August 2006
A new way to listen to podcasts, courtesy of the wonderful folks at Odeo.com: a new pocast player that looks like a video Ipod. If you would like to add this player to your web page, just go here, click on “copy to clipboard,” then just paste the code on your page. Easy, no?
You would think that since La Cieca has heard Parsifal quite a few times, and even given the philosophical implications of the libretto a bit of thought, she would have realized that Schadenfreude is just plain bad news. But no, La Cieca had to go and LAAAAAACH-te at the New York Times obituary of Elisabeth…
Legendary mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig is featured as one of the meanest mothers in all of opera, nasty Queen Klytemnästra, in a scene from Strauss’s Elektra as performed in Vienna, 1980. Birgit Nilsson is her disobedient daughter. The complete Klytemnästra scene is available as a playlist on YouTube.
From the New York Times: Correction: August 5, 2006A picture yesterday with an obituary of the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was published in error. It showed Anneliese Rothenberger — not Miss Schwarzkopf — in the role of Sophie from “Der Rosenkavalier,” a 1962 film adaptation of the Richard Strauss opera. The Salzburg Festival mounted that production,…
Dario Volonte as Calaf, Amsterdam 2002.
From today’s obit of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the New York Times. Why, yes, you’re right. That is Anneliese Rothenberger, who not only is not Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, but is also not dead.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf died this morning at her home in Switzerland. She was 90. The first report of the soprano’s passing was on Deutchlandradio Kultur: “Elisabeth Schwarzkopf ist tot. Wie der Deutschlandfunk erfuhr, starb die Sopranistin im Alter von 90 Jahren in ihrem Wohnort Zumikon in der Schweiz. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf besaß eine der schönsten Sopranstimmen ihrer…
Sigh . . . it does seem a pity to conceal in a covered orchestra pit a conductor who looks like this!
How hot was it yesterday? So hot that New York Grand Opera canceled their Central Park performance of Tosca, that’s how hot it was. Rather ironic, too, because Tosca is specifically set in midsummer in metropolitan Rome, where the climate is comparable to yesterday’s Gotham scorcher. Remember that the next time you see a Tosca…
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