Happy Birthday Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Don’t worry: no clips from The Music Lovers to mark the 170th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Instead, after the jump, a treat from the summer of 2009.
Libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky after the play “Kong Renés Datter” by Henrik Hertz
Iolanta: Anna Netrebko
Graf Tristan Vaudémont: Piotr Beczala
René, König der Provence: Mikhail Kit
Robert: Alexei Markov
Ebn-Hakia: Alexander Gergalov
Alméric: Andrei Zorin
Bertrand: Fyodor Kuznetsov
Martha: Natalia Evstafieva
Brigitte: Eleonora Vindau
Laura: Ekaterina Sergeeva
Musical Director: Valery Gergiev
Orchestra and Chorus of the Mariinsky Theater, St. Petersburg
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 2009
Meanwhile, thanks for Iolanta, La C! I’m enjoying it–my first hearing.
And it IS, incidentally, much better than “The Music Lovers!”
I liked Drummer, but I liked Blueboy better. And back when I was chemically enhanced and consequently fearless, I was flown to Palm Springs to be in a Hot Desert Knights video. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), my fearlessness disappeared with my buzz.
And I would soooo rather hear the G&S Iolanthe than then Tchaikovsky Iolanta.
One of the best tunes, one that sticks in my head when most others are, at least temporarily, not recallable is “Bow, bow, ye multitudes and masses.”
In my rather grand opinion, (No Humble bullshit for me) You have very good taste.
Actually it’s:
Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!
Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses,
Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses,
Tantantara! Tzing, boom!
Yep that’s some good Gilbert for you.
Thanks for the correction.
The Sullivan ain’t shabby either!
All who are fairies from the waist down salute him.
Oh, my! That is a pretty picture! I’m going right to the Treasure Island website to check out the salutes.
But don’t change the subject we were talking of Patience, not Iolanthe
What !? Who?! Which ?! Where !? How did Patience get into it? Cox and Box and Bed and Bath, my mind’s a-whirl.
Tantantara! Tzing, boom!
To you!
. . . and that’s Iolanthe. Patience is “Boo to you, Poo poo to you” and the Parterre.com marching song “Soldiers of the Queen.” (I understand there is a groundswell to have us sing “Twenty Love-sick Maidens” every time a new Jonas Kaufmann post appears.)
I don’t have patience for all this Iolanthe talk.
P.S. Tell you twenty love sick maidens that, like French Lick, the City of Brotherly love is not as wild as it sounds.
Iolanthe your criticisms in the order in which they were received, but I’m out today.