Come on, 'fess up, you've gone to the movies and seen the La Scala
opera films, right?

My first one was La Traviata. I thought Gheorguih probably had grounds
for a lawsuit against the the Scala lighting director, but otherwise I
enjoyed it hugely. There was no question that what I was watching was
a limited edition DVD, so it lacked the frisson of seeing a Met
telecast "live" at the Music Hall. (The La Scala flicks are being
shown at the IOKA, a movie theater which local legend says is an
acronym for I Owe Kelly All, Kelly presumably having been the gent who
loaned the money for the startup.)

The IOKA being a New Hampshire venue, and the audience being small
(forty or fifty max), there wasn't any applause until I clapped hands
and then most everyone joined in. The applause at the Music Hall (I
saw the Met R&J and LFdR there) was general, and that too helped a lot
in building the impressin that we were seeing something actually
happening on stage, and not merely a DVD.

I am looking forward to the Met La Boheme, to see if the superior
production values will make La Gheorguih look sweet and young again.

I won't pretend that she's the greatest soprano in the world but she
certainly has a lovely voice and I have never seen any singer looking
so radiantly happy on stage as she did last night.

She looked absolutely gorgeous in an elegant white Grecian-style gown
with diamonds in her hair (which now has red lowlights in it) I got a
couple of good photos so if anyone wants to see them then please e-
mail me privately

She sang "Endless Pleasure" and "Myself I shall adore" from Handel's
Semele - all the time flirting and being delightfully coquettish. She
also did "Lascia ch'io pianga" and acted that too - almost breaking
down in tears at one point. We also got a joyful rendition of the
Mozart "Exsultate Jubilate" which she carried off with enough panache
to cover up a few vocal weaknesses and minor inaccuracies.

Also on the programme was a rather dull and instantly forgettable
Haydn symphony -(no 70) and the Mozart concerto for flute and harp,
with soloists Adam Walker and Sally Pryce. Can't say this piece did
much for me - and the first movement sounded so easy that the young
soloist looked almost embarrassed to be playing it. The middle
movement was pretty though and I actually recognised the tune :-)

The difference(s) between Operetta and Musicals, with an indefinite
point of delineation.... The latter form derives from the former, with
the greatest MT composers' having had training in the older forms,
from which their styles evolved.

Great discussions about it recently, at Opera-L, largely sparked by
the new South Pacific, at Lincoln Center.

That's definitely MT, but requiring (in the best examples) some
Operatic voices; particularly for Emile, whose two solos are about as
Operatic as it gets!

LT

The Chicago Lyric is doing Porgy and Bess next season which brings up the
question when is something an opera and when is it a musical? Is it just
time? Mozart wrote his operas for vaudeville which was his era's tv, it
was low culture at the time but high culture today. Porgy and Bess was
written for Broadway but it's stood the time and it's universally
considered a classic, but is it an Opera?

Here are today's classical music news headlines. Links to these
articles are found at La Scena Musicale Online http://en.scena.org.
The daily news is updated by 9:30 AM PST. Search the database of over
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Editor's Choice

Lang Lang: Overnight sensation now established star, (Chicago Sun-
Times)
Classical music: A fair wage — but those in bigger cities make more,
(Denver Post)
Bridging the gap, part two, (Guardian Unlimited)
The Hard Sell Of New Music, (Hartford Courant)
From Germany, an opera engulfed by shadows of war, (Boston Globe)
Plus More...

2008-07-18

Classical CDs: No sex in the city, but a haunting opera (CD Review,
Donald Rosenberg - The Plain Dealer (Cleveland))
Midori is reshaping collegiate string education (Article, James Reel
- Strings Magazine...