WilliamM

Finally tonight I have a vague idea who Cunanan was.

I doubt Merman considered Dolly important to her career. She seldom mentioned it in later life interviews but Merman always talked about Gypsy. The same with the "Annie Get Your Gun" revival. She was always engaged talking about Gershwin Porter and Berlin and her parents. After seeing her TV version of "Annie" in 1967, Merman was lucky the tape was somehow lost. She was decades too old for the role.

Laurie is on Breadway in previews for Albee's "Three Tall Women" with Glenda Jackson and Allison Pill. Added: No performance of the play on March 4 or 5.

Entertainment Weekly The Nominees: Call Me By Your Name (James Ivory) Logan (Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green; story by James Mangold) Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin) Mudbound (Virgil Williams and Dee Rees) The Disaster Artist (Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber) Predicted Winner: The last time James Ivory was nominated, it was for directing 1993’sThe Remains of the Day, itself an adaptation of a popular novel. Now the 89-year-old, the Academy’s second oldest nominee (eight days younger than Faces Places director Agnès Varda), seems to have a clear shot at his first win for his gentle and poignant treatment of André Aciman’s love story Call Me by Your Name.

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I attended some the wonderful; bel canto opera you suggest here. But after seeing Death in Venice at the Met in in 1974 I bought records of a variety of operas including Wagner. Also I saw Death in Venice partly because of my love of Thomas Mann writing My next opera was standing room at the Met for "La Traviata." I also stood at the Met for my first Parsifal but I had listened to the recording many time first. @whipped guy: we have a different approach. But I started with Broadway musicals not opera. My second musical was Gypsy with Merman. That was her last new musical. .

Of course you are not too shallow to appreciate Lulu or Parsifal. You prefer other operas.

The first opera does not have to represent opera in general. I am totally confused by your response. Especially "it is probably a better choice for a first opera compared to Berg's Lulu or Wagner's Parsifal but not much better." That is only one person's opinion. I like Lulu and Parsifal, but it would be wise to listen to the several times first. Also Death in Venice in a novella so one can read it before seeing the opera. Granted it is not an easy book to understand -- but that is sometimes true of Nobel Prize winners in literature. The Magic Mountain is Mann's great novel. It is of the moment now because the setting is Davos Switzerland.

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Huh. Death in Venice is based on a book by Thomas Mann. Mann received a Nobel Prize for Literature. He also wrote much longer novels: Buddenbrook The Magic Mountain and Joseph and His Brothers.