Opera Small Talk

[desiree]

Well I know how to deal with that ..



At least this one didn't smell!

I think it was Amfortas who first noticed it (he called it feisty) but I do like the post-cough sospiro. So snarky!

Love this by the way:

And here you were being considerate about your cough being a potential disturbance to seatmates only to be seated with those people

[sospiro]

For some reason ROH chose to announce their new season on the same day as the booking for basic 'Friend' level opened. So the creaking ancient site was even more overloaded.

There were the usual awful problems with the site crashing & I really felt sorry for one guy I follow on Twitter. After waiting an hour and a half to get on the site he selected the tickets he wanted & was then booted out & was back in the 'waiting room' again. He posted a screen shot on his blog of his position in the queue. What a shambles.

[Almaviva]

For some reason ROH chose to announce their new season on the same day as the booking for basic 'Friend' level opened. So the creaking ancient site was even more overloaded.

There were the usual awful problems with the site crashing & I really felt sorry for one guy I follow on Twitter. After waiting an hour and a half to get on the site he selected the tickets he wanted & was then booted out & was back in the 'waiting room' again. He posted a screen shot on his blog of his position in the queue. What a shambles.

Jesus! Have these ROH people send a delegation to the Met to learn how it's done! We never have this kind of problem!
[Alma, arrogant and proud American]
Now, seriously, we don't! I don't know what kind of mess the ROH is making, but we definitely don't have this problem at the Met. This is one of the reasons I was happy that New York City won as the preferred city for the 2013 TC Opera Convention, which, now that most people have migrated to OL, shall become the 2013 OL Opera Convention (we should better start getting those tickets).

Here's how it's done at the Met: First priority, high-donating patrons (fair, they keep the institution going). They get their tickets by a certain deadline, before they go on sale for others. Plenty left for the common mortals since it's almost 4,000 seats per performance, that is, there are literally hundreds of thousands of available tickets. Then, lower level guild, one week advance sales. They get their fill. Still plenty left. Then, general public, and you just go online, buy as many tickets as you want by just selecting "best available." Tickets are sold out? Move on to next performance. Simple. The whole process takes 5 minutes; there are tickets still available for the performance you want, you buy them. There aren't, you pick something else, or decide not to go. No big elaborate scheme with waiting list, etc. Simple. Here in America we like simplicity. The "best available" thing *is* the waiting list. It automatically bumps you down to whatever is left based on when you went online. If you don't want the tickets, you give them up, and someone else gets them. Period. And the site NEVER crashes. I mean, these are institutions with multi-million dollar budgets, can't they buy enough bandwidth? The Met does.

[CountessAdele]

Alma have you seen this?

[Almaviva]

Lovely big eyes!!!

[Amfortas]

Lovely big eyes!!!

Yeah, but what did the post say *before* you edited it?

[MAuer]

After the two preceding posts, I was rather expecting a "wardrobe malfunction" to occur in the video!

[Almaviva]

Don't worry about certain members here, dear Anna. They got dirty minds. I'm the only one who values you for your voice and your boo... cough, cough, I mean, your eyes!

[sospiro]

The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies is being performed at the Linbury Theatre ROH in October & after reading up about it I'd really like to see.

I want a CD so I can learn it before I go so I checked out Amazon.

Does anyone know where I can get it cheaper?

[Aksel]

Swoon.

[Anne of Green Gables]

Rhodesian-born, Greek-raised, London-schooled, Juilliard-scholarshipped, Maria Callas Prize Winner Mario Frangoulis is a pop singer with operatic training. The voice is a high baritone/low tenor. It's very appealing, and decidedly non-operatic sounding--Bocelli, for example, is a true opera singer compared to Frangoulis. His first CD, Sometimes I Dream, was a smash hit. This one is certain to be as well. There's little here to please the classical music lover--an arrangement, with love-song lyrics, of Verdi's "Va,pensiero" chorus from Nabucco is as close to opera as he comes.

[Almaviva]

Eewww, this is terrible, Aramis!

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Please please tell me this is not going to be the album that people hunt out after saying: "You like opera, don't you Nat. Hang on a sec..."

[sospiro]

Simon Keenlyside has been conferred a Fellow of The Royal College of Music. Some people have been a bit sniffy about the honour for Rick Wakeman but I think it's totally deserved. Good to see Richard Stilgoe awarded Honorary Membership.



I've been to the RCM. Well I've stood on the steps outside, that counts doesn't it?

[Anne of Green Gables]

I'm thinking of seeing Carreras in Sopot next month. But:

- I would have to take my keyboard to pawnshop without intention of getting it back and while I'm not afraid of loosing it I'm wondering if I could, by accident, choose a pawnshop owned by Don Comaro who uses to be vindictive on nasty clients
- It takes 8 hours in train to get to Sopot from my city
- He will appear there with pop singer (a guess star, so they call it) and I'm not sure as to quality of the concert while her presence roused the price (Carreras solo in Warsaw - concert I've missed and regret SOOOO badly - was for 150 złotych, these are for 180, the cheapest)
- I'm not even sure if the tickets are still there to buy