Well, actually, yes, now you do. The New York Times is no longer the only major metropolitan daily whose music critic drools all over opera singers of the masculine persuasion.
La Cieca is delighted to introduce the verbal stylings of David Mermelstein, who apparently is that gay man who has heretofore been trapped inside the body of Tony Tommasini. In The Los Angeles Daily News, Mermelstein gallops out the gate with both guns blazing:
ERWIN SCHROTT IS HOT, HOT, HOT IN L.A. OPERA’S `DON GIOVANNI’
Hear those sighs? Yep, it’s the women of Seville getting the vapors over Mozart’s lady-killing Don Giovanni, once more in residence at L.A. Opera. But it’s also the audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion watching Erwin Schrott, the dishy Uruguayan bass, strut his considerable stuff on stage in that role.
That’s right, there’s a stud on the loose in Mariusz Trelinski’s garish, Cirque du Soleil-like production of Mozart’s great morality tale. We’ve been here before, of course, back in 2003, when Schrott previously strode these boards as the Don. Now he’s bringing sexy back . . . .
Though the production’s rewards start with Schrott — whose richly upholstered bass, sinister good looks and macho-man sensuality make him an ideal Giovanni — they don’t end there.
At this point Mermelstein has a few words to say about Kyle Ketelsen (Leporello) and Charles Castronovo (Don Ottavio) before adding as an afterthought, “If the women make less of an impression, that’s only because the men are so good.”
La Cieca invites her cher public to forward further examples of The Art of Homoerotic Reverie, though she is sure you will not find it easy to top Mr. Mermelstein.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
