La Gioconda -- Finale OR "Just a sec, k?, I need to get ready"

Here we have Grace Bumbry from the 80s I think. She is rawking da haus in one of the Spanish houses.

The story in brief: La Gioconda has made a deal with Barnaba that she will give herself to him. He is now coming to "collect." At first she pushes him away, "Hold on Romeo; I gotta make myself all pretty-like for ya." And he is all, "you have got my motor running, mamma!" And then she says, "you wanted me? You can have me dead!" and she kills herself. Barnaba, ever the gentleman, tells the dying La Gioconda that he strangled her mother. (Though in this production, the decision seems to have been that he is telling this to her corpse.) Curtain falls to loud f-minor chords.

Though a mezzo at least some of the time in her career, Bumbry really had the dramatic soprano goods.

The performance is a little wild especially at the top but she has nice tone in all the registers. She also knows how a diva is supposed to act in this repertoire. Check out the dramatic way she kneels, with one arm up as she goes down. The fall when she kills herself is disturbing because it seems real! The switch to overhead camera is shocking! The plucked lower strings when he shakes what he realizes is a corpse? Conductor!! [thumb up]!!



(I am not sure what the story is with the figure that we see at the end. Is it the Virgin, who has been remarkably unhelpful to our poor heroine? Could be. Oh irony!)

PS I will be on the south island for a week. I will be back with pictures and, most importantly, OPERA LOG!