La Padmore has learned that type casting always pays off.

Oh my gawd, sustained high note at ~4:51. LOL.

link for reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk84Niba5Fo

Anna’s family: Fatty.
Society: Blonde bimbo. LOL she is dumb and on drugs LOL
whereas
Angel’s universe [which naturally revolves around her]: We love you and you can do whatever you set your mind to!11!!

I -really- want to know if Taormina is a joke. I’m listening to it for about the 5th time and can’t keep the stupid grin off my face. The Lucia is such a tantalizing appetizer. Now I want to hear the entire album…let’s hear her Der holle rache and Caro nome for starters.

But perhaps Angel Taormina could play her?

She is one of those singers who not only should leave out the interpolated high notes, but all of the other notes as well.

Nevermind. You can still her lilting tones here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk84Niba5Fo&feature=channel_page

But then a member of the audience — was it a critic, even, maybe — stood up and took off all his clothes, standing there naked as a jaybird.

The troupe was terribly upset and asked to have him removed from the theatre.

My point is that there is now and always has been a plethora of pretentious artists and most are able to gather around them pretentious supporters who will help them waft to greater and greater heights. Sometimes one encounters an artist without pretension who has something legitimate to say and a truly remarkable way of saying it. I can’t always tell the difference until the metaphorical balloon is pricked. It seems that the real artist has/needs fewer sycophants. Also, the real artist tends not to whine.

I envy those of you who are able to make absolutist statements, much as I envy the evangelists of any ilk who lurk in my hedges. Knowing one has the truth so frees one from any further thought.

Next you look at ‘the material’: what sort of musical treatment has it being given. Is it over the ‘top’? Is it too grandiose, emphatic,or ramming home some point when there is no dramatic substance to back the situation being played out. Ask what is the motivation, behind it. It does not ‘accidentally happen’,though I suspect you would plead otherwise. An alert audience then feels, being taken for a ride,asked to give acceptance ,undue attention or creditability to composers’ pet subjects. Subject matter twisted and distorted out of shape to fit his niche and / or hang ups.’. Some composers forget the important question ‘does enough people out there in the World really care?’.

Sadly today, many composers are not using material of accepted universality; we are seeing them fascinated by stories, here today, gone tomorrow. Anna Nicole Smith ,for instance? I am sure though Turnage in promoting it,will call on the great Greek myths of wrath, to show how the ‘poor darling girl of the tabloids’ was done in’.He will have to find something to talk about at those promotional lectures and press conferences, all part of the composition deal /commission. Let the bandwagons roll on. Culture is getting perversely more funny and insane by the minute by people said to be promoting the future of artistic endeavor. yet,who are driving nails into its coffin, faster than a fast ram jet nail gun.

As for your discomfort in “fringe-theater”—if you know you are generally gonna detest it, in the extreme manner you seem to—JUST DON’T GO…(follow Nancy Reagan’s immortal dictum…”Just say No”

It will be interesting to see how Queequeg/Queerqueg works. And also to see if Heggie takes us at least as far — and perhaps even further — than Salome and Britten in terms of depicting unabashed homoerotic love. Something more forthright than the “closet” operas, e.g. Pecheurs, Iphigénie en Tauride, Tristan, Parsifal, etc.

Apart from the fact that some of us don’t see the word ‘socialist’ as an insult, how the hell does our dear harry presume to know what Turnage’s motivation is? And to say that he is not interested in writing opera is of course gibberingly absurd.

Taking into account comment #135, the comment was addressed at ‘much of what happens in the Linbury [Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House]‘. I don’t think I inferred anything, so much as summarised what you had said, which remains, quite clearly, a sweeping generalisation, a pretty offensive and ignorant one at that.

Your episode with the flaming newspaper sounds unpleasant and ridiculous, but I don’t think it gives you license to condemn everything that goes on at the Linbury or other similar performance spaces.

I will not deny though that on the law of averages, far too many experimental productions (80 to 90 percent)are ill conceived, badly written, under work-shopped, and can be (usually, with grants) under funded,anyway.. As a result,from day one : everything after tends to be another compromise on top of a previous one. I do not know how many commissioned works I have seen, originally scheduled and announced before the first note or word (whatever the case) is written. How is there to pull these projects up before first night curtain? How is brave enough to stick their neck out and scream it is going to an unmitigated disaster, it is shit and who is in authority ‘to pull the pin on a straight out stinker’, delay it at least, and send it back for re-working.
No one in authority wants to. In theatrical circles, it will create too many enemies(those that wish/love to shift blame!) ….so first night comes and the (already known to be) abomination fits the fan.

Don’t doubt I have seen numerous examples of the worst of the worst,in glorified rat holes and upstairs fire trap garrets / in buildings ready for condemning /week after week in past times. One delightful first night,I watched a actor (doing an experimental one man show – what else) apparently being so pissed off over something: he tore up and made a huge sea of newspapers,then promptly lit the lot. In 30 seconds the entire stage was fully ablaze. All that was left, was for belated attendants to frantically run down the aisles with fire extinguishers. Blazing paper floating / being blown out into the audience space. Apparently: in regard to the public safety fire laws ‘F…. them’ was the attitude. This was another piece of ‘experimental theater, folks’! I assume he wished to reveal he was in fact a pyromaniac,as well!!!

Oh finally Cocky Kurwenal…this matter was completely hushed up and charges never laid,though I never heard of the actor ever again.I would not be surprised his ‘second night’ was spent playing in a strait jacket for a different audience.