{"id":556,"date":"2011-01-10T17:30:19","date_gmt":"2011-01-10T17:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp\/?p=556"},"modified":"2011-01-10T17:30:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-10T17:30:19","slug":"you_outta_be_in_pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/2011\/01\/you_outta_be_in_pictures\/","title":{"rendered":"You outta be in pictures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sondra<\/a> hosted the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast of La Fanciulla del West<\/i> on Saturday, and it was fairly hilarious. Here are the illegal photos I took at the Ziegfeld Theater. I didn’t take any of the actual production<\/i>, so perhaps this won’t result in an embarrassing moment in which an artist’s own publicist gets in trouble with her publicist colleagues for using the wrong photos. <\/p>\n

Here she is with Deborah Voigt (who was cute cute cute!) and Marcello Giordani:<\/p>\n

\"HDBroadcast1.jpg\"And here she is outside with the horse trainers (!):<\/p>\n

\"HDBroadcast2.jpg\" <\/p>\n

One of the horses copped a feel with his snout in rehearsal, but they’re pros and all behaved themselves when the cameras were rolling. <\/p>\n

The biggest laughs at the Ziegfeld on Saturday came when every Italian man Sondra interviewed–including the conductor–said he watched John Wayne movies and wanted to be a cowboy when he was little. <\/p>\n

I bring all this up not simply to brag about my client (though there is that) or to plug her Tosca <\/i>run<\/a> at the Met (though there’s that, too – video here<\/a>), but to point you to an LA Times’<\/i> “Culture Monster” piece about Sondra’s hosting duties<\/a>. This part I liked especially:<\/p>\n

\n

Saturday at the HD Broadcast of Puccini’s “Fanciulla del West,”
\nSondra Radvanovsky will be making a very 21st century Met debut (or
\nre-debut).<\/p>\n

The American soprano makes her debut as the on-air host of the Met’s
\nHD broadcast. The HD host is essentially the show’s Ryan Seacrest. But
\nin a shrewd move, Peter Gelb didn’t hire a TV personality for the gig
\nwhen the broadcast series began four years ago.  Instead, he tapped
\ntelegenic stars from the opera world like Pl\u00e1cido Domingo and Ren\u00e9e
\nFleming.  (In contrast, PBS telecasts were for years hosted by Garrick
\nUtley of NBC, and Sunday’s LA Phil Live broadcast is hosted by Vanessa
\nWilliams.)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In an era in which we all complain that TV shows won’t have classical musicians on as guests, it is interesting that the classical organizations themselves are the first to jump to find a celebrity to do the job when an opportunity to be seen on screens worldwide arises. When your own stars host, they can do things like refuse Fairway pie when it’s offered by the props master because they’re “keeping my girlish figure to sing Tosca on Monday!” (Having finished my Junior Mints and Coke, I wishing some nice props master would come by and offer me some pie.) And poof! Free Tosca <\/i>preview. If the media won’t let us get to know the Met leading men and women, the Met will do it through their own media outlets. <\/p>\n

More on this tomorrow, because as thrilled as I’m sure Sondra would be if I wore my Dartmouth sweatpants and Lululemon* hoodie to her big premiere tonight, I should probably change. I am fascinated, though, by the LA Philharmonic’s arrival on the big screen yesterday<\/a>. I thought classical musicians should be heard and not seen? <\/p>\n

*She actually loves Lululemon and would wear it as<\/i> Tosca if she could. <\/font><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sondra hosted the Metropolitan Opera HD broadcast of La Fanciulla del West on Saturday, and it was fairly hilarious. Here are the illegal photos I took at the Ziegfeld Theater. I didn’t take any of the actual production, so perhaps this won’t result in an embarrassing moment in which an artist’s own publicist gets in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/lifesapitch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}