Reply With QuoteI think spring planting season can't come too soon for poor Clayton...
Next year, we'll invite you to the fun concert on the last night and you can tell terrible jokes to your heart's content.Originally Posted by Clayton
Natalie
I think spring planting season can't come too soon for poor Clayton...
Great, I'll make a note in the dia...
hang on
this is one of those "fun" last night concerts which gets cancelled and everyone "forgets" to tell me, isn't it?
forget it.
I'm not falling for that one again
No, promise you can come but you'll have to dress up.
Natalie
I cannot wait to see pictures of Clayton in ... costume.
Then they'll take you on a snipe hunt.
Hey Clayton, If you need help running down a pair of them groovy Crocs to complete your outfit, let me know. They're all over the place over here!
I think spring can't come too soon for Yours Truly, period.I think spring planting season can't come too soon for poor Clayton...
Back on topic, we enjoyed Tosca last night, with McGee, Kaufmann and Hampson. I even liked the novel staging. The night before, we made our first ever trip to Moscow to watch the Red Square Concert with Netrebko and Hvorostovsky. Both are excellent performances on equally as exceptional Blu ray discs. I did note, without editorializing, that many women in Red Square seemed (hunting for inoffensive descriptive term) emotionally moved by Hvorostovky's vocal prowess. Or something.
How was Thomas Hampson as nasty old Scarpia? He strikes me as so genuinely decent that it's hard to imagine him being convincing as the bad guy.
He was a slimy bad guy; but very effective.
That's a performance I want to see.
I think Hampson is a superb actor and singer
and apparently this geezer Jonas Kauffmann can hold his own too
What is the novel staging?
Is it a modern setting?
Yes, but not so as to disrupt the story line. Think Manon with Netrebko and Villazon: the 50s environment of that Manon did not in any way limit the expression of the essence of the story. The same is true of this Tosca, with one exception: 1800 Rome is a part of Tosca with reference to Napoleon's victory at Marengo. Most folks today would not pick up on that.
Got a hold of a better version of Rusalka and we watched that Saturday. (The met's version with Renee Flemeing that was shown in live HD.)
Sunday we watch Die Walkure, the Lepage production.
I have the DVD of Tosca with Hampson's Scarpia, and find him totally chilling. He is very suave and elegant -- and could smile quite pleasantly at you while he's torturing you. McGee's Tosca is visibly repelled by his touch. (But of course, my favorite here is that geezer Kaufmann.)
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