Happy New Year, Pagans!

Happy Opening Night at the Met, Pagans!

Tune in to tonight's performance of Norma here.



Update: with a cast so awesome it flattened the cat

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."

last night's fun

Tried to embed this but it's a pretty widget with no sound, so here's the link to last night's JDD/LB/LC bel canto concert at Carnegie Hall.

Don Pasquale @ TCE

is now up via ARTE LiveWeb, subtitles in French



or subtitles in German

can't win for losing

So, since it was Take a History-Loving Opera Newbie to OperaMall Night, we did.  I hate to tell you this, O Camera-Ready Opera Stars and the Marketing Departments That Love Them, but History Buff thought everybody on stage looked fat.  Even Keith Miller's abs and Tamara Mumford's wafer-thinness did not escape calumny.  So my advice to the opera world is keep doing the elliptical, yes, it's good for you. But don't kill your voice for the sake of the camera, because people will see what they are expecting to see no matter what you do.  Moreover, O Marketing Departments, a sylph and a sixpack aren't likely to sell the product if Donizetti himself can't. Unless we're talking a literal sixpack. And then it would probably need to be more than one.  (And for the record, I have seen this strategy work for dorm parties and Scandinavian folk music workshops.)

Night of the Snoods

As if anybody who visits here needed reminding, the Met season cranks up with Netrebko's stab at Anna Bolena tomorrow at 6:30.  Free streaming begins here at 6pm via RealPlayer.

post-game addendum: Someday somebody will explain to me why this casting was a good idea.