So said Sergei Polunin, in 2012, when he was 22 and had suddenly quit the Royal Ballet, where he was the youngest dancer ever to have been made a principal.
I'm reading that today because it was presented as related by BBC News where I'd gone to read "Booed tenor quits La Scala's Aida/Top tenor Roberto Alagna has stunned opera-goers at La Scala in Milan by storming off stage in the middle of a performance after he was booed."
That's an article from 2006, which I was reading as a consequence of this search of my own blog archive:
I was looking at that because Meade had texted me a little video that made me think "La Scala" had some personal significance to us that I ought to have remembered — not that everything I should remember is collected in the blog archive.
How is Roberto Alagna doing these days? The following year he performed in Aida at the Metropolitan Opera and got a standing ovation. I guess he's recovered from the hurt feelings he got being booed. I like the "Early years" section of his Wikipedia article:
Alagna was born outside the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian immigrants. As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets, mostly for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of Mario Lanza and learning from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera, but remained largely self-taught....That makes me think of the movie "Heavenly Creatures." Have you ever seen that Peter Jackson movie, where the girls (one of whom is played by Kate Winslet) go absolutely mad for Mario Lanza?
And what has become of Sergei Polunin? Well, at the end of the article quoted above, he says that ballet was his "childhood goal," and he achieved it at age 19, "And then I said 'what's next?' and I set myself a different goal at 19 to become an actor. I started watching movies more carefully, watching actors - the way they act, the way the movie is filmed, just as a hobby in a way, but also something to progress to maybe in the future." And here he is talking about his role in the 2017 film "Murder on the Orient Express":
"... into the tongue, into the mouse..."
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16 comments:
Booing at operas has a long and (in)distinguished history, as does reacting to it by quiting mid-performance. It says his wife was fired from the Chicago Lyric Opera after she walked out of her own rehersals to be with him during a performance. Really needy couple, them.
Could be a major reason you would pay $2,600 for a ticket is for the cost of having a replacement cast standing in the wings.
We are awfully cheap and would never pay $2000 for an Opera ticket (and my wife would murder me if I made her go to an opera).
Still, having the tenor get booed, and then storm off the stage, and then have a jeans-wearing understudy take over - that would be great entertainment. Jolly good fun.
It would be good for weeks of gossip.
Some of those characters in the $2000 seats take all this too seriously.
OTOH, some stars give a lot more than they ask:
Eighteen High Cs for the price of nine makes this opera a real bargain.
A few years ago at production of Fidelio at the Santa Fe Opera, the piece was set in a Nazi concentration camp. At curtain calls, the heavy of the piece came out in his SS uniform, and was roundly booed. He took it as a compliment, which it was.
He has a catlike dance skill that he transferred into his tongue to eat a mouse. Hmmm.
But at least it's not Trump stuff. DJT has made no news for a whole day. My wife thinks he finally slept for for a day.
I read the post as him storming off the stage because he was bored, not booed. He was bored with the opera and the lyrics and decided to exit stage left.
I saw the movie years ago but do not recall specifics. Do remember Heavenly Creatures as a good movie, and Kate Winslet's break out role.
I LOVE Heavenly Creatures, a great, wonderful movie about a horrible subject.
My parents went to Aida at Wolf Trap in the 70's. The young female lead was enormously fat. When she (silently) walked on stage, the audience gasped at her size, and then there were giggles.
The guy is lucky to still be working after walking off mid-performance. The understudy needs time to warm up.
Aida is one of the least boring operas, especially if the elephants or horses act up.
The tenor's first and famous aria (the one they booed) "Celeste Aida" is nearly the first thing he sings, so it's notoriously hard on nerves. I don't remember Pavarotti getting that big.
The ex-dancer's face would make a good villain, but he's probably tiny. Maybe even Tom Cruise tiny.
Ann, you brought some very good memories to me this morning. The Donkey Serenade is a song that my parents courted too. Thank you so much.
We are big fans of Sergei Polunin. He is such an amazing ballet dancer. The Baryshnikov of our day. His acting in 'Orient Express' superb, even if just a minor role. Haven't seen Red Sparrow yet. His lady love, Natalia Osipova is an exceptional ballet dancer as well. Remarkable couple, so young still and so very talented. Sergei has also been doing a lot of modelling for brand names. And we saw the two of them dance at Sadler's Wells in London. We travelled from Germany to see them and to visit London. Sergei prefers to bury his 'bad boy' image from Royal Ballet as he has grown so much since then and is such a star in his own right. Sergei and Natalia have recently danced together at Munich's Bavarian State Opera Ballet. Wish Sergei and Natalia all the best.
The new "Murder on the Orient Express" was putrid, but as I recall Sergei didn't suck. So he may have a future in the movie acting biz. But the director needs to remember that his understudy should be fully costumed at all times.
Hmm. Opera divas and dilettante entitled ballet men prancing in tights isn't a huge comment draw.
Shocked, SHOCKED I am.
And Little Lord Fauntleroy quitting ballet at 22 is not exactly the national emergency that, say, a brain surgeon quitting at 45 would be.
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