Tout gai!
In honor of the 40th anniversary of Gay Pride (the 40th official anniversary, anyway) coming up this weekend, La Cieca proposes this week’s YouTube contest theme: “Tout gai!”
Your task is to find and to properly embed a YouTube video exemplifying “Tout gai!”, then append a few sentences explaining why your choice is indeed le plus gai. Allow La Cieca to demonstrate:
We will pass briefly over the obvious camp value of the dragocious interpretation of 18th century costume and stage demeanor (while admitting that Beverly Sills rocks both) and the ornamentation Roland Gagnon madly bedazzles over Handel’s melody; the point here is the gaiety (in the pre-cocksucking sense of the word) with which the singer sails through the music. To me, the deepest loss in the Sills package in her last five years of career wasn’t the wobble or the hardening of the top notes, it was the dimming of her sheer giggling joy in singing. And that’s why I like to remember her at her gayest here.
So, go look for a YouTube clip of your favorite “Tout gai!” moment, and post it in the comments section for this posting, along with your commentary, by midnight on Sunday, June 27. The clip and comment La Cieca judges the best (and her whim is final) will receive a copy of the newly-released DVD The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991: 25th Anniversary at Lincoln Center
Now, gai it up!
A funny and entertaining thread but I much prefer last weeks edition which, it seemed to me, was almost entirely about great singing; no agendas and virtually no negative B.S. Hearing a young Jonas Kaufman was interesting. A different voice from what I hear now.
Tim
What do you expect? You know those gays and their agenda.
I’m surprised no one has listed this one
Yes, there is such a thing as too gay (or gai)!
The answer, Jane, is yes, but not with you
Not that La Cieca is eligible in this competition, but…
My goodness, that’s certainly not your grandmother’s Giovanni, is it? Excuse me, I’ll be on the veranduh.
Uh… I’m going to take a shower now. Save me glass of iced tea, BAB…
Schrott’s bulge alone should qualify as the winner of this competition.
Though my fave is still Joan swinging gayly on a flower swing, I would not object to an honourary mention for the bulge. (Is it getting hot in here? BAB, pass me another glass of iced tea).
YA WANNA DRINK IT, OR WEAR IT?
Honey, both!
In the interests of humanity, I would volunteer to eat his lunch.
What the hell did they stuff in there?
Though it’s serendipity that the poster of the following on Youtube is a Signor Gayosso, this performance immediately occurred to me (especially in the context of the discussion of Norman on another thread) since it’s paradoxically the one in which, to my eye and ear, Norman seems most comfortable and free of affectation, as if her mise-en-scene--by its sheer lunacy--had finally risen to her standard.
httpv://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jessye+norman+marseillaise&aq=f
Woops! Another try:
“her mise-en-scene — by its sheer lunacy — had finally risen to her standard”
hee hee hee!
LaC, you are too clever by half (at least)!
Did they REALLY paint her hands blue?!?!?
LOL. Yes, Jessye was finally in a setting as grand as she.
This is both gay and gai, to my mind -- Je suis gai, soyons gai from La Belle Helene, complete with cheap pun on ‘Culte’, the fact that the lady he has come to steal is rather older than he is, and the fact that he is just having so much fun:
Cocky:
Thanks for this posting… whenever I am ” down in the dumps” ( more ‘n more, lately, it seems…oh, well…)–I rely on viewing this particular production of “Helene” to snap me outta my “blues”…!!
Glad you like it Brooklynpunk, I love this production of La Belle Helene too. I saw it at ENO when it came to the Colliseum, still with Felicity Lott but otherwise a different cast since it was, inevitably, in English, and after the performance I went straight to Tower Records and bought the DVD of the production in French. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve watched it more than any other DVD I own, but I don’t think that would be the case if I hadn’t seen it first in the theatre and enjoyed it so much.
Incidentally, the ‘Culte de Venus’ pun in English became ‘Venus’s cult is full of joy and glee’, a most effective solution, I felt.
And I never could resist Franco in his leather mini-skirt -- he faces the front and looks moody, Cossotto chews the scenery all around him.
I never could resist Franco no matter what he had on (or off, hopefully)–a manly man with high notes–sigh, an opera queen’s dream!
THAT is what opera is all about.
Coscia d’oro per davvero.
Let us not speculate about the metallic properties of other body parts.
Ahh………………!
The glory of dance!
Now THIS is how I like my dance..
One of my friends used to dance the Swan Lake with The Trocs.
I think this can participate, love them.
I believe that’s Waylon Flowers and Madame!
I remember seeing Margo MacGregor who supposedly was the inspiration for Madam sitting in front of the building where she used to live, which is located across the street from Annie’s Paramount Steak House in Washington DC were she was a hostess many years ago.
How could you have all forgotten this one?
Well, I’ve been trying to forget it but haven’t
quite been able to!