Don Carlo and the Seamstress

http://doncarloandtheseamstress.com

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“Give me Your Great Soul”: Don Carlos at the Met

“Give me Your Great Soul”: Don Carlos at the Met

“He loved me and we were brothers …Our hearts were bound by eternal oaths…”~Don Carlos, Act IV [SPOILER ALERT: I’ll discuss the plot/ending and some of the directorial choices in this post.] My mom and I recently canceled cross-country travel plans which I had hoped would be something of a renewal in opera sharing and attendance, since this long abyss of Covid began. We had splurged on really…

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Metropolitan Opera | Opera Streams: Weekly Guide (Week 29)

https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/week-29/opera-streams-weekly-guide/

It’s Mozart Week during the Met’s free nightly streams! Forgive the belated post, but it’s not yet too late to catch the Monday night stream of Le Nozze do Figaro, with the absolutely charming Ildar Abdrazakov, and I can’t recommend this production highly enough! The perfect antidote to…

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Metropolitan Opera | Opera Streams: Weekly Guide (Week 28)

https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/week-28/opera-streams-weekly-guide/

It’s Puccini Week over at the Met’s Nightly Streams, beginning with an opera I haven’t seen any version of yet: La Rondine. And this version stars Roberto Alagna and Samuel Ramey! I’m not sure what I’ll make of the opera, but I’m intrigued to give it a try.

Also difficult to resist will…

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A New Group for Fans of John Relyea

A New Group for Fans of John Relyea

My friend Gabriela and I have long thought that he deserved one, so why not create it ourselves? The incomparable Canadian bass John Relyea has been a favorite of ours for years. I recall first hearing his voice on the radio, and wondering: “Who is that?” Along with our dear friend and group admin extraordinaire S. Blake Duncan, we now have the beginnings of a fan group, which I will link to here.

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An opera patchwork: next pieces (and a whole lot of Ferruccio)

An opera patchwork: next pieces (and a whole lot of Ferruccio)

To continue with the second part of my opera patchwork, skimming over a few moments from various recordings I’ve watched and listened to over the past months, here are more highlights, in slightly ordered disorder:

Dons, and Don’ts…

As it happens, my two favorite operas both start with “Don”: Don Carlo(s), and Don Giovanni. (And the opera I have shed most tears over and just recently discovered,…

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Metropolitan Opera | Opera Streams: Weekly Guide (Week 27)

https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/week-27/opera-streams-weekly-guide/

It’s a week of bel canto streaming free from the Metropolitan Opera, and each stream will be available for approximately 24 hours.

Due to work this week, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make most of them, but I definitely want to rewatch I Puritani with the great bass John Relyeathis Friday…

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Jonas Kaufmann: Eine Bilderreise (A Picture Journey)

Jonas Kaufmann: Eine Bilderreise (A Picture Journey)

“That’s what I like about Shakespeare, the pictures.” ~Al Pacino, “Looking for Richard”

This blog post might as well have been titled “…And he can sing, too!” which happens to be another of the joking lines that are often used by my family in relation to the all-around marvel that is Jonas Kaufmann. I finally caved and bought “the picture book,” as I was mentally titling it, having seen the…

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Beauty in Dark Times

Beauty in Dark Times

I know I’m not alone in feeling something of a constant, low-grade “depression” (not to be clinical about it, but for lack of a more accurate word) during what has been a uniquely difficult year for the world.

Countless fires in my home state, Oregon (or is it “Mordoregon”?) ~ one of which started at the north end of my own town, Ashland, this past Tuesday, and caused devastation in its northward…

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"United in life and death": Thoughts on the ROH's haunting Forza

“United in life and death”: Thoughts on the ROH’s haunting Forza

I couldn’t resist jotting some thoughts on my reaction to the recent and much-anticipated Royal Opera House production of La forza del destino, starring Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko, Ludovic Tézier, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, even though I’m not very familiar with this opera. When I first became infatuated with opera, I saw a recording of the Kaufmann/Harteros/Tézier version from Munich of…

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Mixed feelings, and general malaise, about the new Met season (Or: Where is Jonas? John Relyea? Stefan? Rene?)

