Quotidian chat
Betsy Ann Bobolink (not pictured) bellowed: “Attention K-Mart shoppers! Under the flashing blue light in Aisle Five we’re having a total closeout of items from America’s least-popular art form. Yes, that’s right! OPERA has been marked down, down, down to rock-bottom below-our-cost prices.”
Just five items left. Five! Count ‘em, five. That’s the number of legs on a dog who has one more leg than most dogs have. Five!
Looky here, looky here. Are you tired of all the boom-tee boom-tee in Verdi’s Otello? Well, try the teedly-whoonk in Rossini’s version. She may have started out thinking the moor the marryer, but she sure ended up down-in-the-mouth. It starts at 11:00 on LRT Klasika, and stars John Osborn and Anna Caterina Antonucci.
Not your style? Well, so feel your way into this fancy new Mignon. Now here’s a role a certain mezzo should have been a natural for; pity she never Dunn it! It starts at 1:30 on numerous NPR stations. Don’t miss the damn row Diana raises with Filene’s technicoloratura abasement.
Christine Brewer is in full sail in the Albert Not-so-hard-of- Herring from Los Angeles, at 1:00 on the WFMT network. It also has a Shrader so you can safely dispose of your incriminating documents. Plus it’s sung in English! Glad to see that the Angelenos have broken out of their original-language only policy.
A flute! Just think of all the things you can do with a flute. You can blow it. You can fiddle around with it. You can put it places and put your fingers on the holes. We all oughta be mighty happy that Radio Oesterreich has made this Flute available from Salzburg, home of the Salzburg Festival, and also home to a bunch of Salzburgians and a couple of people who could have been Salzburgians but got Trapped.
You know “Largo al factotum,” right? Well, that’s Rossini. You know “Treulich gefuhrt,” right? Well, that’s Wagner. Le nozze di Figaro has marriage and Figaro, but neither of those other things, so it’s marked down to where it’s available only on Radio Tre, which is like Old Dog Tre, but without the extra leg.
Buy now, buy now, chat now before opera is gone completely.
Betsy will House of Bobolink perhaps be able to connect me up with the Salzburg flute at a future time? I hope so since my internet connections are not up to par as I am not at home.
What am i, chopped liver? (oh boo-hoo)
no -- and I emailed you last night dear APT.
Never mind Betsy -- it’s that sequel to the Magic Flute -- I don’t think I care about a sequel to the Magic Flute.
It is a strange-sounding opera. The Queen of the Night gets her two coloratura arias, one per act. They are not very memorable. Papageno’s glockenspeil numbers sound almost the same. It’s as if someone (in 1798?) said, “Let’s create a Magic Flute opera but change the music just enough that we don’t get hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit.”
… and that was a long time before Andrew Lloyd Webber was a little careless after listening carefully to Fanciulla.
Water sports courtesy of Wagner’s FLYING DUTCHMAN in Aisle WETA.org at 2 p.m. Sort of an Olympic homage, coming from London’s ROH with home team gymnast Jeffrey Tate conducting German high diver Anja Kampe and Latvian sailor Egils Silins. mmmmm. . . maestro Silins and water sports. . .mmmmm.
oops. . proceedings start at 1 p.m. sorry.
Betsy Ann, That Flute isn’t that Old Black Magic one. It’s a sequel by a certain Herr von Winter, a slightly older contemporary of our Wolferl.
One wonders if this Mr. de Winter has a Mrs. Danvers hanging around to sort out the Queen of the Night’s undergarments.
Excusez-moi, Madame La Cieca, the chat is hebdomadal and not quotidian.
Something to see as well as to hear: the complete Salzburg Boheme on Youtube:
Grazie tantissimo!!!
Oh, thanks for the Boheme.
I think I am going insane. I thought I saw a recent thread here on parterre with a photo of a decaying auditorium and stage at the start, and thought I would read it later, but now it has disappeared. Either that or I dreamt the whole thing.
