Clik here to view.
SEARCHING FOR NUMBNESS IN THE ARTS: The average Opera News reader has an...
The average Opera News reader has an income of $323K. Interesting. According to Publisher's Daily in an article dated 8/26 by Eric Sass "Philistine," (sorry Eric, you wrote, publisher), Diane...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Parsifal: Wagner's Secret Gospel
In Parsifal Richard Wagner was massaging his hemorrhoids, whilst resting one cheek on a Cosima embroidered pillow and applying Schopenhauer’s lotionto the throbbing wound within, when he cried,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
THE OBESE, THE GIFTED, THE AUTHENTIC
(Ruggero Leoncavallo)I got to thinking about fat people who create music. That may or may not be because the widder and her poor twin, whose name is around, wanted to compose and are persons of size....
View ArticleClik here to view.
YOU MEAN NORMA IS MUSIC? WHO KNEW?
(Norma jigsaw puzzle, ca. 1928)NORMA: BARTOLI, JO, OSBORN, PETUSSI; La Scintilla, ANTONINI DECCA COMPLETEOne of the most beautiful and moving moments in this remarkable performance occurs as part of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
BLESSED CECILIA, APPEAR IN VISIONS TO ALL MUSICIANS, APPEAR AND INSPIRE
I’ve had the Decca pressing of Norma starring Cecilia Bartoli for more than a week now. I was going to write a review but when I started to do it something else emerged. The Widder has known Miss...
View ArticleClik here to view.
TEBALDI AND FORZA AT LA SCALA '99 PART 11
FORZA AT LA SCALA, PART 11; TEBALDI AND OTHERS. part one is below.Piazza Guastalla, where Renata Tebaldi resided, is a short walk from La Scala. Like most upper-class apartment blocks in Italy, it's...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ADVENTURES AT LA SCALA, A RING SHATTERS
This week had its share of scandal. Tannhäuser in Düsseldorf was literally booed off the stage. What can be known for sure is that the production by Burkhard C. Kosminski focused on Nazis,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Netrebko, Muti Speaks, Trovatore
It's fun to see the necrophiliacs (opera lovers) on various opera lists go on about either how bad Anna Netrebko's aria from Verdi's Macbeth is ("Vieni t'afretta"), or how wonderful it is because she...
View ArticleClik here to view.
MADNESS (1): SCHUMANN, KATE HEPBURN, BRAHMS AND CIPHERS
(pic: Robert Schumann)I, the Widder, thank all who have joined up. Rather brave, it seems to me. Just for info, I am on Facebook as Mrs John Claggart. Ahi! Facebook! Quelle cliché !!! The Widder could...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SIEGFRIED, The HORROR, THE VALKYRIE AGAIN, ALAS, ALSO Gelb, SILLS
After the catastrophically bad Met Siegfried Saturday, April 21, with an unbelievably painful to hear final duet, (and they had their propagandists telling everybody this conductor, Luisi, was great --...
View ArticleClik here to view.
As Callas said about sex ... New Operas Part 2
Fat Callas, Barbieri and ... unknownI just decided on that title to see if I could get some attention. Leo Lerman knew Maria Callas very well socially and has some funny stories about her. He was the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DEATH OR TRANSFIGURATION? (1)
from CROSSING by Matthew Aucoin at A.R.TWhat's needed to renew opera is new operas. The crisis is very real These figures are from Opera America. The "main season...
View ArticleClik here to view.
AN IMPROVISED REQUIEM
Eric Owens cried openly during the "Schubertiade" presented on March 25 by The Philadelphia Camber Music Society in the intimate Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center.He burst into tears during Fahrt...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Callas Crazies
THE CALLAS CRAZIESDecember the second was the ninety first birthday of poor Maria Callas. It was also the anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock and his bride and life long assistant, Alma. Who, I wonder made...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ANNA MOFFO
I'm going to write what I know, for the hell of it. She was a wonderful person, right to the end of a protracted, gruesomely painful fight with cancer. Even at the end she answered fan mail (there was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
OPERA NEWS AND THE ARTS ARMAGEDDON
Reading about opera has been discouraging. It seems that many people who comment on the Opera 'Net don't understand reality. They don't know the difference between not-for-profit (as the Met is) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
NEW YEARS EVE 2013
I am sorry not to have been more active this last month. Some of it I blame on my Siamese Twin (we are pictured in our comely youth, which alas has fled) who uses the unpronounceable name, Albert...
View ArticleClik here to view.
THREE TENORS; ONE'S BECOME A BARITONE!
The regular release of operatic recitals on CD is long dead. But three tenors -- oh, I'm sorry -- two tenors and someone who says he's a baritone now, have recent releases: Jonas Kaufmann, currently...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Verdi Tells the Truth
I am sorry to do another Opera Blog. I don’t have to. Saturday the fifth, I saw the Philadelphia Orchestra do the Britten Variations on a Theme of Purcell, and the Mahler Fourth, a symphony I adore –...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Dead City
There’s been a lot of mourning for City Opera. It is dead. Various Pollyannas, mostly idiots, think it will rise from its ashes. But our world is now very different than it was in 1944 when the company...
View Article
