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!
Gay and NOT filmed in a tv studio!
Filmed gay
Crossover/creepy gay
Dimitri trumps Joan on the swing -- who would have thought!
i have to agree with this one
AND he gives great French.
Valmont, you beat me to it -- I shall have to find another!
I was actually going to submit this in the spirit of Gay Ambivalence Weekend as an example of gay in the sense of “that is so gay.” I sort of like Chenoweth better than I used to but this for me is like big gay nails on a big gay blackboard and no, I don’t know what would make a blackboard gay.
It starts with the smiles that they share. Then come the little ejaculations of “Ah”, each one a mini geyser — sometimes coming together in perfect harmoney. Then one notices the outfits, the red silk draped across Vangelis’s consul, the images projected on the big screen. And finally, the greek (ahem) columns, proudly erect. Oh, and did I mention the orchestration?
I always feel that this was the perfect piece of music for La Battle.
even with all the jaw distortions, she can teach Danielle Denisse a thing or 2 about Handel.
Definitely the perfect drag-a-trois number of all time:
but again, here’s an opportunity of watching those girls when they were fresh at it, 10 years beforehand, in this AMAZING clip
confession : I LOVE Pamela Myers. I guess this makes me VERY gay indeed.
Pam Myers is alive and well and living in Cincinnati. A while back, Sondheim came here to accept an award, and she sang for him. It was a night to remember.
tres gai!
Can’t believe I didn’t think of this one first actually.
La Cieca’s praise of Sills’ “sheer giggling joy in singing” is amply matched here by Caballe.
Plus it was produced by “The Torpedo Twins.”
Are we going for gai or gay? I was a little confused so I picked one that is kind of both.
It’s like a baroque operatic advice column on how to land a man. But what really seals the deal here is how Piau kicks off those slippers. And her parasol twirling is nonpareil!
Dear La Cieca, you picked a fabulous clip to start with!
I haven’t seen anything tout gai-er than this; It’s got camp, kink, and there’s even an Armida tie-in:
Far superior to the early 1960s remake!
Indeed. Before the ravages of drink ripped his voice to shreds, Richard Burton was once hailed as the next Rufus Wainwright.
http://gawker.com/5571805/this-gay-bestiality-ad-is-crazy-even-for-france
I’m simply torn between the Japanese Sopranista Tomotaka Okamoto
and the little boy in liederhosen, Robin Schlotz:
In the first, all one need do is look at his outfit (and that’s just one of many), and the second reminds me of my childhood (or as I like to delude myself to believe it was).
Oops…let’s try that again:
and
I’ve always loved that little kid. How long before he trades this version of Queen of the Night for a Whitney Houston drag, complete with microphone headset.