Io non sono che un critico

he/they | an animated gnome of a boy

[supercantaloupe]

this is what the experience of seeing good theater should be like i think

[parmandil]

the double take I just did when accessing RaiPlay for the Carsen Antigone and seeing it actually load and play rather than giving me a fucking geoblocked message

[parmandil]

they're doing this for me only <3

[parmandil]

#mightaswellhappen!!!!!!!

[parmandil]

one loves to see the evil the Herrmanns were doing in the 80s

[parmandil]

the great thing about performing seria in the 21st century is that you have a text and dramaturgy guided entirely by 18th century ideals of courtly etiquette, getting translated into and reworked by contemporary sensibilities and approach to stage physicality. that is to say there's nothing outrageous in Deh se piacer mi vuoi in itself – it's a very clever character moment as an exercise of power in a no-longer-private setting, so Annio's presence is not just warranted to maintain dramatic flow but necessary for the aria to work as it is. but then we arrive to the 2000s and new ideas of what you're allowed to do onstage and Annio has about ten seconds of taking cover before there's five minutes of heavy petting involving his good friend that he has to make sure not to witness

[parmandil]

Agneta Eichenholz as Cinna in Lucio Silla. Copenhagen, 2008. (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

[parmandil]

Vitellia to Cinna is such a beautiful career arc. nothing but respect for #MY expert Roman political manipulators

[mariacallous]

good morning fellow satanic Westerners who have rejected moral norms, turned away from traditional and religious values, offering widespread sex-change operations and woke culture and gender ideology monstrous experiments to break souls

[parmandil]

loudly giggling as ever

[parmandil]

oh NOW we can stream the Bartoli vanity project du jour

[kragehund-est]

problematic rage gap. one partner tries to bring nuance and understanding to a tough situation. the other wants to blow up the earth about it.

[parmandil]

Russomanno and Enkhbat locked into that Verona Traviata batting a fucking thousand vocally meanwhile the staging is fucking arena clown show on steroids

[parmandil]

Francesca Pia Vitale and Yulia Vakula in Andrea Bernard's production of Rossini's Tancredi. Festival Valle d'Itria, 2025. (Photo: Clarissa Lapolla)

[libationbearers]

the sexiest thing a man can be is only an extension of someone else. the sexiest thing a woman can be is angry. this is true

[feignedremote]

Most of Vernon Lee’s friendships were female and, on her part, rather obsessive, although they were, it seems, based entirely on a communion of intellects, which means that hers overwhelmed the intellects of those friends. When she found out that one of them was getting married to a man whom she had met only three times, she suffered a nervous collapse which was only the first in a series of such attacks that would last until her death. Another friend said that when she saw her for the first time, she felt like the Virgin before the Angel of the Annunciation. Vernon Lee must have been entirely asexual: she certainly never married and there was no mention of any love affair, and she was quite clear on the subject: “Loving people in the way of being willing to do anything for them is intolerable to me. I cannot like, or love, at the expense of having my skin rubbed off. I can do without people. I find it more comfortable to do without them.”

Javier Marías, Written Lives, trans. Margaret Jull Costa

[parmandil]

ok my apologies to our esteemed neighbours I didn't know you guys were moving like this

[diana-andraste]

Illumination from the manuscript "Le Livre nommé Fleur de vertu", 16th century

Bibliothèque nationale de France