1,315 posts
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Post by tmesis on Apr 14, 2019 6:45:17 GMT
This is on BBC 4 9.00pm tonight.
She is one of the truly great British singers who I was fortunate to see several times in both opera and concert.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2019 16:16:18 GMT
Well worth a look, Dame Janet has been retired around 30 years and doesn't give a lot of interviews now.
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587 posts
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Post by Polly1 on Apr 16, 2019 20:00:56 GMT
I thought this was marvellous. A voice like no other and such humanity. The scenes at the end with her now-disabled husband (and his burly Scottish carer) listening to Mahler were almost unbearably moving.
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1,315 posts
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Post by tmesis on Apr 16, 2019 20:57:56 GMT
Yes it was an excellent programme and certainly did her justice. I too was pleased they included the last Mahler Ruckert Lieder, which, if I had to pick my favourite 5 minutes of JB would be it. I was also struck by how crystal clear her diction was - in the fabulously tense scenes from Maria Stuarda every word was clear as it was when I saw it live at The Coliseum. Of course we now have surtitles at ENO, and very necessary they are too, but they shouldn't be if singers enunciated properly like Dame Janet (and others of her generation did.)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2019 21:21:07 GMT
A very good programme and wonderful to see a couple still devoted to each other after over 60 years together. Really liked how she just decided to finish without any fuss and went out on entirely her own terms. She admitted she might have finished a bit early but it was better to go out on top than go on too long and she was just tired of the schedule.
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586 posts
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Post by AddisonMizner on Apr 20, 2019 21:58:39 GMT
A beautiful programme. As others have said, unbelievably moving in parts. I had tears during the part she and her husband were listening to the Mahler, but that was one of many such moments - when she spoke about breaking down when singing in a Dream of Gerontious memorial concert for Sir John Barbirolli, and when she spoke of her final concert, when she didn’t even tell her pianist that she was retiring, I was welling up.
I am not old enough to have heard her perform live, but follow opera very closely, so have clearly listened to her recordings etc, plus other interviews she has given in the past, particularly when with Joyce DiDonato.
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