What opera have you been listening to, lately?

[Hoffmann]

Aaargh! Can't you retire somewhere with a "headache" and a discreet tablet with lots of downloaded YouTubes/ripped dvds? (My solution in times of extremis, like the Suzuki violin camp coming up)

I could, but my sister only heats the upstairs of her house to 63 degrees F, so if I retired to my room, I likely wouldn't be found for days, and then as a frozen corpse. What can I say, they all like sleeping in cold rooms! I have my iPods with me, so could go for a walk, but it was too ridiculously cold yesterday to go walking long enough to matter.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

This lady is particularly good at the Monteverdi and Purcell arias, some of which ARE enchanting.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

I could, but my sister only heats the upstairs of her house to 63 degrees F, so if I retired to my room, I likely wouldn't be found for days, and then as a frozen corpse. What can I say, they all like sleeping in cold rooms! I have my iPods with me, so could go for a walk, but it was too ridiculously cold yesterday to go walking long enough to matter.

Plan for next year:

[Clayton]

Hysterical!

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Found a sneaky way to watch Handel's Alessandro on France TV's site. Good production that didn't take itself too seriously. Max Emanuel Cencic can sing ornate Baroque coloratura in countertenor mode AND TAP-DANCE AT THE SAME TIME!

[Festat]

Fabulous headpieces = WILL WATCH

[Luiz Gazzola (Almaviva)]

Found a sneaky way to watch Handel's Alessandro on France TV's site. Good production that didn't take itself too seriously. Max Emanuel Cencic can sing ornate Baroque coloratura in countertenor mode AND TAP-DANCE AT THE SAME TIME!

Can you teach us the sneaky way? Because over here it says access is forbidden.

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Can you teach us the sneaky way? Because over it says access is forbidden.

Subscribe to this for a month and watch temporarily through a proxy server that has an IP address in France. There are free VPNs but I wouldn't trust them.

I have to say that quality was not that good - probably because of distance from the server I had to use, which slowed down the connection. But I've been desperate to see this production for so long I don't care. Now let's hang out for a DVD.

Going to watch everything on the site now that I have my subscription. Although a certain amount of it is freely available elsewhere - like Py's Dialogues which is on Arte, the La Monnaie Hamlet which will be available on the la Monnaie site next month.

[Festat]

Tidying up the place after the huge Christmas mess demands music I can sing along to. All parts.

[Festat]

Turned out that the opera was disturbingly accurate to my emotional state throughout the whole thing: started crying for help, was mislead to a false mission — will finish this tomorrow — than convinced to stoically bear all the misfortunes even though three ladies Laziness, Sleepiness and Hunger tried hard to make me stop. Now ordeal is over, everything tidy and clean, and a new level of understanding and definitely much more light have come into my life. PRAISE ISIS AND OSIRIS

[Clayton]

I was listening to the cricket all night on the radio, so today on my daily potter around the garden I was wandering around in a little bit of a daze. So my thoughts for today's opera turned to...

La Sonnambula
Joan Sutherland, Luciano Pavarotti, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Isobel Buchanan
London Opera Chorus, National Philharmonic Orchestra
Richard Bonynge

[Soave_Fanciulla]

Watching La Forza del Destino live from Munich with Anja Harteros, Jonas Kaufmann and Ludovic Tézier (who is actually ACTING!!!!).

It's the interval and I need coffee, and possibly breakfast,

[Festat]

Boo, can't believe I missed that.

[Luiz Gazzola (Almaviva)]

Ludovic Tézier (who is actually ACTING!!!!).

You mean, he actually doesn't just stand there looking like a fish? Oh, I get it. Maybe he is alternating between different species of fish.

[Dark_Angel]

So few recordings available, the stereo Caballe and a famous 1951 live Tebaldi, you cannot belive how intensely dramatic young Tebaldi is here......