The current BBC Music Magazine http://www.bbcmusicmagazine.com/

offers further proof (if further proof were needed) that Bieito is a pretentious idiot and a fraud. (And remember, I'm the one that LIKES modernism and updating!)

In an interview with Ivan Hewitt in April's BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE, Bieito discusses his production of DON GIOVANNI..and unerringly puts his finger
on precisely what is wrong with it.

Hewitt asks, quite rightly, "What about the class distinctions in Mozart's Opera?" And Bieito replies...
"I'm not interested in class. What's important about the DOn is his charisma. He's an old friend of Leporello, but he dominates him....."

OK, THAT is precisely why Peter Sellers' DON GIOVANNI works and Bieito's doesn't ...because Bieito discounts the element of class.

The interview also discusses the final scene, in which Giovanni is not dragged down to hell; instead Don Ottavio makes them all, including
Leporello, stab him.
To me, this scene bore an unfortunate resemblance to MURDER ON THE ORIENT
EXPRESS....you know the one I mean, where they all did it, but the person they killed was so horrible that Hercule Poirot lets them get away with it.

just needed to get that off my chest!
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This portrait is the famous castrato Farinelli

There is currently an exhibition at Handel House, London, about the castrati who were such a feature of Handel's operas. read the article from the BBC News Magazine!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4853432.stm

This picture shows the historian David Starkey holding one of the instruments used to carry out the operation.

This link should take you to the Home Page of the Handel House Museum.
http://www.handelhouse.org/

(Non-operatic again, but I love this list!)

16. Sits on your newspaper in the morning and carefully reads the coded message that Garfield sends out every day.

1. Somehow, you're now subscribed to "Feline of Fortune" magazine.

http://info.royaloperahouse.org/News/Index.cfm?ccs=971

This information has just been released on the ROH Website. I am delighted that I will get to see The Divine Thomas as Athanael in THAIS.:p (Renee Fleming in the title role!)

Did anyone listen to this yesterday? The presenter (whose name I've forgotten) chose the Chatelet version, conducted by Pappano, as his overall favourite...
which is interesting, because it's my overall favourite too.
What do the rest of you think?

(OK, non-operatic, but what the hell!)

On the first day of creation, God created the Cat.
On the second day, God created Man to serve the Cat.
On the third day, God created all the animals of the earth to serve as potential food for the Cat.
On the fourth day, God created honest toil so that Man could labour for the good of the Cat.
On the fifth day, God created the Sparkle Ball, so that the Cat might or might not play with it.
On the sixth day, God created veterinary science to keep the Cat healthy and the Man broke
On the seventh day, God wished to rest, but She had to clean out the litter-tray.

http://www.threepennyopera.org/

New Threepenny Opera site created by the Kurt Weill Foundation.
Brilliant...I do urge you to visit it!D
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

This was actually a while ago...
Every summer I look after some cats in Finsbury Park. The youngest, Mimi,is so naughty she should really have been called Musetta!:p
When she was a kitten, she used to tear through the house like a small grey tornado... Until one day I put on a video of the Chatelet DON CARLOS...and she was absolutely mesmerised!! She sat in front of the screen for about ten minutes without twitching a whisker.....
Evidently The Divine Thomas has cast his spell over her too!

OK, not precisely operatic, but I thought music-lovers might be interested!
I bought a new phone, and it has ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE ringtones...and the network had about a thousand pop jingles for downloading
I asked some opera-loving friends for advice, and this is what they came up with;

http://www.lsoringtones.co.uk/index.php?l=EN&a=g&g=2&t=all&b=20
This is the LSO, and from them I obtained
(i) The Ride of the Valkyries
(ii) Vaughan Williams FANTASIA ON GREENSLEEVES

And from
http://www.booseytones.com/index.php?l=EN

I got
(i)Peter Maxwell Davies FAREWELL TO STROMNESS
My absolutely FAVOURITE piece of piano music!:p
(ii) A theme from Mahler's 3rd. symphony.

So now I'm happy!
(They only cost £3.00 each, BTW)
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html
A theme

Has anyone else seen this?
What did you think of it?
I must say, I didn't think the production was all that wonderful....there's only so much symbolism you can extract from Soviet cosmonauts in Kazhakstan....when the opera is about the SEA...

