Angela Gheorghiu Provides Live Vocals For Alvin Ailey Dance Troupe

Live From New York: Gheorghiu sings an aria to
accompany a dance depicting violence between a man
 and a woman in a relationship. (Photo: Facebook)

"The joyless 'Uprising' had contradicted this, and so did what followed: the depiction of a mutually abusive male-female relationship that is Mr. Battle’s 'Unfold.' The woman’s showily sustained backbends seem to invite her partner to manhandle her; he duly obliges, and occasionally she gets him back by tugging him down to the floor. If you understand the ecstatically erotic French words of the operatic aria that Mr. Battle takes as his accompaniment here — 'Depuis le jour,' from Gustave Charpentier’s Louise — then you see that Mr. Battle means his duet as an exercise in pointed theatrical irony. The soprano sings of the delicious tremblings arising from her charming memories of living with her lover; the dancing shows us a couple forever locked in grimly flamboyant and aggressive behavior that brings them no joy. Is this really part of the Ailey legacy? To me, it looks wholly anti-Ailey. Usually, 'Unfold' is accompanied by Leontyne Price’s slow, lush recording of the Louise aria. On this occasion, the aria was sung live onstage by Angela Gheorghiu, with Eugene Kohn’s piano accompaniment. Ms. Gheorghiu’s singing, often under the note, was into a microphone; though she makes more of the words than Ms. Price, her singing on this occasion was unusually tense and unsteady. (It’s worth listening to recordings from Charpentier’s day, all of which take a far less dilatory tempo.)" [Source] Ms. Gheorghiu had a similar personal situation back in 2013 regarding domestic abuse. Watch a brief clip of the Alvin Ailey dance after the jump.