BEMF Friday, bit the second

A Boston vignette: Meeting up with the Music Librarian after Buxtehude, and hanging out in the sanctuary of Emmanuel for a bit because she's a Music Librarian on a Mission and has a Mozart score she's supposed to be handing off to a Fortepianist in Need on our way to have lunch at another Thai place with Librarian's SO the Bass Trombonist. Delivery of score made on sidewalk, followed by all too brief discussion of what it's like living with five period keyboard instruments in your apartment plus cats. There's a lot of music in this town.

Lounging & Talking About Music, ep 2: Also talking about cats. And social media's effect on arts presenting. And cats. And the absurdity of the Boston Olympics bid. And music.

Then to First Church, admittedly late for Seattle Historical Arts for Kids' production (slightly adapted) of Alcina, which I knew about not from the BEMF Fringe program but from Twitter (cf reference above to social media convo), where this happened

Please PLEASE support his incredibly wonderful youth opera opportunity however you can! http://t.co/VhS2CsbJAo

— alice coote (@AliceCoote) May 5, 2015

and then this happened

@sasherka FAB story. #done

— Joyce DiDonato (@JoyceDiDonato) May 5, 2015

When I sit down next to the Envoy in the back row, she hands me a note that says Amanda Forsythe is sitting with her kids in the front row. No pressure!

It doesn't seem to faze them. I've come in at Questo il cielo. There's a bunch of extra characters, of whom we've already mentioned Bradamante's lady knight sidekick. Lady Forsizia is particularly eye-catching as she's in full bloom a couple of months out of season. Handel and Ariosto seem engaged in a somewhat Straussian power struggle between opera stage adaptation and source material -- swords are drawn, but we know from the last BEMF (the Almira festival) that Handel had special body armor made from opera scores, so Ariosto's scrappy Italian Renaissance street-fighting ninja skills notwithstanding, I think this eventually ends in a draw.

Working with an orchestra of two violins, cello, theorbo, and harpsichord, the cast gets to sing in both English and Italian, and the English translations actually work well with the music -- "She's a liar, / she'll make you a plant!" sings Oronte. Straightforward but snappy.




This being a production having at its center various manifestations of Girl Power -- Bradamante is also designated as a Lady Knight in the program book, and Oronte, in this version, keeps his disparaging remarks specific to Alcina, thus failing to cast aspersions on all women -- the venue has a certain resonance as well.