Various

• I had meant to write something about La bohème but other things happened and I didn't. Anyway, it was fine. It was La bohème. Aldo di Toro was lovely, as always, though I have to say, not as blazingly so as in La traviata; José Carbo as Marcello was in fact the star of the evening. I'm still concerned about Amelia Farrugia's apparently non-existent middle-to-lower register. And I still cannot wait for Antoinette Halloran's Mimi; I know, I know, I put myself at risk with such high expectations, but the risk is what makes it so much fun.
• Is 2008 my year for baritones? I saw La cenerentola last night (review for The Opera Critic forthcoming) and as with Bohème, the baritone — Joshua Bloom — stole the show. And it was a pretty fantastic show anyway, but he was just superb in every way. And is most of the reason I'm planning to see it a couple more times. There's probably a longer, rhapsodic post on him in the offing.
• And excuse me for stating the bleeding obvious, but — Lorraine Hunt Lieberson = perfection. I've been listening to her for several years, her Handel CD is on my iPod, it's not as if she's a new discovery, so this is nothing I didn't theoretically already know. But somehow in the last week I've begun to truly feel it in my bones. Thank god she's already been written about so beautifully by far better writers than myself, because I wouldn't know where to start. But wow.

Comments

[Barbara]

Lorraine grows on me. And she just keeps growing and growing. Regretably, I have begun to wonder how certain things would sound in her voice and realize I never get to find out. Do you have her Wigmore Hall recital? Marvelous. Um Mitternacht is especially deep. Deep. The word that usually springs to mind.