need you ask?
Well, actually, yes, now you do. The New York Times is no longer the only major metropolitan daily whose music critic drools all over opera singers of the masculine persuasion.
La Cieca is delighted to introduce the verbal stylings of David Mermelstein, who apparently is that gay man who has heretofore been trapped inside the body of Tony Tommasini. In The Los Angeles Daily News, Mermelstein gallops out the gate with both guns blazing:
ERWIN SCHROTT IS HOT, HOT, HOT IN L.A. OPERA’S `DON GIOVANNI’
Hear those sighs? Yep, it’s the women of Seville getting the vapors over Mozart’s lady-killing Don Giovanni, once more in residence at L.A. Opera. But it’s also the audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion watching Erwin Schrott, the dishy Uruguayan bass, strut his considerable stuff on stage in that role.
That’s right, there’s a stud on the loose in Mariusz Trelinski’s garish, Cirque du Soleil-like production of Mozart’s great morality tale. We’ve been here before, of course, back in 2003, when Schrott previously strode these boards as the Don. Now he’s bringing sexy back . . . .
Though the production’s rewards start with Schrott — whose richly upholstered bass, sinister good looks and macho-man sensuality make him an ideal Giovanni — they don’t end there.
At this point Mermelstein has a few words to say about Kyle Ketelsen (Leporello) and Charles Castronovo (Don Ottavio) before adding as an afterthought, “If the women make less of an impression, that’s only because the men are so good.”
La Cieca invites her cher public to forward further examples of The Art of Homoerotic Reverie, though she is sure you will not find it easy to top Mr. Mermelstein.
My god, Tomisini at his worst has never reached these depths.
What makes this even more ridiculous is that the run of Don Giovanni has been over for like two months.
Baritenor, La Cieca has stacks of newspapers to go through from the hinterlands, and just saw Mermelstein’s gushings, which were published in early December.
Baritenor, Anna is correct. La Cieca only recently received the tip about this review but thought the quality of the writing gave it a certain timeless quality.
Well, anything he said about how hot both Charlie and Kyle are is 100% true.
I know David Mermelstein socially and he’s a very nice man and, when he’s not gushing like he’s writing for Tiger Beat, a good critic. This kind of stuff isn’t his usual fare, he’s normally much more measured and considered. I doubt there’s going to be a treasure trove of similar stuff from him.
Regsrding The Art of Homoerotic Reverie, Charles Castronovo is one of my principal muses:
http://www.sdopera.com/images/season/pearlfishers.jpg
I could sing Leila *tomorrow*, it;s a question of color and tessitura. I was known for Bizet’s Carmen, which I would sing at he Garden before doing Eboli and all my RING parts during the Festwochen and then coming home to face Marcellina.
I have to say anything is an improvement over the banal writing of Mark Swed who doesn’t seem to like anything written before 1975.
Oh, Mark, how right you are about Swed. While I haven’t seen anything from him resembling…well, writing, come to think of it…or anything faintly resembling Homeoerotic Reverie, it’s fairly obvious he hates most women. Now, one doesn’t necessarily follow the other, but we’ll just have to pay more attention, I guess, as long as we read the LA Times.
Ooops…that should have been Homoerotic…too damned many fingers…