She wants to make peace - La Vanguardia

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The following article was published in La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper, on November 29th. The author is Rafael Ramos. It doesn't seem to have a particular purpose. It is more a sort of review of what happened lately, pointing out that the concert at Royal Festival Hall was far away from being sold out.

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Originally the article is in Spanish (thank you, Teresa, for sending it). I tried to give it a proper translation. If there are mistakes, sorry. Did my best. For the article in Spanish, click on the links below: Page 1 and Page 2 (you can make the text bigger by moving the pointer above the text to right, from 61% to let's say 200% Then move the "hand" in order to move the text). There is also one big picture.

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Gheorghiu wants to make peace

In divorce proceedings with Alagna, the opera diva wants to reconcile with theaters and directors for not showing up

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Angela Gheorghiu is adorable, funny, smart, with the air of a model and a heavenly voice ... But informal and capricious, she's a diva that cancels her appearances either at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan in New York or La Scala in Milan for the most varied reasons. "I want to be perfect - she says, give the best to the public, and for that I must be a hundred percent ready, physically and emotionally."

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The Romanian star is the nightmare of the best opera theaters in the world. On one hand they are chasing her and on the other hand they get headache when she leaves because she doesn't like the production, the tenor that accompanies her (her new favorite is the German tenor Jonas Kauffman), conductor, or she doesn't fully feel like doing it. She has so many admirers but also enemies who call her Draculina.

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In the middle of a divorce from Roberto Alagna - a statement that was posted on her website that attributed it to the jealousy of her husband, French tenor of Sicilian origin and his family - Gheorghiu has come to England to make peace with the Royal Opera House (her favorite) and especially with its music director Antonio Pappano. The relations deteriorated seriously during Tosca, and eventually broke when the diva didn't sign for Don Carlo because it was a longer version and she would not torture her voice during a five hour performance.

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No matter how exceptional and charismatic the soprano compared by some with Maria Callas is, this is the classic case of the pitcher that goes too often to the well and breaks. In this case, the victim is her credibility, to the extent that her appearance at the Royal Festival Hall a few days ago didn't reach the expectations and it was easy to find tickets on the same day of the show. The public does not want to spend a fortune and she won't show up.

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Angela came because she wants to rebuild some broken relations. It will be hard to do it with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, who fired her when she left the rehearsals for Franco Zeffirelli's Bohème and caught a plane to go see Roberto in New York. The Metropolitan will take some time to forgive her for having withdrawn from the new production of Carmen which was supposed to be the hit of the Winter season. But she wants to make peace with Teatro Real in Madrid (where she cancelled a Traviata), with Liceu (where she cancelled a recital) and with the opera houses of Rome and Milan.

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"May God forgive me for saying this - proclaimed prima donna, but everything I've done is beautiful." Her popularity allows her to be arrogant with grace, at least on short term. She is deeply human when she tells about the tragedy of her sister's death in a car accident ("we were like twins"), when she speaks of the adopted niece (she's now 19 and studies in England) and when she explains that her father, a former train driver, decided to seek refuge in a Greek Orthodox monastery where women are not allowed.

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Her journey goes from a small provincial town of Ceausescu's Romania to the lights and applauses of the world's most famous theaters, from a hasty marriage when she was a student at the Conservatory of Bucharest to the sudden falling for Roberto Alagna in a Bohème, and thirteen years of an marriage on which the curtain has now fallen. "As a child I loved to receive applauses, and nothing has changed," she says with candor.

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Angela Gheorghiu always wants to be perfect, if not at least to appear so. She goes to the hairdresser and wears make-up even for radio interviews. "I need to be admired, applauded, to be splendid, singing beautifully... is there anything wrong with it? Would have to be masochistic to go on stage waiting for you to be booed. I grew up in an atmosphere of fear and repression and now everything must be perfect" frankly admits the great diva, owner of one of the softest and rich in nuances voices of operatic universe.

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