Prima la musica, poi le parole

The Sound of Silence

I'm not sure I have anything really to write about but I felt like writing regardless, so here I am. Have bought no new CDs and have seen nothing. Excluding, that is, the music department's student recital yesterday afternoon. Robert Tucker (baritone) doesn't need another Google result, but he can have one anyway because he's very good. He was performing, along with a tenor and two violinists. He started with a couple of arias from Judas Maccabaeus, which was nice: he's about to be one of the soloists when the whole thing is performed in our Town Hall on May 16th. Handel is Handel (well, no, Handel is Händel admittedly) so I'm looking forward to it anyway but it's still good to hear something beforehand. In fact I have Bryn Terfel on DVD singing 'Arm, arm ye brave' but I hadn't made the connection yet.

Really my life, music-wise, is full of upcomings. Judas Maccabaeus on May 16th, something called a 'Choral Spectacular' on May 9th (got free tickets, so why not?), and when our Arts Festival starts (which is about a million years away), we'll have the world premiere (oh yes indeed) of The God Boy, Anthony Ritchie's opera of Ian Cross' book. New Zealand composer, New Zealand novel, etc. And sometime in June the Globe Theatre (Dunedin's cute little theatre-in-a-house, not the real Globe) is doing a season of The Beggar's Opera. So lots to look forward but nothing really happening right now, which I must say is frustrating. And I'm currently parted from my DVD player, so I can't make up for it that way.

I've just recently acquired Bellezza Vocale, a CD of duets by Hei-Kyung Hong and Jennifer Larmore. Which is just stunning, naturally, but...

CD du jour: is an old one.. Cecilia Bartoli: Mozart Portraits. There's been a backlash I know, but this girl really is just sublime. And Mozart is, well, Mozart. Especially good on headphones at high volume (I like it that way at any rate). I never fail to love my Cecilia of course but it's wonderful every now and then to put a CD like this on and be reminded of why. Bellissima.

The saga continues after all

I'm easily pleased perhaps but the one, very very nice, comment I received on my previous post/plea has encouraged me sufficiently to keep writing. I may have to further investigate methods of self-promotion. There's also another factor encouraging me to post: my operatic adventures in New York. I was only there for three days but had three major things planned: Ruth Ann Swenson in recital at the Alice Tully Hall; a backstage tour of the Met; dinner at Caffe Taci (opera restaurant). As it turned out, I only managed to accomplish the third. Ruth Ann, whom I shall forgive on the strength of that fabulous voice, cancelled her recital due to illness. And as we didn't arrive until the weekend, we found we were too late to book places on the backstage tour. Our alternative was to turn up at the place the tour started and see if they had any room for us, but getting up early and risking being disappointed for a second time didn't really appeal.

Caffe Taci, however, was fabulous (and fabulously expensive). They hold opera nights every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and the deal is this: you arrive and are seated at either 9 or 9.30, order your meal, and then at 10pm the opera starts. There's no programme, no introductions or explanations, just aria after aria with the odd piano solo to break it up. And it kept on like this until 1.30am. For the first half of the evening there was a core of about 4 or 5 singers (who are also waiters and waitresses), and then as things progressed there were a few others who also turned up and sang. Just brilliant. The only one whose name I learnt was the excellent soprano Karen Frankenstein; special mention goes also to the very funny tenor with a slight tendency to forget the words.

Ruth Ann cancelling had its benefits, by the way. We couldn't quite face the prospect of leaving New York without having seen something so we went over to the New York City Opera and booked tickets for a matinee performance of Handel's Xerxes. Also excellent. The libretto was a new modern English translation- some purists perhaps mightn't have liked it but I thought it was great, and the programme included an interview with the translator in which he said that most of the funny lines do in fact exist in the Italian- so there. Not a fault to be found as far as I'm concerned. Lisa Saffer was especially good as Atalanta, and Sarah Connolly's Xerxes was just perfect.

Full cast list:
Xerxes Sarah Connolly
Romilda Amy Burton
Arsamene David Walker
Amastre Beth Clayton
Atalanta Lisa Saffer
Ariodate Jake Gardner
Elviro Michael Zegarski

4.5 star rating. (1/2 star off for not being Ruth Ann)

And naturally the trip was a success shopping-wise as well. The Metropolitan Opera gift shop in particular had me feeling like a kid in a candy store. I am now the proud owner of a Turandot t shirt and a 'Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore' t shirt; a photo of my Anna (Moffo) and one of my Cecilia; 2 Anna records (Sings Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini & Verdi and La Serva Padrona by Pergolesi); 3 Anna CDs (a live Traviata, an English Fledermaus (the Amazon samples of which were the original sparks of my Anna Moffo adoration) and a CD with Stokowski of Rachmaninoff, Canteloube et al.) and a highlights CD of James Levine's epic 25th anniversary gala.

And that's everything, I think.Which leaves only...

CD du jour: Great Moments from Die Fledermaus starring Anna Moffo, Richard Lewis and George London. Perhaps not the best of English translations but at least it's not the Ruth and Thomas Martin one, and not only does Anna sing, but she speaks. It's also consistently cheapish (I saw it in New York from $11.99 to $13.99).

I really did have ambitions of making an interesting blog but this even bores me. Would that I could think of something fascinating to write about. Perhaps if I wasn't so lazy- that might help things. But I am about to have an adventure: New York for three days, including a Ruth Ann Swenson recital and a tour of the Met. And dinner at Caffe Taci, if we can get a booking- ringing is difficult when you're in such a wildly different timezone. I'm pretty sure this blog has an audience of zero... if I'm wrong, even slightly, I'd love to know if anyone has any ideas about making a blog which is 1. about opera and 2. interesting. The Maria Callas quest I was going to set out on when I started might have been interesting I suppose but I just can't bring myself to do it. And the others, well, who wants to read about me buying CDs? I don't. Just want to buy them. Perhaps I need a topic. The Pauline Viardot-Garcia Weblog? Well that might be fun but who'd ever search the right words to come across it even by accident.

But if there's even one person out there reading these words, inspire me. I like having a weblog, I just don't like this one.