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!
How can we not include these gay-gay-gay gems? Of course, they’re from Maestro Wenarto! It’s so hard to select three, let alone one, but here goes!
Gay:
Gayer:
Gayest?:
My non-operatic entry. Self-explanatory really.
and much gayer:
Several members of the audience died that evening, turned into sad little piles of ashes by Dame Judy’s death ray stares
Judi Dench morphing Baby Jane, without ‘letting go’.
I’m speechless!
Is that Anthony Tommasini with her?
Must be; he’s strapping.
Budding SA recruit
I don’t know if this meets this contest’s definition of gay, but this clip brings me to tears, tears of pure joy, the type of joy that only elevated artistry can bring:
And to get some more flavor of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”, here’s another fabulous, lovely and gay clip, non operatic this time but highly musical nonetheless:
I love Priscilla too and view it often to “brighten” my day.
What is even campier in many ways is the same director’s next film ‘Welcome to Woop Woop’. It is still a mystery to me how the film was allowed to use the whole Rodgers & Hammerstein Songbook and send them up, stupid. Just take the scenes of ‘producing dog food with chain saws on kangeroos’,then shoveling the slop into cans against the song ‘Happy Talk’, or the song ‘You Will Never Walk Alone’ used for the gala crowd parade funeral of the town’s farting matriarch. AS she is carried on a dais -going to be cremated up on the yearly rubbish tip bonfire on the mountainous piles of the town’s rubbish.
That film is pure mind blowing cool….glad I own the DVD. I love watching rather staid minded friends ‘ go white’ if I show them the film.
No wonder as related by its director: a big Hollywood studio, requested a copy of the film , thinking they had another box office ‘Priscilla’ on their hands….then ‘piss weak’ ,refused to take any of his further calls.
God1 “Welcome to Woop Woop.” One of my all-time great something or others. And not just for the erstwhile Mr. Applegate, although he figures into the equation.
Ok, I see now that one needn’t hold back. Soo….
First is in two clips -- Diana Damrau’s Zerbinetta. She brings the music back to speech and laughter so well. I tried to find a video to no avail. Got to see her this year for the first time at Carnegie Hall with James Levine. She sang Strauss lieder and then this, and I was HOOKED!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Next:
Ohhh so happy gay!! Infectiously gay!!
Then…
My favorite Glitter and Be Gay
And then… look how CUTE she can be!
Finally:
there are some things so awesome it is to difficult to believe the universe could conspire to create them.
Ah, grazie, so well put!! It is perhaps even harder to conceive of how non-opera-lovers miss out on so many said awesome things!!
Now, if we are talking joieux de vive -gai- I think Bartoli can be set with the best of them.
First the aria Yo que soy contrabandista from the Manuel Garcia opera (or operetta/zarzuela) El poeta calculista. How could you not want to put a throw around your waist and start hitting the floor with your feet? What I like about this rendition is the joy she brings to it. You can see she believes in this material.
but then again, not many can match her Non piu mesta
I want to love her but those weird clicks and pops, I feel sometimes like I’m listening to an east African language
Isn’t Xhosa, from South Africa, the one with the clicks and pops?
I find Bartoli hard to tolerate in any language. She is a circus act.
After years of listening to her I have not come to any conclusion about her. When she is forced to sing something slower, without all the hhhuuuuhhh-huh-huh-huhs she can be quite lovely – if I close my eyes. I propose that she is a diva with, as Dr. Repertoire posted on this site, “no gay friends”. Aside from the crazy eye popping and tourettic jaw movement, those dresses! that hair! Seriously, does she think her concerts are a come-as-your-favourite-Dynasty-character party? she is far too young to wear such hideous 80′s numbers, and she is desperate need of a haircut. Get some Kiehl’s silk groom, girl – and NEVER EVER wear a hair clip to a concert again!
Was JUST gonna post “no gay friends”….
The initial still alone wins the contest for me
OK -- I just want to say = HAPPY GAY PRIDE to all!
and representing the ya know contingent --
with one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard with appropriate womanly passion and badass see through costume -- Janet Baker and Ileana Cortrubas
and for the butchier side of things
God I love this — French Horns and a good looking woman in a suit and tie!
playing with knives -
I think this may be the gayest clip ever, PERFECTION in Diva Crossover:
Perfection indeed.
OMG, I LOVE this clip and even thought of putting it on. I actually get misty as she sings this, its wonderfully heartfelt and the final note, ugh. I can’t really quite queen out enough for this woman.
Thrilling, goose-bump inducing…I have loved this clip for years!
I KNOW…”They are JUST VERY good …FRIENDS….”
..BUT….
Man tits–I love it!
A tad too serious for the gai, gai, gai, theme of this thread; on the other hand, it would be too entirely unfair to bypass ALL of Adès’s Powder Her Face, where even the non-transvestites are so very drag. I was looking for the famous fellatio scene, but YouTube is prudish I guess, so this sunny snippet of the rainbow will have to do: