sydneyboy

He gets around and no reviews.

Could you please advise the name of this opera chat site?

This has been widely reported in Australian newspapers.

I started a thread on Kaufmann’s Sydney performances. Magnificent.

I saw Vittorio Grigolo a month ago at Covent Garden in Tosca. What a voice! He received huge ovations from the audience after his major arias and at the final curtain. A major talent and handsome to boot.

The reviews for ''Andrea Chenier'' have now appeared and its obvious that I am not the only one who enjoyed the experience. I quote in part from the review in the ''Sydney Morning Herald'': "A tenor of peerless refinement, a soprano of soaring richness and a fierce-edged baritone of complex darkness. Vive la revolution! Jonas Kaufmann transforms the traditionally stertorous ''spinto'' tenor sound into a thing of wondrous handsomeness, modulating tone, vowel and colour with immaculate poise and musical intelligence. It is a work that lives or dies on its golden voices and, on this occasion, soared triumphantly.''

Jonas Kaufmann has done a number of media interviews while in Sydney and has outlined future plans. He has sung Act 2 of Tristan and he has confirmed that he will sing the whole opera in 2021. Where he did not say but my guess would be his home town of Munich. He has not ruled out eventually singing Siegfried. He is a believer in work life balance and made it clear that he will not be a Domingo singing in his mid 70’s (in Domingo’s case by the way he is going into his 80’s.) He said most people consider retirement in their early 60’s and that made sense to him.

I write in the afterglow of last night's concert performance at the Sydney Opera House of ''Andrea Chenier.'' A dream cast of Jonas Kaufmann, Eva-Maria Westbroek and Ludovic Tezier delivered the most stupendous singing I have heard in 46 years of opera going. A perfectly balanced cast in the prime of their careers. We can consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have had 3 visits from Herr Kaufmann in recent years (a recital, a concert performance of Parsifal and now Chenier.) I had the good fortune of hearing him in Otello at Covent Garden 2 years ago which I reported on here. A very pleasant surprise was Ludovic Tezier. I have read reviews of him overseas and he certainly lived up to expectations. Nothing was lost from it being a concert performance and the audience literally roared its approval at the end. Never to be forgotten.

James Bowman was my first counter tenor. In 1978 he sang in Britten’s “A Midsummer Nights Dream” for Opera Australia in Sydney. The voice type is an acquired taste. This Polish gent is quite a discovery in more ways than one.

Greetings from Barcelona! My third visit to this city since 2015. Thermas quite good. The last 2 visits on this trip I have been entertained by Juan from Columbia. Wow! At 50 euro good value.

I never cease to be amazed at the bewildering range of “high end” hotels in Bangkok and they continue to sprout like mushrooms. The older 5 star hotels have had to upgrade to stay in the race eg The Athenee where I stayed in December/January very good by the way. I find the rates fairly reasonable. Compare Bangkok to Rio. I defy anyone to name a city in the world of comparable standing that has a more appalling choice of hotels. Things have improved marginally in the past 10 years with the renovation of the Copacabana Palace (some of the reviews of the rooms at the Copa pre renovation had to be read to be believed), and the construction of the Fasano and Emiliano. Still the pickings are lean. Most of the beach front hotels are concrete and glass monstrosities dating back to the 1970’s.

I have had 3 procedures from Australia’s leading hair transplant surgeon and that was not a requirement. Dr Russell Knudsen has a detailed website.

Axiom beat me too it by a matter of minutes.

I was in Bangkok for 3 weeks I late December early January. This was about my 12th (at a guess) visit since 2000 although my first in about 4 years. I found the scene had changed dramatically for the worse. The go go bars have fewer boys, the famous muscle bar Tawan was a tragic shadow of its former self. There were very few men and most were older, overweight, heavily tattooed. Plenty of customers mind you but the place was very dispiriting. Anyone walking in not knowing what to expect would have assumed it was a chubby chasers bar. Since my January visit there have been a lot of changes. Soi Twilight has closed and the bars dispersed. There is a lot of discussion on this on the Boytoy website which I commend you to read. However there is general agreement that the Internet has changed everything and Bangkok will never return to its former glory. I love Bangkok and the Thai people and I will certainly return but with reduced expectations.

The hair follicles are taken from the back and sides, in other words hair that would not fall out.

No not at all.

I’ve had eye surgery (bags under the eyes), excellent result. I have also had hair transplants. Has anyone had a face lift?

Keep the recommendations coming I am in London in just over a week.

At the time of writing there are 45 members and 58 guests on line . These proportions are typical. A word for the guests. Why don’t you join, share experiences and contribute to conversations. The more the merrier!

Benjamin has an extraordinarily detailed profile. It is the first time I can recall an escort requiring a photo of a potential client. He spells it out “must be clear and no exceptions.”

I just purchased a HP envy top of the range desktop. The seller assured me I needed the full Norton antivirus software which I duly purchased. The guy who installed the system assured me the Microsoft 10 antivirus software was more than adequate and the person who sold me the Norton product was only interested in his commission and to get my money back. I returned the Norton product but the person who sold it to me pointed out that my installer also had a vested interest in removing viruses. I have spent the afternoon googling Microsoft Defender v Norton and predictably there is no consensus. The prevailing view is that Microsoft 10 Defender is a vast improvement on past Microsoft efforts but Norton is more secure but has its faults like slowing the system down. Comments from computer wizzes appreciated.

With the greatest respect this reads like an arcane passage from a James Joyce novel that has to be decoded, deconstructed to get to the point.

I’m sorry but that’s not the way I read it. He is referring to a hotel named Schubele next to the sauna and compares this hotel to comparable hotels in the city.

Could you please clarify the name of that hotel? I can’t find it in Google or TripAdvisor.

I have seen him on other websites but I can’t recall which one.