I haven't blogged on Anna Netrebko because I haven't wanted to enter the controversy--quite passionate, over at Opera-L--that has swirled around her. Opera fanatics being known for their extreme positions, you can well imagine that she has excited ardent devotion and animosity in equal measure. Is she a good singer? Is she a good actress? It seems to depend on whom you ask. She is either the reincarnation of Geraldine Farrar or the worst thing to hit opera since Andrea Bocelli.
Still, I can't deny the immeasurable thrill of seeing her in the audience at last night's Iphigenie--at one point she ran past me with a female companion and I was momentarily stunned. My feeling about her, as one who has seen her recently as well as way back when the Kirov came to New York to present Betrothal in a Monastery, is that in the right role she is about as good as it gets--she can sing beautifully when the part fits her, she is a game actress, and, yes, she is a ravishingly gorgeous woman. (As an example, check out her Susanna in the Salzburg Nozze di Figaro now on DVD.) She is bringing glamor back to opera, and that is only a good thing, and beyond that I will hold my peace.
