sundry items

arte live web, wishing to keep us all out of the bars, has video of Charpentier's David et Jonathas (Christie, Les Arts Florissants), Marriage of Figaro (Petibon, Ketelson, Byström, Szot, Lindsey), La Finta Giardiniera (Layla Claire), and George Benjamin's Written on Skin, all from Aix; plus Carmen from Lyon (Lo Monaco, Lee) and Don Giovanni from Stuttgart. Tomorrow they add Lully's Phaeton from Beaune, under Christophe Rousset. Update: If you access any of these and get an error message, try going to the "Classique" page and picking from the sidebar menu.

Glyndebourne has its Fairy Queen up till August 7th. That's the Jonathan Kent production with the nsfw bunny scene.

Meanwhile, the Proms continue on BBC Radio 3, and when they're not doing that they're broadcasting from WOMAD this weekend (currently Hugh Masekela and Seth Lakeman).

And of course it's Bayreuth time.

And I haven't even finished watching Les Troyens yet.

Olympics? What?

Arte TV's Weekend of Opera Sloth now archived and available for repeat slothing

Just waiting for them to finish encoding Così, but here are the others:

Ann Hallenberg & Les Talens Lyriques live from Beaune.  You've got 90 days to watch it eleven times a day. Ready? Begin.

La Traviata live from Aix, with Natalie Dessay, Charles Castronovo and Ludovic Tezier.  I liked her, I liked them, I liked the production.  I'll watch it again and then perhaps explain myself.

Acis & Galatea live from Aix.  What's the deal with the wavy arms?  We'll watch the other 80 minutes and no doubt all will be revealed.

A/X-Fest, BoneFest, HellFest

After today's Traviata @ Aix vs Così @ Lyon videocast smackdown, ARTE Live Web's back in business again tomorrow with this and this.  So is this like Festival Deathmatch?  Like Aix won this round, they go head to head against Beaune tomorrow, and the winner goes on to face Apocalyptica @ Hellfest?  My money's on the Hallenberg show, cuz Les Talens Lyriques is \m/  \m/, totally.

Update: Like I said.