Various

• There are more reasons every day for me to love Alice Coote. The latest — her recital on the EMI Début label, released in 2003. I heard this for the first time perhaps a year ago, but only the first half, and I never got to hear it again. This week I bought it at a bargain bin price and swooned anew. I remembered that it was drop dead gorgeous, but remembering that is one thing; drowning in it is another. What perplexes me is that she doesn't appear to have recorded another solo album since this one. She ought. Just for me.
• I'm so devoted. Despite the higher prices (yes, I'm still bitter about that) I went on Monday afternoon to book myself in for second helpings of two operas I don't much like or want to see again, in order to see somebody I do like sing in them. Antoinette in La bohème tomorrow night (and, as a bonus, lovely Taryn Fiebig as Musetta) and Joshua Bloom as Escamillo on the 28th. I really had to push myself into the Carmen — I had at least hoped I could make it to one of the few performances where Joshua and Kirsten Chavez coincide, but they're sold out. (That's Carmen for you. The reviewers — by which I mean The Mighty McCallum and (hah) myself — were not enthusiastic.) However missing out on my third Joshua Bloom Dandini (yes, still bitter about that, too) persuaded me; it will also be nice to see Catherine Carby as Carmen — about time I saw her in a proper role, not the Bela Lugosi role in Streetcar — and Tiffany Speight as Micaela.
• While looking for something else — I forget what now — I stumbled across the information that Opera Australia will stage Fidelio in 2009. That prompted me to do a little more Googling, from which I've gleaned (look away now if you'd prefer to be surprised in August) that the 2009 season will also include Madama Butterfly, a Cav/Pag and an Aida, the last of these with imported principals, which is hardly surprising. There may or may not be a Manon Lescaut. And of course, there's presumably the Dido & Aeneas I posted about the other day, which I'm already breathlessly anticipating.
• I really, really, really like Alice Coote (and I must be a Handel geek, because my brain said Alice but my fingers typed Alcina). I'm listening to the CD while writing. She's too gorgeous to be believed. And this is five years ago. Need. More. Alice.