Anna Netrebko gives it her all as Gilda in Rigoletto. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Anna Netrebko is opera's answer to Britney Spears. This is not to say that the Russian-born soprano is about to shave her head or will be carried from her home strapped to a gurney - at least not in the foreseeable future. What Netrebko does have in common with the troubled tabloid favourite is an incandescent stage presence, a tendency to no-show, and a blatant disregard for the niceties of polite society.
Her lucrative endorsements of everything from upmarket jewellery to soft drinks, her celebrity appearances, and her silly, sexy, badly synched videos have won her a wide audience beyond the opera cognoscenti. They have also earned her obloquy in the eyes of more fastidious followers. Opera-goers have found themselves on the receiving end of performances in which sexual charisma all but overwhelms musical technique. Those who suspect that the singer prefers to play "épater le bourgeois" at the expense of practising her fioritura will not have had their feelings assuaged by Netrebko's appearance in the Sex and Music issue of Playboy last month.
Netrebko herself seems resigned to the brickbats. "Russians need a little shit in their lives," she has said.
Those who need a little Netrebko in their lives should probably start with Sempre Libera, a fairly straightforward canter through bel canto standards from the likes of La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Sonnambula and I Puritani. This was Netrebko's second CD release and while the material may lack surprise, the singer revealed a gracious lyrical gift and a refreshing willingness to celebrate the melodic genius of Verdi, Bellini and Puccini.
A deeper, darker side of Netrebko is on display on The Russian Album. The precision of her range is undeniable, as she first employs a oratorical tone punctuated by awe-inspiring high notes before sinking to a whisper, the listener straining to catch each gossamer thread. Some reviewers have commented that her performances on this disc prove that Netrebko is more comfortable with the repertoire of her native country. She has, naturally, denied being a one-trick pony. What is clear is her ability to bring both poise and a restrained control to the emotional, occasionally overwrought, arias of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. She can be languorous, as in the aria from The Snow Maiden; she can be heartbreaking in Tatiana's letter scene from Eugene Onegin; most thrilling is the melismatic control evidenced in Rachmaninoff's "Oh sing me not the sad songs of Georgia". You don't need fluent Russian to appreciate the sinuous sombre beauty of this song - you just need a pair of ears in working order.
It is Netrebko's irrefutable impact on both eyes and ears that has marked her out for fame beyond the concert hall. Some find the phenomenon irresistible; others see it as an irritating distraction. Both camps will be eager to deliver their opinions on the soprano's performance in the movie version of Puccini's La Bohème, directed by Robert Dornhelm, which will open at the Cannes film festival next year. Purists be damned: to my mind, anybody with the pulling power that brings opera to the multiplex deserves our unalloyed admiration.
