Rome (if you want to)
Everybody loves an orgy. But, in the words of Betsy Ann Bobolink (pictured), “a really good orgy takes preparation, and I don’t mean Preparation H.”
Our Betsy continues (discussing, I mean) after the jump.
Betsy continues:
Length is important.
And it should include something no one has ever done before.
Timing is critical.
But at least we have a place.
The La Cieca Chat Room will be open this weekend for virtually non-stop opera listening and verbal mauling coinciding with the Free Trial of the Met Player.
We need to set specific times and specific operas, and I am soliciting input from everyone. Go to the MetPlayer index where you can browse through the list of nearly 300 archive items and let me know what you would like to have on the schedule.
More importantly, suggest a time slot. This event should be convenient for the Antipodes folks and the Europeans as well as the New Yorkers and Left Coasters.
Make your suggestions either as a reply to this post, or to House Of Bobolink. I’ll collate all the responses and work out a schedule.
I’m so excited; I haven’t been to an orgy in years. Let’s see, what should I wear?
Wow, this is exciting! Love your photo – coincides with the color scheme of the ladies at the US Open who are wearing Adidas tennis wear, everything except the tiara which I guess inhibits their tennis play.
anyhoo, I vote for the BARBER 2007 with Peter Mattei, etc. 10:00 AM Saturday morning.
that’s 10:00 AM Arizona Time because we are different here in Arizona (it happens to be the same as left coast time this time of year)
Not forgetting
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tr85p
….not sure this will be broadcast in the US though.
Nice picture, Betsy – a little work needed on those pesky bingo wings.
Shame Katie Derham is presenting that Rigoletto. She will spend her time patronising the audience and pronouncing all those funny foreign names with the same schoolgirl accent.
Thank you for the link. The BBC is always exceptional at providing the response that the video broadcast is not available outside of the UK, though I haven’t checked it just to be sure.
“Betsy continues: Length is important.”
Don’t forget thickness!
[Sorry, that was just too easy ... ]
. . . as long as it isn’t mere spinning.
And no one is following the live on location Rigoletto? Does anyone even know how to get it on the web from the US?
Yes, I vote for the Domingo Rigoletto if someone (anyone!) can tell me how to watch this live “worldwide” event in the U.S.
The MET Player is free this weekend??
Betsy, are there any performances on Met player that have not already been broadcast on Sirius?
Hi Petey, sweetie, If there are, I haven’t found them. That makes sense, of course; if you put in the labor to get a broadcast ready for one venue, you might as well stick it in the other.
As a service provide, Met Player has the distinct edge over Sirius-XM in that it provides so many videos. I can imagine that the Sales people have concluded that Gelb’s reading is correct, that video is indeed the wave of the future. Heavens, we can see that in the tenor of the posts on this site, which are much less concerned with how a performance sounds than they are with how it looks.
For me, there’s an ugly little creature lurking in the shadows. If video is where the action is, then sound-only broadcasts will be allowed to languish. Just as electrical recordings put acoustical glories in the dustbin, as vinyl demolished shellac, as stereo rendered monaural outmoded, and as digital supplanted analog, I think we will shortly see a generation of opera-lovers who will no longer tolerate anything they can’t watch. Danielle De Neese will be more relevant than Elisabeth Schumann. (“Who?”, the younger ones are already muttering.)
But, oh woe, rely ye not too much on technology. We are about to lose cherished parts of our history. Not everything from the shellac era made it to vinyl. (I still lament the fact that I threw away a set of 10-inch 78′s of Laurita Melchior singing Scandinavian songs that I have never again seen anywhere.) “New and improved SUPERTAPE” from the 1980′s deteriorated far more rapidly than we were led to believe, so maybe ten years of broadcasts cannot be retrieved. Whole collections transferred to CD are now no more than decorative coasters.
An interesting side note: all the census data from 1970 was placed on a computer format now obsolete and no technology can access it. How ya like THEM apples, historians of the future?
I ain’t done yet. I got a lot more rant to go.