Never mind, I found it.
Advice, please, Met experts! I’m in New York from Saturday to Wednesday this week, which coincides nicely with Met tickets going on general sale. I’m taking my mum to see NOZZE and TURANDOT for her birthday in October. I’d like to see TURANDOT from Family Circle but where would be the best place- in terms of both sound and visuals- to sit for NOZZE? Thanks.
Either way you’re subjecting your mum to something potentially traumatic:
http://tinyurl.com/7sd33x4
Well, look at that. I owe me money…
(Actually, it’s Kovalevska that I’m hoping will cancel. Would love to see Hong)
Kovalevska was a nightmare Contessa in Wien this past June. Dry, unappealing Olivero-like sound, terrible breath control, choppy phrasing, ditzy portrayal excecuted with maximum amount of upstaging. I saw 2 performances and was shocked she wasn’t booed. But Mozart always packs in the tourists at the Staatsoper. She stood out like a sore thumb amidst the excellence of Pisaroni, Kurzak, Finley and a young Italian mezzo named Serena Malfi as Cherubino. You will be hearing a lot more from her.
I saw Kovalevska as Liu and almost demanded my money back. Completely uninvolved voice with, as you said, very suspect breath control (she yelped the final note of Signore Ascolta like Nadja Michael in the sleepwalking scene)
Wow! The female cast in that Met Nozze is something else altogether: Kovalevska, Erdmann, Schäfer. I have just realized it!
Nothing wrong with Schäfer as Cherubino except, I guess, her age. And I have hopes for Erdman based on her Salzburg ZAIDE- maybe the Zerlina was a blip? But I saw the same Kovalevska Liu as la vociaccia and was similarly underwhelmed.
Anyhow, there’s a performance on my mother’s 74th birthday and it’s her favourite opera and she’s never been to NYC, so it’s kind of a no brainer.
*subliminally sends HONG HONG HONG HONG HONG message into the ether*
I just listened to Kovalevska sing Mimi’s Act I aria (Met) on youtube and she sounded quite nice there. But, that was a few years ago.
Is she really that bad now?
@ Clita
She’s about the same, and her Mimi isn’t too bad. I still wouldn’t pay to see her. Hong, on the other hand, has never disappointed. I saw the latter as Liu a decade ago and it was a beautiful experience.
Nothing wrong with Schäfer, just utterly bland (at least to my ears). Here is another name to add to the long list of bland…
Armerjacq—I don’t know wht your pocketbook can afford but it might be nice to treat your Mum to a parterre side box view. That way she will actually see the action, which is important with Nozze.
Don’t neglect the Mostly Mozart festival taking place this week and please do note that aside from the heat, the air quality has been poor these last few days so take care.
Thank you for all this advice! I was over in the ridiculous heatwave last July, so I’ve taken all that NYC can throw at me heatwise- I took a photo of the digital clock/thermometer opposite Radio City showing 93 degrees at 11pm!
AJ: Whatever you do, don’t see Turandot from the Family Circle. Years ago, I took my sister to see the production with Eva Marton making her return to the Met. Turandot was her favourite opera and she had watched the Met video with Marton/Domingo with me. We couldn’t even see the back of the stage. We could hear the Emperor in second act but not see him. If you mom likes the visual spectacle, move down one level so you can at least see the whole stage. (Whatever one thinks of Zeffirelli, his Turandot is hell of a show!).
kash- I know what you mean, but I’ve seen the production from Family Circle standing and thought the sound, and the perspective offered by the height made up for not being able to see the top of the set/Emperor…but you’ve given me food for thought!
Armer, surely the best place to sit is about 55 years in the past …
So as to get a chance to see Nadine Conner AND Mildred Miller.
Or Emilia Cundari and Shakeh Vartenissian!
DON’T FORGET: Ariadne (with Kaufmann) streamed live from Salzburg starts in about two hours.