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Ruth Ann Swenson at Berkeley Opera March 29 while Anna Nicole Smith is weapon of mass distraction
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The Berkeley Opera will celebrate it’s 30th annivesary by featuring Ruth Ann Swenson on March 29. Ruth Ann is the beloved soprano who appeared many years ago in the Oscar winning documentary about San Francisco Opera's choristers, In the Shadow of the Stars. Ruth Ann as Countess Almalviva in Mozart's light hearted Marriage of Figaro, right. She's 49, my age.
In the film Ruth Ann's real life hubby was a chorister at SFO. You can see why decades later Ruth Ann as Countess Almaviva has motivation to support young love in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Ruth Ann's own hubby gave up his career as it was to support Ruth Ann’s stardom. So we all have a lot to be thankful for. Taking another route out of the shadows, Siggy Seigel, a chorister who stayed with SFO since then and also featured in the film, serves on the board of the Berkeley Opera. So I imagine Siggy and Ruth Ann go way back.
Moreover SFO would honor Ruth Ann with the San Francisco Opera medal in the summer of 2008. Although I remember her from 2006 as Countess Almaviva in the lighthearted Marriage of Figaro, the romantic comedy by Mozart. 
She seemed beautiful and gracious inside and out, she had a warm hearted demeanor as she helped the young lovers marry.
Here Countess Almaviva hides a conspirator of love in her boudoir as her hubby Count Almaviva enters. Looking elegant and sophisticated, she took on an almost Lucille Ballesque sense of zaniness as she tried to be composed yet distracting, keeping her hubby from discovering who is hiding. She’s the young lovers’ weapon of mass distraction.
The Marriage of Figaro came up recently as an opera that took on the times. It was in relation to the breaking news that a bastion of culture, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, will be putting on an opera about Anna Nicole Smith. The writer Higgens said:
Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro (1786) Figaro, a servant, outwits his master. Napoleon called the original Beaumarchais play "the revolution in action".
At the same time, taking on new work adds life to opera, gives it credibility for having originality and being on the cutting edge, a leader.
So, the English writer goes on to quote Elaine Padmore of the Royal Opera. Padmore says about Anna Nicole, it is not just a documentary about her, but a parable about celebrity and what it does to people. It can be moving, it can be funny and it tells universal truths about human frailty. It is a very sad story - a larger-than-life American story, as was Puccini's Girl of the Golden West. It will be a slice of our times - of America in the pre-Obama days.
On that note here’s how SFO describes Puccini's Girl of the Golden West, which comes to the stage June of 2010: A crafty criminal. A suspicious sheriff. A frontier woman with a tender heart who knows how to shoot a gun. If they sound like characters from a classic Western, they are—except their gunfights and poker games are set to a brilliant, blazing score. A love triangle set during the California Gold Rush . . .
• Minnie: Deborah Voigt
• Dick Johnson a.k.a. Ramerrez: Salvatore Licitra*
• Sheriff Jack Rance: Roberto Frontali
• Nick: Steven Cole
• Ashby: Kevin Langan
And a sweeping tale it is even if you just listen to the romantic strings alone . . . but here's a video of Sherril Milnes as Minnie fielding Sherriff Rance's advances.
Sherriff Rance offers Minni the barmaid a thousand dollars for a kiss right now: I set out lured on only by the spell of gold. It’s the one thing that never deceived me. Now for a kiss from you, I would spend a fortune.
Love is something different, Minnie answers.
Romantic rubbish! the sherriff says.
Speaking of authoritarians and the heartless pursuit of gold, did I mention Wotan and Die Walkure of the Ring Cycle also hit the stage at SFO next June?
Here's a recent production of Girl of the Golden West or La Fanciulla del West from Montreal in 2008.
Singing Ch'ella mi creda:
Pavarotti in 1991, Franco Correli in 1966, and Domingo and Bocelli.
and . .
Opus Arte with a chorister working on a noose . . .
Similarly and getting back to our cowgirl Anna N., SFO has seen American opera taken from the headlines. .jpg)
Most recently with productions by Americans John Adams and Peter Sellars with the world premiere of Dr. Atomic. I remember it selling out. The production I mean. Here's Jerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Peter Sellars even got a kiss from one of the young women working at the opera. This is a picture of Peter during the production at SFO.
I was at the counter at Café Corbus, a local café on Hayes the opera folk frequent. Sellars was there, as it turns out, autographing a poster I would later see mounted on the café wall. A youthful energized perky fellow with spiky almost buzz cut hair, he looks mischievous like Denis the Menace. She gave Peter a kiss and ignored me. So I figured this guy must rate.
Moreover, reports the Guardian, Padmore likened the work [Anna Nicole] to Zeit-oper, the German subgenre of opera popular in the 1920s and 30s, in which socio-political issues of the times were tackled. Such works include Ernst Krenek's Jonny Spielt Auf (Jonny Plays On), a jazz-inflected tale of Alpine infidelity culminating in a fatal train crash.
Continuing, Padmore also compared the story to that of another recent SFO heroine. Padmore compares the plot of Donizetti's classic, Lucia di Lammermoor, a tale loosely based on the life of a real 17th century Scot, Janet Dalrymple. In the opera, Lucia is forced to abandon her lover and enter into a politically expedient marriage - but she murders her husband and her lover takes his life. "We have Lucia di Lammermoor," said Padmore, "so why not Anna Nicole Smith? She also led a diva-like life."
So I ask ya'll, how about RuPaul?
Anna articles in the Guardian
In closing, I heard from a couple of women who have worked with Anna.
First, Bridget (above left with the real Anna N.) emails from Nebraska. Bridget says the photo is from a benefit for Camp CoHoLo, for children born with AIDS. The website describes Camp CoHoLo as children's cancer camps, for children with blood disorders.
I have only met Anna through my husband's work. I've also met a Penthouse pet of the year named Roxy Leroux. But I asked him about his career and the list is pretty distinguished. Gwen Stefani and No Doubt ( twice) 1995 1997; Aerosmith (Queensryche, Jagermeister); Tanya Tucker (Black velvet); U2 (Guinness); Kenney Chesney (Cruzn rRum); Sammy Hagar (Cabo Wabo tequila).
I know he is on a personal friendship with Ahman Green (Green Bay Packers) and Larry the cable guy . He left the liquor business two years ago and always said it was a romantic business but it demanded too much time. He really wanted to get away from the late nights to be with the kids.
Anna also had an interest in being with the kids . . . at Camp CoHoLo. It was Anna’s charitable focus.
I also heard from celebrity impersonator Dawnn Behrens, who is up for best actress at the Reel Awards. It’s an award ceremony for celebrity impersonators, from Kramer and Lucille Ball to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. To Vicki Lynn. Incidentally does that mean Dawnn is impersonating an impersonator?
In closing, here’s a photo of Anna and one of Dawnn, you decide who's who.
Photo of Dawnn courtesy of Dawnn Behrens
Photo of Anna from the UK Guardian, credited to Danny Moloshok/AP (the headshot)
Photos of Ruth Ann Swenson, Peter Sellars and Jerald Finley courtesy of SFO
Photo of Anna Nicole with Bridget Coffey courtesy of Bridget
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Contact the writer at SFOperaExaminer@Yahoo.com
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