UPDATE: The results are in, and the topic for this afternoon’s chat session will be Maria Stuarda.  Please look after the jump for details.La Cieca (left) invites you to listen to the broadcast beginning at 1:00 pm EDT on the BBCiPlayer or else check the Operacast page for more options.

Mary Stuart: Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
Queen Elizabeth: Antonia Cifrone (soprano)
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester: Bülent Bezdüz (tenor)
Sir William Cecil: David Kempster (baritone)
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury: Frédéric Bourreau (bass)
Hannah Kennedy: Michelle Walton (soprano)

Orchestra and Chorus of Opera North conducted by Guido Johannes Rumstadt.

The live chat will be, as always, at La Casa della Cieca.

The libretto.

PREVIOUSLY: It was the perhaps aptly named Cleveland Bent (1866-1954) who described the song of the bobolink as “a bubbling delirium of ecstatic music that flows from the gifted throat of the bird like sparkling champagne.” La Cieca could not improve upon that description as it applies to the latest outpouring of the gifted throat of our own drunken songbird, BETSY_ANN_BOBOLINK. For it is she (pictured above, just over Tippi Hedren‘s left shoulder) who has nominated the operas for this week’s vote on our Saturday chat.

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For more information on casting, times, etc. please see the invaluable Operacast.