Squillo
FOND FAREWELLS
By Michael White
One of the more significant, operatic goodbyes I’ve witnessed in the past weeks was that of Renée Fleming to London’s Royal Opera House, in a production of Der Rosenkavalier that was built around her and her final bow.
Strauss’s Marschallin is the perfect role for bowing out with grace. You’re in the spotlight, and you can claim the stage at two key moments which are nicely spread apart at the beginning and end of the opera. This gives you time to gather strength before the final scene – making a fanfare entrance in the process in a frock that steals the show, and vocally refreshed as no one else onstage can be.
Throw in the fact that you can get away with some degree of vulnerability – because the odd cracked note only intensifies the sense of your character surrendering to the advance of time – and you have it all. I only hope that when I’m ready to retire and close my laptop, somebody will offer me the journalist’s equivalent of the Marschallin, whatever that might be.