Category Opera
This is what happens
Possibly as a result of jet lag and having slept roughly 15 of the past 24 hours, I am currently wide awake in front of my computer with credit card in hand and BBC coverage of the upcoming UK elections on mute in the background. I may have just purchased tickets to see Harry Potter […]
Opera and people-watching and dinner in East London
Had I known how much I would like Kew Gardens, I might have planned to spend most of the day there. But I hadn’t known and had already made plans to see a matinee performance of Madama Butterfly at the English National Opera. I headed back into town in search of the opera house and some lunch. […]
New York – New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Eve was the piece de resistance of our trip, the day that we had all been waiting for. And so naturally we stayed up until 2am the night before and woke up groggy and a little bit out of sorts. That was okay, though, because all the action wouldn’t start until the evening […]
Opera weekend! Eugene Onegin
Call me crazy and extravagant, but sometimes you just have to set aside a weekend and go to New York to see an opera at the Metropolitan Opera. Clear back in March, I bought tickets with some friends to see the new production of Eugene Onegin that the Met rolled out to kick off the 2013-14 season. […]
Night at the opera
Last fall, the Washington National Opera announced that it would be opening its 2013-14 season with a production of Tristan und Isolde, with Deborah Voigt (a major opera star and one of the leading Wagnerian sopranoes) singing Isolde. I marked my calendar for the day that tickets went on sale, called all my opera-going friends, and figuratively camped […]
New York – Trojans and a hot tin roof
I. How do you survive a five-and-a-half hour opera? By eating a hearty breakfast immediately beforehand . . . Quiche lorraine, Greek yogurt with rawnola (a.k.a. birdseed)with a side of Victor Hugo and by sneaking a handful of granola bars into the opera house to be eaten during the third intermission. It was odd to […]
Encore
Guess what I just found? A recording of Juan Diego Florez’s encore performance on Saturday! No video, but you get the first time through, the wild applause, and then the encore.
New York – Love Potions and Sign Language
L’Elisir d’Amore The whole point of coming to New York this weekend was to see Juan Diego Florez sing the role of Nemorino in the Metropolitan Opera’s production of L’Elisir d’Amore. It’s a popular bel canto opera by Donizetti that tells the tale of a lovelorn country boy who would do anything to catch the […]
Wagner and the anatomy of the heart
Grandpa Davis — who found his calling in life as a radiologist — likes to joke about peering into the black-and-white world of x-rays in search of the colloquial “cockles of the heart.” As far as I know, he never found them. I’m starting to think that x-rays may not be the right place for the secrets of […]
Hojotoho!
That is what the Valkyries say during their famous ride. (Query whether “Geronimo” isn’t a better war cry.) Today was the live broadcast of the Met Opera’s new production of Die Walkure, the second installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. The performance was supposed to start at 12:00, so I got to the theater at 11:00am to camp […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 