Comments on: già la brunch è preparata

By: mrmyster

mrmyster — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:06:46 +0000

Suggests to me two males just coming out of
the sixty-nine position, possibly to rest before
joining the rest of the cast for Swan Lake?
You can just never tell about these Brit boys.
Don’t forget Archie Bunker’s immortal line:
‘England ain’t a kingdom, it’s a fagdom!’
These comments are not meant in any way
to be disapproving, I hasten to add. I am
still a bit rattled by the news of Sarah Palin.
She just might be a wonderful replacement
for Margaret Juntwait. Especially when it comes
to Russian opera.

By: kashania

kashania — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:53:54 +0000

Sanford: I think you’re right. I got my right and left mixed up (clearly the photo has caused me to lose my bearings).

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:21:39 +0000

Me too -Ed. It even seems the wrong tone and hairiness to me. There’s at least one extra member in those sheets.

By: -Ed.

-Ed. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:05:54 +0000

But isn’t the angle wrong, Sanford? The muffin would need another leg joint for that to be his own right leg. I’m still thinking “Là ci darem il piede”.

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:53:10 +0000

Just ran a check on Bourne’s boys: they’re still at it, the swan is taking its time with its song and dance.

http://www.sadlerswells.com/show/Matthew-Bournes-Swan-Lake-09

By: Sanford

Sanford — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:09:10 +0000

Finally, the Don Giovanni for Teddy Tahu Rhodes!

Left buttock, right leg.

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:44:47 +0000

More Gay gay gay gay gay stuff: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6625256.ece

A week away from It. I tremble.

By: -Ed.

-Ed. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:18:32 +0000

Hmmm… I don’t think so kashania. If it were his left leg, we would see his left hip bending towards us.

Oh fuck! It’s someone else’s leg! Now I feel silly. The muffin is Gay Don, and he is eyeing his latest conquest’s feet. A larger frame would show Gay Don’s feet by the other man’s face, right? Since there are still sheets on the bed I’m guessing the night is young and the toes are still dry, my god those Brits go right for the fancy stuff don’t they.

By: kashania

kashania — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:39:58 +0000

Ed: I thought the same thing but then realised that we only see the right buttock. The leg is the left one!

By: -Ed.

-Ed. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:01:49 +0000

Doesn’t the muffin’s right leg seem oddly out of place in the pic?

By: iltenoredigrazia

iltenoredigrazia — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:21:20 +0000

I agree that, as long as it is clearly billed as an adaption based on the original Da Ponte libretto and with music by Mozart, something interesting or amusing may come out of it. And it probably can be done seriously, not as slapstick or a joke.

I’ve often thought that Boheme offers a perfect gay plot. Two guys meet and go to bed the same night? Been done before. One is promiscuos and the other one is jealous. A friend is a drag queen. They are artistic, poor and share apartments. It ends tragically. What else is new? Musetta’s and Mimi’s music could easily be adapted for tenor voices.

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:39:51 +0000

Yeah Kashania, good point, and one apparently missed by Lydia Language re Pina Bausch’s Bluebeard, clearly billed as a reworking and not the original.

By: kashania

kashania — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:33:49 +0000

One thing I will give this project is that it’s truthfully billing itself as an adaptation. The score and libretto are being reworked to create a new take. Chances are that the end result will be forgettable and forgotten. But at least it’s not a director completely changing the opera while presenting it strictly as Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

I feel that great masterworks can inspire all kinds of updates and adaptations, so long as the production is truthful in presenting the piece as a new work — a piece inspired by Mozart’s masterpiece.

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:28:39 +0000

Cencic as Elvira.

By: Tamerlano

Tamerlano — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:26:16 +0000

I think this would be a lot more interesting if the ladies were played by men, as ladies. I would love to hear what some good sopranistas could do with the roles…Jaroussky as Donna Anna? why not?

By: xiaoming

xiaoming — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:54:55 +0000

La ci darem la testa.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:59:59 +0000

I always thought Matthew Bourne had a very elegant answer to the gender question. He was asked ‘Why did you use men in the corps de ballet? They’re supposed to be women’ and he smiled and said ‘They’re supposed to be swans’.

The Gay Don doesn’t look too encouraging. Although Ranjit Bolt’s a good and respectable writer, so all hope isn’t lost.

By: Krunoslav

Krunoslav — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:11:52 +0000

“some balletic equivalent of madame Gruberova.”

Wouldn’t that have been Karin von Aroldingen?

By: hab mirs gelobt

hab mirs gelobt — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:02:05 +0000

i defo know where i will NOT be going on saturday!

By: Buster

Buster — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:42:40 +0000

This reminds me of last year’s Donna Giovanna – aweful:

http://www.davidlevimusic.com/bio.html

By: Condanna O Screater

Condanna O Screater — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:27:41 +0000

I’m not sure about the Gay Swan Lake being completely dead yet. I saw it in London only a couple of seasons back. Mildly amusing. Perhaps the success of Billy Elliot will make it drag out its sorry existence way beyond its best-by date, like some balletic equivalent of madame Gruberova.

By: ellerveira

ellerveira — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:21:42 +0000

Yeah the gay Swan Lake has died away completely, as far as I know. Good riddance. Perhaps this kind of thing has to happen once, as a kind of innoculation against it ever happening again.

By: The Vicar of John Wakefield

The Vicar of John Wakefield — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:21:42 +0000

Surely the Met will come to its senses and send on Elizabeth Whitehouse and that Michaels-Moore chap in place of those absurd Finns.

By: Lydia Language

Lydia Language — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:27:20 +0000

The Met’s godawful production of Fidelio looks far better on small screen, so you’re lucky, Florezrocks. The cameras are carefully focused to avoid the many inanities of the staging.

No one is excited about Mattila’s Tosca. We all hope she gets it out of her system and returns to fach as soon as she can.

By: florezrocks

florezrocks — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:37:03 +0000

That’s gross.
In other news: just watched “Fidelio” from the MET (DVD) with Karita Mattila, Rene Pape, and Ben Heppner. WONDERFUL – Mattila is fearless. Check it out if you haven’t already seen it.

Who’se excited for Mattila Tosca?

By: mrmyster

mrmyster — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:17:55 +0000

There have been many (serious) suggestions that Don Giovanni is a repressed homosexual his exploitation of women nothing more than a displacement of what he wants to do with men – maybe Daddy! Nothing new there. But it is so much more interesting if left inexplicit.
So yes, Scott, Mozart wept; me too!
“Cry Me a River!”

By: Scott Rose

Scott Rose — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:44:22 +0000

Mozart wept.

By: -Ed.

-Ed. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:37:26 +0000

So… instead of dragging him into hell, the Commendatore drags The Gay Don into a Slim Whitman concert?

By: manou

manou — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:28:29 +0000

Dong Giovanni

By: La Cieca

La Cieca — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:30:03 +0000

9. “But, but, but… since Tuesday, a thousand three.”