Anna Netrebko says it is a high note of another kind: She is
pregnant and she's
getting married. The 36-year-old star soprano and her fiance,
Uruguayan baritone Erwin Schrott, are expecting a child this
autumn, Netrebko's management company said Monday.
"We are both very, very happy that soon there will be three of
us," Netrebko said in a statement.
It will be her first child. She and Schrott, 35, became engaged
late last year in New York.
The Russian-born diva, who holds Austrian citizenship, has been
making a film version of Puccini's La Boheme in Vienna for
German television.
She and Schrott have shared the stage several times over the
past few years, singing Mozart's Don Giovanni and other
works, and they performed together in December in Puerto Rico.
Her manager, Jeffrey Vanderveen, said Netrebko "will keep her
engagements as long as her doctors permit it."
She is scheduled to perform in Massenet's Manon, which
opens April 4 at the Vienna State Opera.
Austrian media said Netrebko was still scheduled to join Rolando
Villazon and Placido Domingo in a concert with the Vienna
Philharmonic on the grounds of Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace on June
27, two days before the capital hosts the final of the Euro 2008
soccer tournament.
She was to appear with Villazon in Charles Gounod's Romeo
and Juliet at the Salzburg Festival in August, but pulled out
because of the pregnancy, festival president Helga Rabl-Stadler
said Monday.
"We are surprised, but we understand. The most beautiful reason
for a cancellation is a child," Rabl-Stadler was quoted as telling
the Austria Press Agency.
"We'll send her the most beautiful bouquet in the world" when
the baby is born, Rabl-Stadler said.
Netrebko has withdrawn from the Metropolitan Opera's revival of
Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor that begins Oct. 3, but
performances in January 2009 are still on, Vanderveen said Monday
in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Her engagement at the Met for "Manon," scheduled Dec. 15 through
Jan. 10, 2009, is under discussion, Vanderveen said.
"Bottom line is: She will sing as long as her doctors say it is
fine," he said. "When she comes back is a life decision (and a
vocal decision) that she is considering now."
(Agencies via China Daily February 5, 2008)
