Prima la musica

Portraits

I've seen and heard Miah Persson on various occasions, always liked her but never gone crazy for her, but this album? It's really, really good. I've only just finished a review of it for Limelight, so won't pre-empt myself too much here, but suffice it to say: were I not required to write 250 words about it, I'd probably just have settled for "Miah Persson is perfect at Lieder". It's that good. Barbara Bonney good; and I don't say that lightly, because Barbara Bonney, after all, taught me most of the basic Lieder repertoire and more or less sets the standard for me. But Miah, oh Miah, this is just to die for.

 

And speaking of things I should have blogged earlier, here are a couple of snippets from rehearsals for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Das Lied von der Erde earlier this month. 

The Longest (Birth)Day

Here we are, back in Orlando, just long enough to unpack, draw breath, re-pack and leave again. This is our fleetingest visit yet: we arrived late last night and tomorrow evening we hop a flight to Zürich for the Wiederaufnahme of Parsifal. Getting here was also one of our longest journeys yet: for boring administrative reasons, we flew first from Dunedin to Hong Kong via Auckland, and then from Hong Kong to Orlando via San Francisco, with reasonably long layovers all the way. Almost two days in transit.

And those two days just happened to be my birthday. Yes, both of them. Sort of. September 22nd arrived in New Zealand just after we'd taken off from Auckland, continued in Hong Kong, and lo and behold, when we arrived in the US, it was still going. Thank you, international date line — I'm a big fan of extended birthdays. I'm not sure I'd exactly recommend an in-transit birthday, but it was nice to be offered champagne by Air New Zealand and, a day or so later, to have my present (jewelry, yay!) brought to me along with dessert by United — in cahoots with my travelling companion, of course, who really did a lovely job of turning 48 exhausting hours of travel into something resembling a birthday party. I probably owe the Travel Gods a word of thanks, too, for keeping everything disaster-free: no delays, no lost luggage, nothing.

I'm not really massively keen to be back in the air so soon. But I've just had a look at Zürich Opera's schedule for the two weeks we're there and I have to say, it does help: Traviata with Eva Mei, a Simon Keenlyside recital, Shostakovich's The Nose and a Fanciulla starring Emily Magee. Plus Parsifal of course. I think I can probably live with all of that.

Duelling baritones

No, don't get excited, no gun-toting Hvorostovsky here. Today is the first day of Dunedin's 2011 Senior Vocal Competitions, which will culminate in the ODT Aria Competition on Sunday evening. As my previous photo post may or may not have made clear, I'm back in my home town for a couple of weeks. Mostly to visit family and enjoy a cold, rainy holiday (Dunedin is not renowned for its charming weather) but since I've come with a rather talented tenor in tow, we've arranged for Dunedin to exploit him a little. So he gave a super bargain recital at the University's music department yesterday afternoon (admission $5!) and now he's judging the competitions from today through till Sunday.

I always used to go and watch as much of the competitions as I could when I lived here, so this has partly been a cunning plan on my part to gain free admission. There's just something about singing competitions I love — the chance to hear LOTS of repertoire, the hope of discovering new and rising talent and, I'm afraid, the spectator sport element of it as well. You choose your favourites and cheer for them, predict results and (don't tell Stuart) curse the judge when his views disagree with yours. Not that I intend to corrupt Herr Adjudikator, of course. 

Anyway, it all begins this morning with the 17th and 18th century aria (under 21) category. The weather is, of course, grey and disgusting, and my poor tenor, accustomed to Floridian humidity, looks less than impressed with the view from our window. However, I have assured him that winter is even worse (this is spring!) and I'm sure he's hardy enough (or has enough scarves) to cope. I'll have my love of the game to keep me warm.

Alright, fine, here's some Hvorostovsky to keep you happy.