I have a few opera videos at home but I’ve only watched them once or twice. My recordings, I play over and over again. When someone posts a Youtube video, I turn off the picture and just listen to the sound. If someone grows up watching opera exclusively on video, they can never really judge voices. I have no problem with that but it’s a different ballgame and for me it’s all about the singing.
That’s an interesting take, and I don’t doubt that you’re right about most people. Maybe it’s because I’m an odd duck in general, but I usually prefer to listen to recordings and not see them. If I see operas, I prefer to see them live. Maybe it’s because, in general, I don’t like TV (NOT a statement of superiority, I’d just rather do something else). Like peter above, I usually don’t watch the YouTube videos posted, although I will sometimes listen to them.
Wow!
You are soooo right. This is just the sort of problem that will gain attention only AFTER it’s too late to remediate.
BABS:
You should have your own TV show. Sort of like Hints from Heloise crossed with “The Firing Line” crossed with “The View” with just a touch of the Big O to keep you human.
I hope the folks that know you in real life appreciate you, Babsy.
Betsy – which 10 inch of Lauritz did you throw away to transform him into Laurita?
RANT TWO
A RANT ON REPERTOIRE.
I don’t know who makes the decisions or on what bases the decisions are made, but he must be one weird dude and his tastes are not my tastes.
If you go through the Met Player list, you will notice first that it brags that it has almost 300 performances available. That is about 15 per cent of the total Met archive, assuming unrealistically that all broadcasts are still existent. Roughly five of six items you look for will not be there. Look in vain for SLY, CYRANO DE BERGERAC, LAKME, ISLAND GOD, THE LAST SAVAGE, or — totally inexplicably — BORIS GODUNOV and PELLEAS ET MELISANDE. On the other hand, you will find 100 per cent of the broadcasts of LULU, CLEMENZA DI TITO, and IDOMENEO. Search by artist, and you will come up empty-handed for Gilda Cruz-Romo, Ezio Pinza, Alexander Sved, and Daniza Ilitsch. (Okay, I’m on shaky ground, there.)
The point is that I do not sense any commitment to the material. Sirius-XM is not in any position to demand a commitment; despite the recent merger, they are still on the verge of collapse. So it is not surprising that they have not premiered any new operas in eight weeks. If it were not for the weekly live broadcasts during The Met season, one would be better off getting round-the-clock opera from Radiocrazy (Switzerland), KING-FM (Seattle), WETA (Washington DC), or maybe others I don’t know about — and they’re all free. (Contributions are suggested and ethically expected.)
But one would expect more of a commitment from The Met to MetPlayer. I’m willing to guess that labor costs are an issue, in which case I make a modest proposal. Now I consider myself unique, but not unusual, and I would wager that there are at least ten people like me in the New York area who would jump at the chance to volunteer to get some of these broadcasts out to the public while they are still accessible. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of analog-to-digital transfer can do the grunt work; I process about 15 operas a week in between trips to the toilet. I would swear the labor force is there, waiting to be tapped.
Hey, Peter Gelb, you listening?
I hear you Betsy! Although my last name is not Gelb, unfortunately. Do you remember when Sirius started broadcasting the archives? There were so many new performances, you didn’t have time to listen to them all. A few years later, the well seems to have run dry and there’s almost nothing I haven’t heard on their weekly schedule. If it cost me anymore than it did, I’d be out of there. I just don’t think they care. The audience for this station is probably a blip on the radar.
Right on right on! Your rant dovetails nicely with my chronic rant about the dreadfulness of the Met Opera channel on Sirius. Yes, labor costs are an issue, but there are heaps of opera geeks who would would be more than happy to volunteer to provide a curatorial approach, and make programming choices that don’t involve pressing buttons marked “Ian Bostridge” and “Siege of Corinth with Beverly Sills” and walking away.
Speaking of opera geeks in NYC, does anyone know where one would transfer audio tapes to CDs? I have a Salome from Houston that is languishing on tape and I am dying to hear it again. The cassette portion of our stereo crapped out long ago.
