The return of the cigar-makeress
“There is a noise inside the tabago factory and the revolting cigar-makeress bursts into the stage,” reads the classic fractured English synopsis of Carmen. Now a Korea-based English-language site steps up to the plate with a season preview fetchingly entitled “Glamorous Opera and Moist Aria.” Some highlights:
The set of the Roman Theater that reproduce the stage with the handwritten signature of Puccini, the clothing, items, and lights will be moved in as a bunch. It will bring the audience pleasure to see the original when the modernized interpretation is a boom as it is these days.
Director Lee So-yeong, who developed a good reputation last year through “Un Ballo in Maschera” and “Faust,” presents a Verdi opera “Don Carlos” with her unique simple and symbolic stages. She plans to direct in a modern way by reviving the awesome Inquisition through the red blood on the white wall and the scene where 200 crosses rise up all at once.
“La Traviata,” presented by the National Opera Company of Korea and directed by Wolgram Mehring, focuses more on the cruel tragedy created by social prejudice than on the love between a man and a woman . . . . “I intend to present the world of dreams that do not exist in reality through the stage art with dreamy airs, and I believe that the true reality will be brought to relief in this way,” says Mehring.
“La Triviata” . . . is performed by soprano Stefania Bonfadelli, who is reputed as the first world-class Violeta since Angela Gheorghiu
Initially tenor Richard Margison, who is performing in the U.S. Metropolitan Opera, was expected to act the part of Don Carlo along with Kim Jae-hyeong, but he dropped due to such matters as the North Korean nuclear testing.
sorry La Cieca, but this is tacky and slightly offensive.
are you kidding? it’s BRILLIANT and HYSTERICAL. no humor without a little breach of taste. Cigar Makeress ought to be a real English expression.
And I think the title of La Cieca’s unexpurgated memoirs out to be REALITY THROUGH THE STAGE ART WITH DREAMY AIRS.
of course it’s a hell of a lot better than my Korean…
The best triviata since Gheorghiu — how many decades ago was she well known?
Seriously this isn’t terrible and it’s delightful that traditions of Verdi’s own time such as blood sploshed on the wall and the cross as a symbol of evil are coming back….
Let’s all go to Cafeteria Rusticana and sort it all out through red wine and cappuccino.
I have read the Carmen bit before elsewhere and don’t believe it is real for one second. This is English panto “French” like you would hear in (the tremendously unfunny) “Allo – Allo”. The Paris Opera has had many a problem over the years but illiteracy was not one of them.
I wonder how much they had to pay Falcon for domain name rights to dongA.com?
So after all the fuss about Lil Kim’s nuclear testing, finally, some good fallout.
Thank you, Cieca, for one of the best laughs I’ve had in ages.
“Offensive,” paddypig? No more offensive than when I’ve phoned Dell or ATT & gotten someone in a third world county with horribly unidiomatic English who was so intent upon being polite that s/he had no idea how to respond to my question!
what I’m wondering is: what’s the link between Margison and nuclar testing? Any ideas?
He thought it would bomb
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to tell you that Miss Page is unable to dance the ballet of the Red Shoes tonight. Nor indeed on any other night. Instead we have decided to test a nuclear device… because we think she would have wished it.”