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.

Latest on Parterre

Comments