Mixed feelings, and general malaise, about the new Met season (Or: Where is Jonas? John Relyea? Stefan? Rene?)

Speaking of “malaise,” the general over-work of 2018 has kept me on a restricted opera regimen–and, actually, a restricted regimen of any life outside of work!–having had to miss most of the Met’s HDs and radio broadcasts due to an unaccommodating and unpredictable schedule, and many of the other broadcasts I would love to have seen and heard. I’ve generally been MIA from my favorite opera groups…

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From the Golden West to New York City

I know it has been a long time since I have posted. The sadness after Dima’s death nearly a year ago, followed by a nearly relentlessly unpredictable and busy schedule at work, has made it difficult to finally piece together many different ideas and experiences I’ve been wanting to write about. Notes are scattered in many places, waiting to be utilized!

So this is, essentially, only a brief note…

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Rest in peace, beloved Dima I don't have words right now, and must go to work ~ somehow, eyes red from crying ~ but I just heard the news from a dear friend about the passing of our beloved Dimitri Hvorostovsky.

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On Jonas' "L'Opéra," and Massenet's "Le Cid"

On Jonas’ “L’Opéra,” and Massenet’s “Le Cid”

Poster of Massenet’s “Le Cid,” also featured in “L’Opéra”

I have been listening rather obsessively to Jonas’ most recent album of French repertoire, L’Opéra. (That is, when I’m not obsessively relistening to passages from Don Carlos!) One can see and sample, at the previous link, the arias included in this album, from Gounod to…

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Don Carlos and the Seamstress

Don Carlos and the Seamstress

“Par quelle douce voix, mon âme est ranimée?” / “What sweet voice recalls my soul to life?”

~Don Carlos, Act II

I suppose the title for this final installment of notes from the Don Carlos Adventure was inevitable. (Links to Part One and Part Two, here.) To think: it was just over a year and eight months ago that I first heard the name ~ and the voice ~ of Jonas Kaufmann… 

I’ve been home a week…

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Seeking Peace and Oblivion: Reflections on the Paris “Don Carlos”

Seeking Peace and Oblivion: Reflections on the Paris “Don Carlos”

“Je cherche en vain la paix et l’oubli du passé: De celle qui me fut ravie l’image erre avec moi dans ce cloître glacé!” / “I seek in vain the peace and oblivion of the past! The image of her whom they have stolen from me remains with me in this dread cloister!”

~Don Carlos, Act II

As “Part Two” of my “Don CarlosAdventure,” I wanted to reflect on the production of the opera that brought my…

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The "Three Little Maids" on Tour (a.k.a. The Paris "Don Carlos" Adventure, Part One)

The “Three Little Maids” on Tour (a.k.a. The Paris “Don Carlos” Adventure, Part One)

The night before last, I returned to Oregon a sleepier, more jet-lagged, but completely blissful, girl.

The long-planned “Don Carlos Adventure” consisted of night in London–including a visit to the Royal Opera House–followed by four nights in Paris. The Paris days/nights included four operas: Così fan tutte, The Merry Widow(with opera Hero and my first “Rodrigo,” Thomas Hampson), and two…

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Ensnaring the Soul: Thoughts on ROH’s “Otello,” and its Demi-devil

Ensnaring the Soul: Thoughts on ROH’s “Otello,” and its Demi-devil

I will start by saying that I adore Shakespeare’s Othello, and I’m far more familiar with the play than with Verdi and Boito’s opera. (So, you’ll see various “Othello” versus “Otello” spellings depending on which I’m referring to.) But knowing just enough of this opera to feel both its intensity and its difficulty, I was in as much anticipation as any to hear and see the interpretation of Jonas…

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