Rosalind Elias, who sang 687 times in more than 50 roles over 35 seasons at the Metropolitan Opera and on tour, has died aged 90. She created the role of Erika in the premiere of Samuel Barber's Vanessa (1958).
Great chutzpah story of how the achingly, poignant and beautiful aria Must the Winter Come So Soon? came to be.
Must the winter come so soon?
Night after night I hear the hungry deer
Wander weeping in the woods
And from his house of brittle bark hoots the frozen owl
Must the winter come so soon?
Here in this forest neither dawn nor sunset
Marks the passing of the days
It is a long winter here
Must the winter come so soon?
Anyone for concerts from Helsinki?
Danish folk music every Sunday
Opera America has the most comprehensive list I've seen of streaming opera links (there are many). So here's some research shared with you:
La Monnaie are streaming 7 operas (until May 17)
Another opera house favoring avant-garde stagings is Opera Zurich. Massenet's Werther with Juan Diego Flórez plays from May 21-24 followed by Rigoletto (May 29-June 1). And there's a Wozzeck if you wanna get even more depressed!
Dresden's Semper Opera have an Arabella (May 8-10) with Renee Fleming and conducted by the always impressive Christian Thielemann who totally impressed me on one of his first foray's so very long time ago. He also helms Wagner's Lohengrin (May 15-17)
La Scala Milan
better direct links
more links to come..not just a 'link thief', check everything and am, very slow. Always useful to know whether livestreams are available after the event, and if so, for how long. Of course one wants a 'live' audience but that's not always possible for many. One has to cook, deal with the 'kids' including the significant 'other'. Walk the 'creature'. Oh- don't miss THE Danny Boyle Frankenstein (Royal National Theatre) until Thursday. Forgot all about the Met Costume Gala watching this. How very appropriate;)
On the subject of clothes and celebrity a sad reminder of Brit TV presenter Caroline Flack's suicide this February Valentine's Day. The Covid quarantine makes it even more a terrible Greek tragedy as the trial would probably been postponed or…. If this heart-warmingly fun presentation of her River Island clothing line doesn't make you cry in retrospect, don't know what will.
Shouldn't all countries in the world now lobby for a total ban on 'animal' markets (particularly in Asia). Sure, those folk are doing a dishonest job. But how many people (certainly not the creatures) does this trade benefit? I mean come on China. Mao Tse Tung would be horrified if you couldn't find these 'folk' some alternative employment. They must know a thing or two about something!
Remember, New York City Ballet presents a filmed achieve every 3 days for its Spring Digital 2020 Season: Ballo della Regina & After The Rain Pas De Deux. It's kinda freaky how George Balanchine not only re-imagined classical ballet but utterly changed it for ever more. All seems so 'normal' now. Well…
Wendy Whelan, you look so ummm 'thin' in The Rain Pas De Deux. And yet, there is an exquisite beauty in that de deux. The torrential 'rain' giving the life and courage you always deserved. Were born with.
All that said, Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were kinda friendly rivals. Balanchine less so. A rival. Research. Research the stories of West Side Story. Then there was Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter. The neglected unsung heroine of contemporary dance who taped her name to he door of the new Lincoln Center when nobody seemed to care. My poor archive. Sorry it got cut short. Ran out of 'SanDisks' for my Cannon 5D that night- Well, I never went to these things with a mission, just a hunch they might be interesting. I'd never heard of Ms. Hill. Nor, still, have a lot of dance folk!
Oh, and The Wooster Group have all their 1week videos for the past month streaming until May 15. You just got failed as a theater student if you haven't watched them all! You can go sing Andrew Lloyd Webber, doesn't mean you can't have two loves of the 'round table'!
Never in New York Festival
The Classic Stage Company hosts theater conversations.
The Whitney Museum have expanded their online presence to include Friday night artist film screenings. Last week was up on Vimeo for only 24hours. Not sure if this will be their future policy.
And Starts in the House continue with their amazing twice-daily resilience and invention interviewing actors and creatives having raised over $250,000 for The Actors Fund (that fund includes folk who aren’t actors but those very useful unknown folk twiddling dials on set or stage instead of destroying the world:). Over 70 shows (omg-they’re up to 85!) so far during Covid! That takes some beating. -#85-very. very funny. U know none of the tech problems really matter (unless of course you can't hear anything, then grrr). It's back to the old adage, when someone is/has something interesting then people will watch/listen/persevere. Annie Lennox didn't need a fancy mic in that weekend thing few weeks ago, nor Billie Eilish. Everything was true. Then again, you can just be there and be interesting [there's the Khuleshov experiment…no! no, everyone is fascinating on James and Seth's show]. What are you going to do for your 100th anniversary!! You'll be like cat and dog years!~ Like Kirk Douglas, well, you know what I mean. Hadn't I better go to bed, oh no! There's yet another opera to watch. Ommm…in my sleep. Osmotic dreams….
well, still can't sleep 2am (went abed at 8 last night with, you know- tossed and turned). Don't know what was wiring with me, certainly not Covid. See- no sympathy, Amy Schumer. When was you born? See, always the wrong time. Khrushchev, the Vietnam War, Simpsons. Always out of, something, out of…almost inaudible on Carol. :) [the movie] sound editors in-joke (they are included methinks in The Actors Fund btw).
Back to 'being oneself', it's like COVID online is the best casting service since, when! Unless you're mega, in which case, well you'll always now be cast so, come and get down dirty with the mortals;) Hate to name drop, but as we reach 2.30am I'll drop surely off my dead parrot perch, the great director Jonathan Miller who I worked with spoke of working with Jack Lemmon on his staging in London of Long Day's Journey Into Night (you know the unsung Beatles play;) So back to being yourself. He was fascinated with casting actors who had a DNA to the character that they were playing (he writes about this in Subsequent Performances I think). Who didn't assume a 'family' but were somehow inherently part of that family.
Maybe COVID is making us far more aware of this. In a good way. There are actors who can shape change magnificently. Both onstage and screen. But can you think of one great movie star who doesn't somehow play a relation close to themselves? Bogart, Bacall, Hepburn, Tracy, Lemmon, Finch, Fonda, Mitchum, John Wayne..the list is endless. Kind of a never ending rabbit hole discussion but always one worth burrowing.
A thought before I drop of my perch...
No-one could ever claim to be bored under quarantine (well maybe live sports fans but Korea has saved you, that’s South. Kim missed a great PR move there…:) Depressed maybe, frustrated (to put it mildly) not being able to go to the gym etc. Gonna dig out my old Jane Fonda exercise DVD. Not really 'tech'ed up' to for Zoom Zumba etc without drop-outs. Kitty can be 'my mistress' and claw me into fitness wielding her baton (well it's really a chopstick) -never seen a conductor throw the baton from paw to paw before. You gotta have a gimmick….
5,6,7,8 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
