Dear
BLO followers, musical sophisticates, and opera nuts (aren't these in the
end all the same person?):
I have been asked by my close acquaintance and BLO Artistic Advisor, John Conklin, to return to posting on BLO’s In the Wings and I am glad to do so. I enjoyed our time together in the past, and the beginning of this year's season (La Traviata commences rehearsal this week) seems an opportune moment to restart. And what a season…and what a group of passionate, dramatic characters to get to know (again...or for the first time)! Violetta, Don Giovanni, Tristan and Isolde (OK...Isolt), and Katya (the ultimate desperate housewife).
As in the past, I'll be steering you towards YouTube links that show opera in its most exalted and sometimes most ludicrous aspects (or sometimes both together), but also clips of movies or other theatrical or even pop culture manifestations that relate to the BLO opera (or composer) of the moment. Perhaps there might be links to articles and discussions of issues from the wider field of opera - which is certainly going through a particularly volatile period as the recent tense (even extravagantly operatic) sagas at The Met and in San Diego attest. Fasten your seatbelts...it's going to be an exhilarating ride!
And get your BLO seats for a close-up look at all that passion, all that love (even if sometimes it doesn't actually work out all that well in the end!), all that blazing drama, all that ecstatic music that lifts us way above our often too common life of cellphones and TV and...(well...you fill in the blanks).
Let's go...and to celebrate the beginning of a new season...a toast...Libiamo!
I have been asked by my close acquaintance and BLO Artistic Advisor, John Conklin, to return to posting on BLO’s In the Wings and I am glad to do so. I enjoyed our time together in the past, and the beginning of this year's season (La Traviata commences rehearsal this week) seems an opportune moment to restart. And what a season…and what a group of passionate, dramatic characters to get to know (again...or for the first time)! Violetta, Don Giovanni, Tristan and Isolde (OK...Isolt), and Katya (the ultimate desperate housewife).
As in the past, I'll be steering you towards YouTube links that show opera in its most exalted and sometimes most ludicrous aspects (or sometimes both together), but also clips of movies or other theatrical or even pop culture manifestations that relate to the BLO opera (or composer) of the moment. Perhaps there might be links to articles and discussions of issues from the wider field of opera - which is certainly going through a particularly volatile period as the recent tense (even extravagantly operatic) sagas at The Met and in San Diego attest. Fasten your seatbelts...it's going to be an exhilarating ride!
And get your BLO seats for a close-up look at all that passion, all that love (even if sometimes it doesn't actually work out all that well in the end!), all that blazing drama, all that ecstatic music that lifts us way above our often too common life of cellphones and TV and...(well...you fill in the blanks).
Let's go...and to celebrate the beginning of a new season...a toast...Libiamo!
Music Flashmob of "Libiamo" from Verdi's La Traviata
The Three Tenors - "Libiamo"
Deanna Durbin in "Libiamo"
I
had never come across this lady. Check her out on Wikipedia. There is an opera
just waiting to be written here!
Violetta Villas - "Libiamo"
No comments:
Post a Comment