chirpy with mechanical vebrato. I shall never see any performance at SF opera starring their singers as the main leads, it would be a worse investment than eTrade stock.

4) Where have all the tenors gone? There must not be any who can sing the right notes, because the lead tenor playing opposite Ms. Gheorghiu couldn't even sing on key.

5) Standing ovations mean nothing. I've waited through countless ovations for undeserving performances, grimacing as they bow and bow, remembering the wasted last 4 hours of my life. Including the horrible tenor and the chirpy maid, this was by far the best performance I have ever seen at SF opera, and yet, no one stood! I've never seen a more deserving performance in the US, and it was a crime that the audience didn't stand. Where do they think they are, Milan?

Forgive the absence, I have been outside of the space time continuum, ie living in India, where classical music was not on the top of my mind. For harrowing tales from a plane crashing on the runway to 3 foot squirrels to holding up inside during riots after the bombings of the mosque in Hyderabad, visit my other blog at HyderabadAdventures.blogspot.com. But, now that I’m back, and slowly integrating into American life, I am more motivated than ever to share my opinions on the state of the music world today, as well as how you can escape the problems with fantastic recordings and videos from the shining days of opera performance in the 50’s and 60’s.

I went to see Samson and Delilah at San Francisco Opera about a month ago. It was my first real re-introduction to the American classical music scene. I was, as always, overwhelmed by the number of people who were there for one purpose and one purpose alone – see and be seen. I was also overwhelmed by the percent of really old people to everyone else – what is going to happen in 20 years when all those 70 year olds are dead? Will there be a group of opera-loving baby boomers to take their places, or will the opera houses be filled with an entirely new group of younger fans, or will all the live opera houses be closed in favor of watching videos of amateurs singing along with Pavarotti on YouTube.

I don’t know what the future holds, and I’m ambivalent about where I hope it will go. Given the poor caliber of most famous opera singers these days – the Samson was truly horrible, although Delilah was a better mezzo than I expected, since she only slipped into uncontrollable vibrato on the high notes, rather than throughout all of her range – I think that the democratization of information and performance that YouTube provides may actually push the opera industry to find good singers again.

Then again, since they seem completely un-self-aware, they may just tank and continue to publicly lament “popular culture’s influence on the downfall of opera” when the clear cause of its waning popularity to anyone who’s had a chance to hear the great singers of the 50’s and 60’s is the horrible sounding singers who fill the leading roles at today’s most famous opera houses.

Back to Samson and Delilah – I have to give them props for the production value – great costumes, a fantastic middle-eastern inspired ballet in the last act, and an attempt to reach the masses by projecting one evening’s production to the jumbo-tron at AT&T Park. Alas, I was not informed of the free option with hot dogs and spent the $70 to sit on the nose-bleeds of the opera house, contemplating what would happen if the “Big One” began shaking that very moment.

The lush orchestration and Saint-Saens famous aria made it worth the trip, although the performers themselves didn’t do their part. The tenor was quivery and shamefully off- key, Delilah (Olga Borodina) was ok but not inspiring and lost control on the high notes, and neither lived up to their international reputations.

If you want to hear what “Mon Coeur S’Ouvre a Ta Voix” should sound like, dig through the discount bin at Amoeba records to find Rise Stephens, who is not only has rich and beautiful timbre and complete control with passion, but is also beautiful and not 250 pounds. Yes folks, it is possible to be a famous opera singer and not be fat and ugly, but alas, the casting directors at the major houses seem to think that fat and ugly are more classic than hiring a great singer who also happens to look remotely like their character.