And I’m sure I could figure out how to do it myself but I have more money than time and would rather not.
If you don’t mind mailing them away from NYC, cassettes are a piece of cake. I can do them for you and have them back to you in a week and you’ll be out the cost of postage.
Uh, that would be pretty rad, as long as you promise not to spit on them D: (HB singing)
Seriously though, if you’re willing then so am I (where have I said that before??) – my email is my username at gmail dot com.
The performance is from either 1997 or 1998, from Houston, with HB as Salome, Richard Paul Fink as John the headless, Katherine Ciesinski as Herodias, and I can’t remember who the Herod was.
The quality is probably not so great but I would so love to hear it again, if for no other reason than nostalgia. Thank you!! I love you from the bottom of my no-heart.
I feel that video is impossible to cope with, except on a You Tube duration basis. It’s rare that I have two three hours to watch but I can listen while going about my chores.
I was trumped though, when someone said to me. “Well then, don’t look, just listen.”
My experience has been that when I just listen, I don’t much like what I hear. Oh sure, there are exceptions, but . . .
Boy, was I ever wrong in a basic assumption: Not Everything that has been on Sirius is available from Met Player. That absolutely astounds me. Once the work has been done, it would seem to be a button-click away from turning a broadcast into a cash cow — well, a one-teat cash cow but a cash cow nevertheless. Not so.
I’ve been trying to assemble a slate of broadcasts for the upcoming Orgy, and I wanted a few things that I thought would generate violent discussion and even possible bloodshed.
The Ponselle Traviata. Not available.
The Siepi Don Giovanni. Not available.
The Nilsson/Rysanek Elektra. Not available ! ! ! !
The Weltsch Salome. Not available.
No Fanciulla, Frau Ohne Schatten, or Trittico.
Okay, that last one has never been on Sirius either, but I thought , maybe . . .
Even so, I have a tentative list, and I solicit your input.
OTELLO with de los Angeles and del Monaco (What do those people have against capital letters?) March 8, 1958
DON GIOVANNI with London and Steber. February 11, 1959
MANON with Anna Moffo. December 21, 1963
DIE WALKURE with Nilsson, Crespin, and Vickers. March 1, 1969
LA BOHEME (borderline filth) with Gheorghiu and Leech. March 26, 1994
IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA with Mattei is video only, and I’m not sure how it would play on the average computer, but we’ll try. March 24, 2007.
I’m looking for others. Please help. My plan now is to fill three slots each day, but taking a break for the peripatetic Domingo Rigoletto, wherever it materializes, so we need eight operas.
Yes, it looks like the Met Player has only a fraction of what’s on the Sirius broadcasts but I found 3 possible additions for the orgy:
Cav & Pag with Domingo, Troyanos, Stratas
Hansel & Gretel with Von Stade and Blegen (1982)
Barbered Bride with Stratas, Gedda, Vickers (1978)
There’s lots of ranting going on and so let me take a stab at it.
If we’re going to use the free Met player why bother with just listening, particularly in light of the fact that everything and more has been heard on Sirius? (This is not a plug for the Mattei Barbieri by the way, though he is dreamy to look at). I will say that I have seen a lot of BAD opera video on the Met player, and usually Pavarotti is in it.
Two reasons. Our divine hostess of the heavenly-scented bosom sent me a note asking if I’d be interested in throwing this together. I am almost exclusively an audio person so I thought in audio terms. The reactions I got made me start to think in terms of video as well, so there a 50/50 balance in the schedule I’m proposing. If there is a groundswell of popular opinion, I’ll go that way too.
BUT
I’m not sure I can watch streamed video on my computer. Even a 5-minute YouTube goes on endlessly with incessant pauses to re-buffer. Not really absorbing entertainment, right? There just might be others in that same boat, and there should be opportunity for them as well to enjoy the fun, frivolity, and good eats available at a well-planned orgy.
I thought buffering as a problem was over long ago. Shows you what I know.