Comments on: Thrift

By: chinchilla FUR.Elise

chinchilla FUR.Elise — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:38:27 +0000

[...] As you can see, my friend from Dresden sent me some cash and airfare, so I could log on again. He also sent me a book explaining a different point of view on the Frieda Leider saga. In it, neither Winifred Wagner nor Leider come out too nicely. Winifred was a self-confessed Nazi that no one in their right mind would try to defend. She was a British racist that even the Germans found distasteful, with a genuine love and admiration for the fuehrer, no ifs and buts. To pretend that she saved Jews, as mitigation, and astonishingly “but just not too many”, is as ridiculous as being only a little pregnant. Again the age-old argument of the bully when confronted by a larger righteous authority, “oh I was not really as bad as you say I was, I had a reason”, or failing that “I had mitigating circumstances”. No sale. Funny how one bully tries to defend another bully with the same lame arguments.

Leider also had reasons to write a very melodramatic book, to bring attention once again to a career that had long long ceased to be of any significance. She was unloved in her own country, forgotten and penniless, so she lashes out against the evil du jour, the Russian soldiers that were doing what soldiers have always done in wars, that is looting the newly conquered country, and one especially hated after all the unspeakable crimes that German soldiers had perpetrated in Nazi-occupied Russia (think Stalingrad or Minsk), leaving behind 25 million corpses. It also does seem a bit self-centered and self-righteous for Leider to talk as if what happened to her was uniquely evil, why, it happened to millions of other women in Germany and continues to happen today in all kinds of places, get over it. Being a diva, even a Wagnerian diva, doesn’t make you somehow exempt from what happens to general folk, now does it? Shit happens, and in Germany after 1945, a lot of bad shit happened, ol’right?. [...]

Jack Jikes, sorry to disappoint you this time, the Nabokovian and the Switftian was getting to be too hard to do, what with the vyery rossian accent and all. But thanks for the complements, you are awesome 50 times, as is doberdawg (Schweigen Lippen,kisses to you), BOBO_LINK, you are very witty, and of course manou.

Chinchilla happily just arrived in warmish NYC, eating a Hagen Daasz at the corner of 18th and 8th

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:36:17 +0000

Hmmm. I take 2 hours to listen to June Anderson as Violetta on Sirius and I miss something here. But if it was another slugfest, I’ll catch the next one, I’m sure.

By: rapt

rapt — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:15:31 +0000

Thanks, Cieca, for sparing us this slugfest!

By: manou

manou — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 21:49:46 +0000

[redacted: comment to which this refers has been deleted.]

By: La Cieca

La Cieca — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:35:46 +0000

El con d’or pasa.

By: manou

manou — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:20:09 +0000

Let us look no further for Le Mot du Jour – “faire caca dans votre bouche” cannot be surpassed.

By: mrsjohnclaggart

mrsjohnclaggart — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:08:31 +0000

On the contrary, amerjaquino, the comment by that “con d’or” was specifically aimed at me, as is the supposedly amusing follow up. I repeat, madame, faire caca dans votre bouche, idiot, avec l’autre gens de merde ici.

By: manou

manou — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:37:06 +0000

“Ah qu’en termes galants ces choses la sont mises”…

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:32:01 +0000

And apparently she has gotten to the big time too:

By: Lindoro Almaviva

Lindoro Almaviva — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:28:06 +0000

She certainly has the guts.

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:18:27 +0000

I presumed Manou was talking generally, rather than about any specific poster. Torrents of invective are fairly common round these parts.

By: rapt

rapt — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:52:32 +0000

Considering context in making a judgment–a revolutionary concept!

By: manou

manou — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:36:31 +0000

I am sorry to disagree with such an august personage, but as the resident French pédant, I must absolutely refute that “comique” means “play”. I was always told that “opera comique`” came from the name of the theatre where this genre was first performed. This theatre is still extant :

http://www.opera-comique.com

I now tremulously await the torrent of invective.

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:55:22 +0000

Thanks, LP.

By: Lucky Pierre

Lucky Pierre — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:53:37 +0000

forgot to mention, he’s on the new sounds show (in case you want to search it later on their WNYC.org).

By: Lucky Pierre

Lucky Pierre — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:51:50 +0000

boys & girls,

our boy yannick nezet seguin is on WNYC radio right now. i’m sure you can catch it on their website later if you are not listening right now.

By: La marquise de Merteuil

La marquise de Merteuil — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:22:53 +0000

OT: Interesting soprano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-zUrXEcIdA&feature=related

PS: I’m not her or anyone else’s agent

By: CruzSF

CruzSF — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:16:36 +0000

Interesting that referring to Kwieczen as “solid” doesn’t necessarily mean his voice. Clever writer.

By: La Cieca

La Cieca — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:04:17 +0000

In the writer’s defense, she’s doing this for a very general audience who wouldn’t know what “opera comique” means. It seems likely what she means is something like “don’t be misled by that category name; there’s nothing comic about this story.”

By: kashania

kashania — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:55:23 +0000

You have to wonder at critics who can’t even be bothered to do a 10-second google search before writing these things.

By: mrsjohnclaggart

mrsjohnclaggart — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:36:13 +0000

“Though Carmen is categorized as an opera comique, there is very little comedy in this version of Seville” — really stupid. Comique means play. With opera before it, it means play with music. It does not mean funny or comic.