Archive for 7th May 2008
The DC sniper:
Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad asks prosecutors in a letter for help to put an end to his legal appeals from death row. Muhammad says in the letter released Tuesday that he is waiving all rights to appeal his 2003 conviction and death sentence for the sniper killings in 2002 that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region.
Fry him.
One of those “keyboard alert!” comments, from HotAir:
Paul supporters; they won’t want to support him when they find out the Republican convention is the same weekend as the International Star Trek convention
Good article, too. I was going to post something very similiar, but I’m way behind . . .
The server was down all morning, it’s been very sloooooooow on the administration end, and I’m just catching up with the news. Life’s like that, I suppose.
There’s quite a menu on this side of the Mississippi. First, the Met season:
Adriana Lecouvreur
La Bohème
Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci
La Cenerentola
La Damnation de Faust
Doctor Atomic
Don Giovanni
L’Elisir d’Amore
Eugene Onegin
La Gioconda
Lucia di Lammermoor
Madama Butterfly
The Magic Flute
La Rondine
Orfeo ed Euridice
The Queen of Spades
Rigoletto
Rusalka
Salome
La Sonnambula
Thaïs
La Traviata
Tristan und Isolde
Il Trovatore
A Ring Cycle
I despise bel canto, and I’ve been dragged to Cenerentola (Cinderella). Once is once too many, and you won’t see me waiting in line to see Lucia. Mattila is singing Salome, and Fleming is in Rusalka. Don Giovanni, Orfeo, Salome, and the Magic Flute would be worth seeing. I could easily be convinced to see Butterfly or Queen of Spades, and Seiffert is singing Tristan, but we saw an exemplary Tristan in March.
The Pittsburgh Opera is doing Samson et Dailia and La Bohème (well a few others too, but those are the only ones that interest me). Nothing on the page about the casts, though. I’ve been interested in the Pittsburgh company ever since John Derbyshire sent me his glowing review of Don Giovanni.
The Chicago Lyric is doing Lulu (I’d love to see that), Porgy and Bess, and The Pearl Fishers. And if you’re anywhere near, the Indiana University Opera is doing La Traviata, Merry Wives of Windsor, Love for Three Oranges, Le Cendrillon (also Cinderella, but Massanet’s, not Rossini’s), Guilio Cesare (ah! Handel!), and The Most Happy Fella. If we’re in Bloomington, I’d like to see Guilio Cesare, but we’ve seen Love for Three Oranges there a couple of times, ditto Traviata (a couple couple couple couple times). Nothing about next summer’s operas, of course, and since I’m seeing this from a google cache (IU’s music school server isn’t responding) and I don’t see it on google, I don’t know what this summer’s two operas are (well, sometimes two operas, other times, an opera and a musical, often West Side Story). And IU doesn’t even publish cast information during the season (you have to go to the music school and look at the cast list hidden in one of the corridors).
The DC Opera is doing Traviata, The Pear Fishers (two opera companies in one season?), Lucrezia Borgia (with Renée Fleming?), Carmen, Peter Grimes, Siegfried, Turandot (with Guleghina in the title role), and Petite Messe Solennelle. Oh, and Siegfried, with an unimpressive cast. I said I despise bel canto, and I do, but there are a few gems in the genre. Lucrezia Borgia is one. That, I’d gladly see (although I suspect Fleming can’t hold a candle to Montserrat Caballé in that role).
The Philadelphia Opera is doing Fidelio, Turandot, Rape of Lucretia, Italian Girl in Algiers, and (odd) a double bill of L’enfant et les sortilèges and Gianni Schicchi (although we did see an equally odd double bill at IU, Gianni Schicchi and Bluebeard’s Castle). Fidelio, Pearl Fishers, and Turandot (at DC) would all be worth seeing.
I probably shouldn’t have included the Lyric. Chicago isn’t close as it was when we lived in Indiana, but I was curious. Of course, the IU Opera isn’t reallly close either, but we do travel back to see people now and again. Let’s see, Guilio Cesare is Feb 27 and 28, and Mar 6 and 7. Well . . . that doesn’t really coincide with another reason to be in Bloomington, but maybe we could swing it. Did I mention that tickets are amazingly cheap there?
That, and Orfeo would be at the top of my list. Glück is one of my favorite composers — such beautiful, civilized music (love Cherubini too).
Here’s Andreas Scholl, counter-tenor, singing “Che farò senza Euridice”:
Montserrat Caballé singing “Se pietá di me non senti” from Handel’s Guilio Cesare (yes, the makeup and costume is awful, but God, what a voice! and what control!)
The server wasn’t responding, and they had to reboot it — twice. Everything seems to be up and running, though.
Note that I was right about Indiana. Clinton won, but by not as much as she did here.