parterre box

27 comments

• Harry says:

  Richard; I also believe that the character of Bobby in Company was based on a real life personal friend of Sondheim. A chap who was an airline steward actually called Bobby B…..!
  Jeepers , have I spat chips- when I have seen productions of it (by its direction) , that ‘pulled punches’ trying to avoid the obvious why Bobbie’s ‘not getting married’.

  on October 31, 2009 at 1:31 PM
• Baritenor says:

  Confession time: I actually know and enjoy the work of many of the singers the Vicar keeps promoting. I got into opera through a love of Gilbert and Sullivan (well, Musical Theater, then Gilbert and Sullivan, then Opera), so the first opera singers I knew were British G&S singers like Gillian Knight or Donald Adams, or British singers who, though primarily opera singers, recorded plenty of G&S, like Elizabeth Harwood, Della Jones and Monica Sinclair (both of whom I happen to love). So while the Vicar can get annoying, I see where he’s coming from.

  Oh, and by the way, figaroindy, Gillian Knight never recorded Ruth for the D’Oyly Carte (she did record Little Buttercup, The Duchess of Plaza Toro, The Fairy Queen, Lady Jane and Dame Hannah for them), but there is a DVD of her Ruth from BBC television (with Peter Allen, of all people, as the Pirate King.)

  on October 31, 2009 at 2:36 PM
• Baritenor says:

  Janet Coster, on the other hand…ick.

  on October 31, 2009 at 2:36 PM
• The Vicar of John Wakefield says:

  Coster is a fine London girl who ( alongside Veasey, Johnson, Guy and Finnie) stands among the finest Ebolis of the postwar period.

  on October 31, 2009 at 2:43 PM
• Cocky Kurwenal says:

  Surely, Vicar, Ann Murray, being Irish, is also an unworthy replacement for Felicity Palmer?

  on October 31, 2009 at 2:54 PM
• CruzSF says:

  A Boy and His Diva (misfiled in the archives under “I am divine! I am oblivion!”) makes for interesting reading. It almost feels like a series on queer opera history could be revived. Man, those were the days!

  on October 31, 2009 at 4:25 PM
• CruzSF says:

  If the Vicar could tell us why such-and-such British singer were appropriate to a role or as a replacement for whosit, then I’d find him less annoying. But since all he does is drop a name and run, I presume he is just milking his joke with no interest in informing or discussing. BORING. That’s just MO.

  on October 31, 2009 at 4:30 PM