parterre box

38 comments

• Regie Goodfornought says:

  Well, La Cieca, if you had that fair youth walled up in a hut, what would you do?

  She, too, is pretty, but a million miles away from my idea of a ‘wild Irish maid’.

  Had the sound down. Did I miss any nuggets of poetry?

  Oh, and for ageing queens, it would have to have been directed by John Copley – not a style of production with which I or our doyenne feel in sympathy.

  on November 29, 2008 at 12:09 PM
• Stella Barbare says:

  hello bitches, doesn’t anyone remember the “liebestod” scene from that old movie, ARIA? that was beautiful, as far as suicides in a cheap motel go.

  on November 29, 2008 at 12:42 PM
• Turandot says:

  Who cares if the movie is for teenage girls? If hunky James Franco goes around with his shirt off like that I will happily watch and drool. Call me shallow.

  I saw “Milk.” Making him a saint was a mistake. He was also a crook who traded favors for money. Just another old politician who happened to be gay.

  Sean Penn makes my skin crawl. You can see the gears turning. His style of acting makes me puke.

  on November 29, 2008 at 6:05 PM
• Nerva Nelli says:

  Here comes wobbly, nasty old Dragica Martinis as Turandot again!!

  Don’t believe a word she says. Sean Penn’s performance is *truly* extraordinary.

  on November 30, 2008 at 10:13 PM
• Gundryggia says:

  Nerva!! I sob! I WAS Dragica Martinis!! She sang Turandot at the City Opera and (I am guessing) Butterfly too. She is Willy the Furt’s Desdemona, a performance like Leonie’s, full of emotion, and pitches too since she tries out a great many in the course of getting through a phrase. But she does one of the more ‘felt’ last acts on a record and one forgives much (also Willy’s conducting in that act is really wonderful). And then she is Herbie’s Aida, a really remarkable over all performance (51?), EVERY indication in the score is realized by the orchestra even Verdi’s call for ‘pppppp’ here and there. I think Carla Martinis (as we preferred to be called) is pretty good there and I have ALL her records — I listen to them and weep — every ten years on LSD. I am sorry I am too young to have seen her though old. She had a sad life I am given to believe… I don’t think it’s fair to compare her to an oncologist.

  on November 30, 2008 at 10:49 PM
• Regie Goodfornought says:

  Two to one on Penn, an actor I can’t bear to watch either.

  Is there any truth in the Milk corruption charge, or is it hearsay?

  Dragica really brought Gundryggia out of hiding – it’s a bit like someone monikering herself as ‘Unknown Violet’ saying she could sing Brangane *tomorrow*. Well, hurrah for a distinctive style is all I can say (and I really don’t know what Gundy is trying to insinuate about me elsewhere).

  on December 1, 2008 at 7:02 PM
• Hans Lick says:

  On Milk: He was a big-city politico. He made back-room deals he wouldn’t have wanted you to know about. I lived in SF in his time, and the guy I liked was Mayor Moscone, whom everyone seems to forget. Milk was rather divisive in the gay community (he could never persuade enough of them to vote for him to get on the Board of Supervisors, so they revised the election rules), but his effect was salutary and necessary. Nothing in his life was more useful to the Cause than his manner of leaving of it. (As I wouldn’t say of, say, MLKing, who was careful never to run for office.)

  If you’re looking for a fascinating story, check out Milk (not necessarily the movie). If you’re looking for great art about a moderately clean civic politician, the musical Fiorello! is ideal. If you’re looking for a clean big city politician, there hasn’t been one since Savonarola. And they burned him at the stake.

  on December 4, 2008 at 10:35 AM
• Regie Goodfornought says:

  Interesting, Hans Lick, thank you for that. Forgive my ignorance, but Fiorello! is about??

  on December 4, 2008 at 10:41 AM