Various

• Maybe I am a sentimental fool, but it made me smile to see that Jodie McGuren has been cast in the small (very small) role of Kätchen in Werther. I've always remembered how excited she was during Operatunity Oz just to have a chance to sing in the empty Opera Theatre, and then on the follow-up show, it was lovely to see that she'd been given a full-time chorus position. Because of that, I always notice her in the chorus and somehow she just seems to radiate positive energy and joy in singing. So I think it's great she's been given a solo part, however tiny, and I plan to clap especially loudly for her. 
• As has been pointed out in the comments, Bruce Beresford has been speaking again about his plans to direct Carlisle Floyd's Of Mice and Men for Opera Australia. He reckons he'd like Anthony Dean Griffey (for whom Previn wrote the role of Mitch in Streetcar) for Lenny. Which I wouldn't say no to, of course: Griffey is wonderful as Mitch on disc and he was a pretty compelling Peter Grimes in last year's Met HD broadcast. My vote's still with Stuart Skelton though. I actually found his Mitch even more affecting than Griffey's — seeing him live probably helped that, admittedly — and I fully expect his Grimes this year to be at least the equal of his American counterpart's.    
• Speaking of Stuart Skelton, my constant YouTube trawling has dragged up one single solitary clip of the man in question. Alors, here are a couple of snippets from a Carmen somewhere (the clip details don't say where). There's more Carmen than Don José (bien sur) but it's much better than nothing. (Also, after the lumpish, wooden Don José OA had last year, I think Stuart is brilliant proof that it's entirely possibly for, shall we say, a larger gentleman, to move and act convincingly on stage, to be a physically committed and responsive member of the cast. Lumpishness, I suspect, has very little to do with size.)
• Moving from tenors (!) back to my natural territory — sopranos — it occured to me that, even though I tend to consider my diva obsessions as solitary pursuits, there may actually be more people than myself interested to read the Parisian response to Our Cheryl's season of Butterfly at the Bastille. To that end, some links — all in French, of course — Franck, naturellement (blog post) |  Devil Dave (blog post) | Forum Opera (review) | Altamusica (review) | Anaclase (review)| ConcertClassic (review). As was discussed in the comments a while back, an oh-so-Parisian strike meant the actual opening night (with the A-cast Butterfly) was cancelled, so that Cheryl in fact opened the production: hence, presumably, all the press. And if you don't fancy reading all the French: they liked her. There's little abject diva worship — that's my department — but it's a pretty positive response overall.   
• Well, if Stuart Skelton gets a YouTube link, then Cheryl definitely does. She's remarkably hard to find: neither of the two clips which come up in a search on her name actually contain any footage of her. But I tracked her down eventually, in four clips (here, here, here and here) from a 2001 La bohème at the Vlaamse Opera. They're focused on the Musetta (Rebecca Caine) but there's quite a bit of Mimi too, and she's fabulous. Bonus: the Rodolfo is Julian Gavin.

Comments

[Operalad]

Sarah,

All this Skelton attention! Surely you haven't abandoned your Soprano/Mezzo-Soprano obsession so quickly! Are we soon to see a Stuart Skelton category at Prima la Musica?

[Sarah]

Wait till Grimes. Then we'll see...

[david]

Not directly related to casting fantasies for next year and beyond but I have just seen in today's paper that the forthcoming radiance concert is to be dedicated to the memory of Richard Hickox with proceeds going to a fund for young conducters of promise. Does this mean that there may be a slim chance that ABC classics will record the concert for commercial release on CD?? I do hope so!!!!

[Sarah]

Hopefully it will at least mean a broadcast. Not that one would ever consider recording a radio broadcast. Never.

[Andrew]

I'm very much looking forward to seeing Stuart Skelton's Grimes at ENO in a few weeks!

[wanderer]

Oh dear Mr Skelton is looking big, when was that, but then look what living in Florida does.

[Sarah]

Fabulous clip. Not sure how old/new the Carmen clip is.