g56whiz

I defer to my hero @whipped guy on all things operatic except shallowness. Case in point would be the opening of the spectacular Zeffirelli production of Turandot in 1987. If anything it’s more lavish and gaudy than his La Boheme but for the imperial court of Peking it works splendidly. Marton was the icy princess and Domingo was the Calif. Building to the climax of act 1 a parade of suitors who’ve failed the contest appears led by their soon to be executioner naked to the waist and brandishing overhead a gigantic ax. The Met chose a suitably imposing bodybuilder for the role. When he turned to face the audience I nearly collapsed in laughter. The program listed him as Roger Koch but we who lusted after his ample porn presence knew him as Frank Vickers. That production ran for several seasons as I remember and Frank died of AIDS soon after. When the production was revived several years later, the next executioner was an Asian American Bodybuilder who had recently graduated from Columbia University. He was working at doctor’s a block away from my apartment. About a week before the opening I ran into him on the street and wished him luck in his new endeavor. He thanked me but seemed noticeably taken aback when I asked him how it would feel with 4,000 folks staring at his naked back. He did fine as I remember.

Another quarter heard from: FINANCIAL TIMES Semiramide, Metropolitan Opera, New York—monumental sets and a vocal powerhouse Spectacle triumphs over dramatic detail in this production of Rossini’s opera George Loomis February 20, 2018 After 25 years, the Metropolitan Opera has revived John Copley’s production of Rossini’s last and most expansive Italian opera, but its return was not without incident. Overseeing the revival, the 84-year-old director made a sexually offensive remark to a chorister, according to the Met, and soon, like other prominent figures in the arts, was out of work. Copley might have given the staging an extra edge, but I doubt it. In this vintage production, with monumental sets by John Conklin, spectacle counts far more than dramatic detail; Michael Stennett’s costumes alone would probably bankrupt a smaller opera company. It’s miles apart from the Royal Opera House’s recent production by David Alden, set in a modern Middle Eastern dictatorship. But it does allow this stupendous work, first seen in Venice in 1823 before Rossini shifted operations to Paris, to function on its own terms. Angela Meade is a vocal powerhouse as the repentant Babylonian queen Semiramide, who schemed with Prince Assur to murder her regal husband, Nino. Semiramide has a falling out with Assur in a scene that has some of Semiramide’s most intense utterances, and Meade handles them with aplomb. But her upper tones tend to spread at full voice, and I kept wondering what Joyce DiDonato, much acclaimed at the ROH, would have done with the role. Elizabeth DeShong sang with lovely, well rounded tone and fine technique in the trouser role of Arsace, who becomes an instrumentality of revenge after learning he is Semiramide’s and Nino’s son. Despite weak low notes, Ildar Abdrazakov was an impressive Assur, especially when, his world collapsing, he is plagued by a vision of Nino’s ghost. As the Indian Prince Idreno, Javier Camarena wowed the audience with his high notes. Semiramide requires time, and here it lasted little more than a Mozart-Da Ponte opera. Most of Rossini’s complex musical numbers suffered from internal cuts, whereas it’s better to cut whole numbers, such as one of Idreno’s two arias, and keep others intact. Maurizio Benini’s often sluggish tempos didn’t help, and the singers insisted on interpolating final high notes whether they could sing them well or not. Poor Rossini. Three stars To March 17, metopera.org As luck would have it, I’ll be somewhere over the Pacific when this is broadcast Live in HD on 3/10. Moreover I doubt I’ll be sufficiently over the jet lag to drive 150 miles and rent a room to see the rebroadcast later in the week. Hoping it hits The Met’s on-demand catalog before long. In the mean time I can settle for the Anderson/Horne performance from 12/90.

Another gigantic Brazilian penis!! I swear there’s something in the water there!

If I set out to fake a profile, why would I chose pix of a guy who’s an ethnic minority not especially known for sensuality. Think of all the Brazilian pix he could have chosen. Just saying.

It’s currently playing on at least a dozen screens at major theaters here in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. CMBYN on none.

Which is still more than what Mr. Gelb at The Met is doing.

Since it hadn’t played at a theater within 150 miles before I left and also hasn’t hit my part of the Orient yet and comes out on BluRay about the time I return, I guess I’ll be watching CMBYN in the solitude of my livingroom. I wonder which streaming service will get it. Of course I could watch most of it today by parsing the many clips on YouTube.

Interesting. Wonder why my hero Anthony Tomassini wasn’t the reviewer. I remember Angela Meade very early in her career. A HUGH beautiful voice totally out of control. She improved greatly by the time the Audition video came out. Can’t wait till this hits their on demand library.

I’m guessing no one survived to tell about it.

Oh Gman. It’s just another means of wi-fi messaging. Like WhatsApp or Viber or Line or Tango or WeChat or . . . You get the idea.

Last week I was having lunch at a remote chicken farm down a long and very narrow road far from the bustle of downtown Kuala Lumpur. The chickens served and sold there are fully grown a truly organic. The Chinese version of coq au vin made with rice wine is excellent. Well into our lunch I heard in the distance the approach of an ancient motorbike. As it neared I could make out attached to it’s rear an ice chest wrapped to look like a mini Good Humor truck covered with images of what was for sale. The folks at the next table told the old man to come back; they had just arrived. He did and they made it worth his while.

What facial hair? I didn’t notice.

An Unlikely Youth Revolution at the Paris Opera https://nyti.ms/2BCyBi8

From the pix it ain’t only the reputation that’s big. Be still my libido!!!

No. Had to be in the early ‘50’s when they were entering the market. By the early ‘70’s I was out of college and my BA took 9 years (flunking out changing majors Army etc.).

Damn Charlie. I thought I was an only child!!!

I walk the earth due to a delivery service. My parents met at a laundry outside Boston were he was a delivery man and she a dispatcher.

If I remember correctly, the Funk and Wagnalls came as a supermarket promo. You spent so much and for 99 cents you got the next volume. Kept you shopping at the same store each week. We later graduated to World Book. They lived in my bedroom (I was an only child) and I’d read them like a novel. No Treasure Island or Gunga Din for this smartass!

I’ve a US ITunes account. There’s an album I want to give to a friend of mine. Problems are I’m currently in Malaysia and he lives in Germany. I can’t even give him a credit so that he can buy it himself. Can it be done?

I’ve an old (maybe second generation) Apple TV. It’s easy to set up supports, Netflix and now even Amazon Prime. You can probably get one for next to nothing on eBay. This series just didn’t click with me. Didn’t get thru the first episode.

OK. I binged. Big mistake. One after the other they became too formulaic. You could almost set your watch for the group hug. Hottest guy in the series: not the fab5, the closested black guy in leather. Funniest moment: when they found the leather harness in the back of his closet.

For years I lived in a fifth floor co-op at the corner of 85th and Columbus. Every summer afternoon one of those damn ice cream trucks would park at the hydrant under my living room window and that damn speaker would blare that same damn 3 measure ditty for and hour or more. Fortunately I didn’t own a gun.

What about Fuller Brush?

Unless less that one word reply is “yes” or “when”.

Dances frequently at Adonis NY I believe. You may be able to test drive there with a lap dance.