Better off dead Better off dead

I have a horrible confession. I’ve always judged the quality of an opera largely on the number of dead characters at the finale.

Sorry/Ungrateful Sorry/Ungrateful

Katrina Lenk’s Bobbie dutifully channels an assertive, contemporary, sexually confident female persona, but it doesn’t feel fully realized or convincing.

Crate expectations Crate expectations

Not a few eyebrows arched on social media when L.A. Opera appropriated the hashtag “Fight like a girl” on street level poster adverts all over town for the revival of their 2013 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca. 

Brits blow it again

A drag queen friend of La Cieca’s — long before she was La Cieca — used to have an expression she to describe the terminally inept. The queen would say, “That guy could screw up a blowjob.” By which she meant, of course, receiving a blowjob, i.e., just sitting there, or standing there or whatever.