Curtain up! Light the lights!
The all-new (or at least somewhat-new) Unnatural Acts of Opera relaunched this morning at 8 a.m., only 12 hours behind schedule. Thrill to the dulcet voiceovers of new guy Milton Host! Delight in La Cieca's flattering new microphone placement! Tingle with excitement as the superstar team of Luciano Pavarotti and Beverly Sills sing I puritani! And La Cieca thinks you will enjoy the debut of a brand new segment, "Apocryphal Opera Anecdote Theatre," a radio drama depicting great moments in operatic history. The first presentation: "Mary Garden Gives a Press Conference."
POSTED at
10:21 AM
19 Comments:
YES!!! La Cieca, thank you for finding that Sutherland/Pavarotti clip, and a Puritani that will actually do what it should - enthrall us with true bel canto. I'm going to listen to it today for sure!
Milton Host is a stud.
Love the new intro - particularly the Esclarmonde "Esprits de l'air" music.
LOL - "War of the Divas," and voices imitated "worse than SouthPark."
The Mary Garden interview is great fun.
La Cieca, you rock. I'm sure we won't always agree, but thats part of a great blog! And a great subject like Opera. Regards, DF.
Brava, Cieca, you have outdone even yourself! What is NOT apocryphal is your supreme talent.
And was that the young Helen Thomas lobbing the last softball question?
Didn't Hildy Johnson, who interviews Mary Garden in your, uh, interview segment, undergo a sex change and become Rosalind Russell? Can you confirm or deny? And did Mary Garden sail on the Ile de France the ship or the province?
OMG, I just listened to Pav's "A te, o cara." That may actually be perfection.
You know, I sometimes tend to think of him in the context of the Three Tenors stadium shenanigans. I know this is wrong, but it is so good to be reminded on occasion of the glory years. Thank you, La Cieca, for bringing me back around.
La Cieca, hearing the "A te, o cara" has made me long for the rest of the acts! I cannot wait until the rest. I await hopefully a high "F" from Pav... Certainly plenty of Dflats and D's, and that beautiful voice in general. Sills is also doing well, not to leave her out of the conversation. Louis isn't doing it for me as Riccardo, but that's OK. We have Pav and Sills. Plishka seems good thus far.
What a gift you have given us all... And to think I was gonna pop in a CD today at work. To hell with that!
"A te o cara" is one of the most beautiful arias of Bellini. For sweetness of tone and sheer brilliance, Marcelo Alvarez is unbeatable.
Wasn't Milton Host the name of the MC on P.D.Q Bachs The Stoned Guest??
Please tell me the annecdotal opera theater is hear to stay. You are a phenomenal actress, La Cieca.
Is it just me or is 'Mary Garden' channelling Emily Howard on her way to les ballets imaginaires and shit?
Well, actually the only example of "Mary Garden" speaking I could recall was Mabel Albertson (i.e., Samantha's mother in law) who played La Garden in the movie "So This is Love." It was a cameo role, since the movie was really about Grace Moore, who was played by Kathryn Grayson, and her apocrypal romance with a young fan (Merv Griffin?). So I had to make Mary's voice up out of whole cloth.
La Cieca:
fyi, and for anyone else who had trouble finding the newest podcast version on Itunes:
La Cieca's computer still says 06, so it comes out below all of your archived epsidoes (I have saved many!) instead of at the top.
And I simply won't have any bad words about Sills...glorious. She and Luciano are great together.
If anyone who didn't get my Emily Howard reference:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrxGhChXVts
I'm a lady! I do not have ... testiclés
Milton Host,
You got my accent perfectly! LOL
Sills changed the words to the big scena "O rendetemi la speme" to "rendetemi la vita" and "rendetemi l'amor." Interesting. She's singing very well.
I kinda knew we wouldn't hear Pav sing the high F, but I was still hoping... oh well, it was fantastic singing. It was nice to hear the "Santo bel angelo" cabaletta, and I actually liked Sills' ornamenti.
This was a GREAT podcast overall La Cieca. Thanks for the fun. Now I'll quit stalking this blog. lol
Is it just me who can't listen to the podcasts anymore? It won't download either...
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