And the sailors (cosmonauts) gang-raping the girls was completely inappropriate....

Having said this, I thought Terfel was wonderful...conveying the Dutchman's desperation and weariness even in the way he moved on the stage, the set of his shoulders...:p
Leonora
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html

Here, finally, my review of MACBETH.
Did anyone else see it? What did you think of it?

If you go to
http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/Macbeth.html

you will be able to see a version with graphics.
*******

>
Giuseppe Verdi, MACBETH
> Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Friday 24th. February 2006
>
>
> CAST
> MACBETH: Thomas Hampson
> BANQUO: John Relyea
> LADY MACBETH: Violeta Urmana
> LADY-IN-WAITING: Elizabeth Woolett
> MACDUFF: Joseph Calleja
> MALCOLM: Andrew Stritheran*
> DOCTOR: Robert Gleadow*
> *Jette Parker Young Artists
>
>
> CONDUCTOR: Yakov Kreizberg
> DIRECTOR: Phyllida Lloyd
> LIGHTING: Paule Constable
> CHOREOGRAPHY: Michael Keegan Dolan
>
>
> Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
> ***********
>
>
> A good and exciting performance, which sometimes rose to heights of
> excellence. Yakov Kreizberg favoured a brisk tempo at the opening, which
> perhaps was more expressive of Macbeth's martial valour than of the
> atmosphere of sinister malevolence which should brood over the entire
> work, but the tempo was less brisk during the scenes where a more
> leisurely tempo is important - the Sleepwalking Scene especially.
>
> Thomas Hampson as Macbeth sounded slightly tentative at first, but, as I
> indicated, rose to heights of excellence as the work progressed. Thus he
> wasn't quite confident in conveying the idea of Macbeth as a brave
> soldier and loyal subject, but very effective in conveying the
> disintegration of a mind steeped in crime and not able to draw back. His
> "pieta, rispetto,
> amore" was indeed Shakespearean in tone! His voice is perhaps more lyrical
> than dramatic, but I don't find this a fault. He was well-matched by
> Violeta Urmana's Lady Macbeth, though it has to be
> admitted that, on the night I saw the performance, she couldn't manage the
> high D flat at the end of the Sleepwalking Scene - it's supposed to
> almost fade away into nothingness, but she gave a gulp as she missed the
> note. Still, this was the only fault in an otherwise very convincing
> performance; I was especially impressed with the interaction between her
> and Hampson in the duet after he has committed the murder, not just
> vocally but dramatically as well - his torment when he hears the voice
> saying "Macbeth shall sleep no more", and her indifference to his
> conscience. She was very forceful in the letter scene, and almost
> pitiable in the Sleepwalking Scene. John Relyea has a deep, sonorous bass,
> and delivered Banquo's aria with conviction, and Joseph Calleja made the
> most of "Ah, la paterna mano", which is the tenor's "consolation prize" in
> this opera which concentrates on the baritone and the soprano. The stage in
> Phyllida's Lloyd's uncluttered production was predominantly
> dark, and the shafts of light that occurred at crucial moments were thus
> unexpected and very effective. The witches are dressed in black, with red
> headdresses. Duncan is dressed in gold, and appears at the back of the
> stage on a gold-draped horse.....and this golden appearance is parodied
> by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the Banquet Scene; they look slightly
> ill-at-ease in their new finery, and I wondered if this was a reference to
> Shakespeare clothing imagery; at one point Macbeth, when told he is to
> be Thane of Cawdor, asks "Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?"
> The scene in which Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are visited by children is,
> according to Phyllida Lloyd, a definite reference to Shakespeare; not only
> Macduff's children (who do not appear in the opera), but also to the
> repeated images of barrenness that occur in the play with reference to the
> Macbeths. (Macduff's vengeance can never be complete, because "he has no
> children"). Another coup de theatre occurred as the screens rose to show
> Duncan's
> body, lying on the bed covered in blood - this doesn't usually happen even
> in productions of the play, and it came as a shock. We also see the
> execution of the Thane of Cawdor. To sum up - a good performance,
> musically and dramatically, and also visually effective.
>
> Dr. Jane Susanna ENNIS
> http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/leonora/opera.html
>
>
>
>
>