Rrrrrrroling Along

Alex is trying very hard to roll his Rs. I have him saying, "Pot of tea," over and over, really quickly, so he can feel sort of where his tongue should be. Learned that trick in a Spanish phonetics class in college. So every now and then I hear him practicing. He's getting better. Maybe I should show him this:

Wow wow wow!

The Met is giving us a free weekend of their Met Player service. So even though they're broadcasting this same opera live tonight, and I'm seeing next week in HD in the movies, I've spent the last hour or so watching La Cenerentola, with Cecilia Bartoli and Ramon Vargas. Love love love it!!! You can expand the window to your entire screen and the quality is fabulous. I wish I had more time to watch - in a perfect world, I'd be home alone the entire weekend, the weather would be horrible and I'd have no alternative but to order in Chinese food and watch opera for 72 hours straight. However, the world is not perfect, so I'll have to make do with the rest of Cenerentola and then choice snippets from the other gems there before the free period ends.

It's Clarific!

Remember last year when John Osborn turned up in gold lame in Clari? Cecilia Bartoli was in it too. So anyway I was googling for info about John's upcoming run in Lucia in Brussels and up popped a video for... Clari! I clicked over to YouTube and found that these past few days someone (not me!!) got a bunch of videos of the production up. Naturalment I threw them into a playlist. No doubt they're out of order. If anyone knows the correct order, please post a comment or send me a message on YouTube and I'll fix it. Until then, in no particular order, here it all is:

Scratching That Itch

The past two weeks or so I've been listening repeatedly to Figaro and Susanna's opening duet from Nozze di Figaro. There's something about the wiggly music in the beginning that starts out alone and continues in the background... it's hard to explain but I feel like it scratches an itch in my brain. It just feels good. I've been listening in the car, so if the volume isn't loud enough to cover street noise I'll actually go back to the beginning of the track so I don't miss the opening measures. The louder the music, the more satisfying the scratch. That's weird, right? That's Mozart.

Here's a nice clip that includes the overture, the duet and the recit that follows. Bryn Terfel and Cecilia Bartoli!!! *sigh* The wiggly part starts at 4:23. Oh and then the clarinet that plays her part before they start singing... that feels good too. I wish I could explain it better... anyway, have a listen.

Pa Pa... Pa?

Recently came across this silly gem on YouTube. According to the viewer comments, and we all know how accurate they always are, this guy is a tv talk show host type person. Looks to me like he's familiar with the duet but is seeing and singing the music for the first time. Not a bad effort!

So get ready for the silly with a healthy heaping side of Cecilia's amazing voice!

Why Opera Keeps me Awake

I'll always love this. I feel so lucky to have seen it performed live, just like this, with the same three singers. From La Fille du Regiment:



And then there's this, from La Cenerentola, which, now that I listen to after the Donizetti, doesn't sound that different. Rossini here, Donizetti there... A coworker of mine who Knows These Things told me that they competed in how quickly they could throw an opera together.



Here's a fun one from Barbiere, especially for those of you who like some girl-on-girl action:



Since they play catch with an orange in the above video, here's the orange's "revenge" as she sings Habanera from Carmen. I remember this from my childhood!



Now listen to this craziness. More Cenerentola. Lots of Cecelia Bartoli... her voice doesn't sound real...



This just swirls my brain. I love it! From Matilde di Shabran.



Finally, to calm us down after all that, here's something I sometimes listen to just before shutting down the computer. Yes, I know, I'm Jewish, but that doesn't mean I can't like Ave Maria, especially when Juan Diego is singing it.

Johnny O in Gold Lamé

Was recently chatting via IM with John O, remember him? He told me he was performing with Cecilia Bartoli, who truly has one of the most amazing voices I've heard. I figured it was a European thing and I'd never hear anything official about it... but how could I forget Opera Chic! She was on it with one of her great posts and, of course, fabulous pictures! Thanks, Opera Chic!