Just last week I was praising the people who signed Hayley up to open for Il Divo since it seemed like a win-win scenario for the two acts. Now, I'm not so sure.
Hayley is forced to perform while the audience is still getting seated and is not given the benefit of a proper introduction nor mention in the concert program (last I heard).
What's more, the audience is overwhelmingly partisan for Il Divo, to the point where Hayley's participation is practically negligible as far as they're concerned. The critics barely take notice of her as well, and who can blame them?
The tour is young yet, but the trend is disturbing nonetheless. If I were Hayley's management I'd seek immediate redress in the following ways:
1. She MUST be included in the program!
2. She MUST be announced prior to taking the stage!
3. All concertgoers MUST be seated before her performance!
4. Her CDs MUST be included in the concession areas.
These aren't extravagant demands, just common courtesy that should especially be accorded to someone who's as talented and successful as Hayley.
First, I tried to reply to the thread created by Dave on the Belfast performance but could not find a 'reply to link'. However, this is an appropriate thread since I was going to develop the very debate you raise, Steve.
In simple answer to you, you list all that I feared would be the case when I first heard of the planned show. I jump back to this after the following report from the Belfast Telegraph, in case the mods want to reposition this.
However, perhaps a duplicate post on the Belfast thread would be justified as the content of this review complements the points you raise.
The following is the report on Belfast from the Belfast Telegraph of Sunday.
On the beat: Night at the poperaJohn McGurk
26 March 2006
THE biggest classical crossover act of recent times, Il Divo are in Northern Ireland tomorrow night.
Since the chiselled-chinned Il Divo dreamboats were launched in a blaze of publicity by Pop Idol svengali Simon Cowell in August 2004, the quartet has racked up massive sales around the globe.
The operatic pop quartet's first self-titled album, featuring a middle brow selection of familiar classical tunes and pop standards shifted more than five million copies around the world.
And their second album, Ancora has surpassed those sales, with its UK and USA chart-topping success in November 2005 and January 2006 respectively.
Quite plainly, their brand of light opera is adored by the sort of audience which prefers to buy their CDs in a supermarket, rather than a music store.
However, critical acclaim has been much harder for Il Divo to earn than fans, with accusations that they personify the dumbing down and sexing up of classical music.
Cowell's fingerprints are all over Il Divo - a man who admits that he does not even like opera!
The international ensemble - Spaniard Carlos Marin, Frenchman Sebastien Izambard, Swiss native Urs Buhler and American David Miller - are all technically excellent singers.
But their Armani model heart-throb good looks were surely an important part of the equation - to create a mix of The Three Tenors and Westlife for a 40-something female market.
On its own terms, Ancora isn't a bad album. Their Spanish language version of Unchained Melody does have a certain continental charm, as does the Bolero-like drama of En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor.
And their French language interpretation of Celine Dion's If That's What It Takes - Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore - is a genuine pop pleasure.
But far too many tracks follow an unimaginatively repetitive formula - tinkling piano intro, softly-sung verses and an blasting crescendo of vocals and swelling orchestral strings of sledgehammer subtlety.
Their arrangers and songwriters also seem to have swallowed the blueprint of Celine Dion's megahit, My Heart Will Go On - with far too many fake Uilleain pipes smothering the songs.
Their current world tour - which sees them play to 300,000 people in the British Isles alone- is a virtual sell-out.
But the 80-minute show has come in for some stinging criticism in the USA, with some observers singling out the heavily-scripted between-song chat and backslaps for particular rebuke.
Fans love them. But many critics can't stand them. What everyone is in agreement on is that Cowell's contrived creation - a Continental pop opera balladeering band - has worked astonishingly well.
? Il Divo are at the Point Theatre, Dublin tonight and the Odyssey Arena, Belfast tomorrow night. Dublin is sold out. Only single seats remain on sale for the Belfast show, at the venue box office and Ticketmaster outlets. Special guest is Hayley Westenra.
This `criticism confirms my own fears and corroborates the reports I have received from friends in North America but none of which have they corroborated by quoting appropriate reports to me. Nonetheless, my awareness is that these views are wide-spread.
Mercifully, Hayley has been kept out of the negative publicity and when she has been mentioned she has been specifically praised, often in contrast from Il Divo.
The arguments were, as I believe:
Their tour, their arrangement, their budget, she 'goes along for the ride'. Takes admin pressure off of her.
She had the chance to do 'side' tours of her own and she's already over there and the Il Divo audience is obviously completely different. As I said previously in posts relating to the 'stalwarts' NOT hogging her time after a show, those shows I attended are certainly not an Il Divo audience and it is numbers that sell and make her money, not the few stalwarts.
Hayley has said 'you try things and you learn from mistakes'. It would be wrong to classify the Il Divo tour as a mistake. As a one-off it may well have given her something if that something is not yet defined but where does she go from here?
She has been associated with a dumb-down act but has not been tarnished with a dumbed down image. Perhaps by contrast she has re-affirmed her 'class' image. But, while widening her audience awareness is this the audience that will follow her and is she going to go for sales, or better defining her market?
I suppose the key lies in what it is that Hayley wants. She wants to explore herself and therefore will use what ever 'vehicle' she can. There are pros and cons to all options, especially while she is making up her mind as to whether she wants a label or wishes simply to be herself.
My guess, is that she perhaps needs another Il Divo TYPE tour of the States but NOT Il Divo perhaps appealing to a different audience, balanced sexes of a younger age, before she can consolidate 'The Hayley Westenra Show' as a viable option. That really would give her 'the world' to do exactly what she pleases.
Peter
] were available at the merchandise counter"
but that's my two cents! haha*
