Soprano Josephine Barstow's craziest stage attitude!

Soprano Josephine Barstow sings "Pace pace mio Dio" from Verdi's "La forza del destino": I think her rendition is interesting, plus the fact that she tops the aria with a brilliant high B flat, but can anybody explain to me her turning back on the audience at the very end???

George is George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, retiring Chairman of the Board of
English National Opera and author/editor of The New Kobbe's Opera Book.

This gala was held at the London Coliseum, home of English National Opera, to
mark his retirement in 1985.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• soprano
• josephine
• barstow
• verdi
• forza
• del
• destino
• pace
• mio
• dio
• opera
• lord
• harewood
• 1985
• london
• coliseum

[arsoperae]

Superba! The ending is georgeous!

[Dymension]

Brava!!!!

[mezzomanUK]

Utterly wonderful, and still going strong at 70+ as The Countess in an otherwise disappointing Opera North Queen Of Spades . RIP George Harewood

[barneswriter]

Camper than a row of tents but i loved her to bits........

[stirling1950]

I saw her in nearly everything she sang, I just never got it. Her Italian is better sung than her English, she is awful to watch.

[Tenortalker]

A great professional ! Her voice production was always unorthodox, but she moulded it to the expression of the emotion so well. Completely committed - we were fortunate to see her so often on the London stage.

[SteveBell1942]

@ferrykalos Difficult to understand why people like you think their utterances are of value. You show no reason, no analysis, nothing but what I presume you think is clever. Trust me it isn't. Try ' I don't like it because..' or shut up.

[youfeda]

ma è stupenda!!

[coryisawake]

@iubanne There is a tradition for many sopranos (including Italian ones) to split the final word on the Bb so that it ends on the final syllable: E vowel.

Steber, Freni, Marton, Beňačková-Čáp, Gheorghiu all chose this option.

Barstow's Italian is fine.

[cirosuperiore]

i missed the crazy part....what did i do, blink?