scattershot funfacts of wiki

"The Lady of the Lake is a narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, first published in 1810. ...Its influence is indirect: Schubert's Ellens Dritter Gesang (later adapted to use the full lyrics of the Latin Ave Maria), Rossini's La Donna del Lago (1819), the Ku Klux Klan custom of cross burning, the last name of the U.S. abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and the song "Hail to the Chief", were all inspired by the poem."

"Scotland is not for the squeamish": La Donna del Lago Encore at OperaMall Millionplex

So, let me get this straight:

There's the first guy, a complete stranger whom she invites hame tae her wee croft cuz she's leal like that, and he proceeds to get all up in her personal space the whole time he's there except when her chica Albina is ostentatiously waving a wedding veil and then resorting to the Death Ray (both utterly ineffectual due to his self-evident density supernatural yet unseen Jacobean aura).*

Then there's the second guy, her main squeeze as it happens, who finds the lady not at home, but whose default mode when she's not there is apparently to raid the liquor cabinet...question mark mark mark

Then there's the third guy, who has weird, hairy friends who like to gather on hilltops at night to tub-thump and, uh, burn crosses, yeah... I can understand her being least enthusiastic about that one. With a subset that is evidently into shrooms, interpretive dance, and woad. (Not as cool as it sounds.)

Okay, go with the second guy if you have to, at least he has the benefit of being a girl, but I have to say, given these options, the obvious choice is to blow town with chica Albina and go start a B&B in the Hebrides.

*Can we just point out that if this were another Walter Scott-based gig, say Heart of Midlothian: the Opera, her girlfriends would already be making up scurrilous traditional songs about her around the fulling table by the next scene.

You all know by now the singing was brilliant, of course it was. And since that's really all this opera is about, everything else, even King Giacomo's soulful disquisition on love in the presence of heads on pikes, is just gravy.

event horizon

Whatever one may think of the Met's newly-announced 2015-2016 season, we do believe it's the most bel canto season in living memory.

heids up

Sharpen your claymores, bairnies, the Met premiere (no really) of La Donna del Lago, with JDD, JDF, and Daniela Barcellona livestreams tonight at 8pm ET at the usual place.

sundry items of livestreaming

Via La Cieca, Whitebox Art Center will be video streaming its Alcina performance/installation tonight and tomorrow (9/20 & 21) at 7pm Eastern.

Indiana University Jacobs School of Music has started its video streaming of student performances this weekend with L'Italiana in Algeri. Tonight's performance starts at 8pm Eastern.

And of course the Met season begins on Monday with Richard Eyre's new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, audio streaming on SiriusXM and from the Met's website, festivities beginning at 5:45pm Eastern, followed by SiriusXM-only webcasts of Boheme on Tuesday and Macbeth on Wednesday.

Off to the races...