Miscellaneous Links

If April is a crueler month than March, I might as well go hide under the bed right now. This has been a particularly challenging time in a number of ways. Meatier, commentary-filled posts will resume at some point, but for now here are some undistilled, unconnected thoughts I'm tossing as a bone.

- Shout outs for all the recent linkage! Pliable in England writes about music and art at On an Overgrown Path. Georgia Meschini talks about opera in Italian at no guru, no method, no teacher. Richard Chambers is The Subversive Eclecticist who is a set designer and discusses theater, music, and his gear—I totally relate to guys who love their gear! And Gregory at Counter/Point 2.0 is a mezzo brimming with fabulous faggotry, featuring a photo gallery of husbands (not safe for work!) past and future. If you're visiting from Counter/Point, the only furballs at TSR so far are Simon Keenlyside and the cats, but perhaps you'd be interested in the Wall o' Nathan anyway. (Gregory, you might be amused by this post from little. yellow. different. Non-gay people, I take no responsibility for any mental images this post triggers.) Btw, Nathan Gunn's finally got his site up and running. Apologies to The Laurel Letters for more gratuitous toplessness by young men, but I thought this photo (from the Backstage page of nathangunn.com) was very charming.

- Speaking of which, The Laurel Letters wasn't so keen on DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation when it played in Boston, which makes me sad. I suppose I'll go check it out anyway, but I am starting to wonder if That Subliminal Kid has gotten a bit too Arty. But I'm looking forward to Amy X Neuburg performing at The Lab, where Edmund Welles, the bass clarinet quartet that Alex Ross singled out earlier this month, will be also be performing. (I hope they do Wild Boys!) And I just found out that Miss Coco Peru is in town at the New Conservatory Theatre. I still think back fondly to those solo tours-de-force she did at the Westbeth, all those years ago...

- A special mention for New Yorkers: if I still lived in NY, there's no way I would miss Toby Blackwell at The Duplex in April doing his one-man cabaret BITTER-ER: Hobbits, Divas and Slaves (with special guest appearance by Whitney Houston). Please go see him. He makes me laugh so hard that I can hardly breathe, and has been doing so ever since the days of wine and fake IDs.

- And speaking of NY, how random is this? My mother called me up earlier this week to say that she and my dad and some of their friends decided on a whim to go to Tosca at the Met last Monday. I believe this is the first opera that any of them have ever seen live. They've never exhibited any interest before! So, so weird. Anyway, they got themselves some $26 family circle seats, printed out the synopsis from the website (wtf, my mom figured out how to use the Met website, and thought to look up a synopsis???), headed off to the theater... And LOVED it! "I thought it would be hard to understand," she said, but the Met Titles made it easy. "I really liked the song the lady sang in the second act," she said; "you didn't even need to know what the words meant to know that it was important." Well, I'll be damned. Maria Guleghina's just introduced my parents to Vissi d'arte.

Happy Good Friday, everyone! And to all my fellow singing friends, hope you're having a healthy Holy Week.

Comments

[Semi-constant Reader]

Dear Mr. Room,

As an occaisional reader of your little diary, I quite enjoy your often-charmingly unconventional wordplay,eg:, "fabulous faggotry".
I must, however caution you against slipping into the tarpit of imprecision.
To that point: there's a small bone to be picked with you and I'm afraid that bone is one of liguistic contention.

In your phrase:

"Well, I'll be damned. My parents have just been introduced to Vissi d'arte by Maria Guleghina."

Please be aware that the correct locution is in fact "well I'll be dipped in shit."

Clarity, good Sir, clarity!
Carry on, then.

[Mezzogregory]

Nathan Gunn gave a tolerable Billy Budd here in Chicago in 2002/-03(?). The production itself was unmemorable, but in my capacity as a card-carrying Dairy Queen, I must tell truth that it was one good reason after another to be glad I have good opera glasses. That Samson-ish picture though...surely that's José Cura?
Hojoto,
GP
Thanks again for the link. Hope the bloggers are coming in droves from my site as well.

[M. C-]

Dear M. Reader,

Well dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians! How embarrassing to make such an elementary error. Clearly I don't copyedit my own writing. I shall correct it presently.

[M. C-]

Dear Gregory,

The SF Billy Budd is the first time I've ever rented opera glasses. I know whereof you speak.

[The Laurel Letters]

I am at once appalled and delighted that, from a basement office in Cambridge, MA, I managed to induce you to pose before a racy poster in San Francisco, CA.

But mostly delighted.

[M. C-]

Alas, good nutrition may have given me some length of bone, but not nearly so much as that! That fellow's actually baritone Nathan Gunn looking sheepish in front of a beefcake poster of himself as Billy Budd in Munich. But your sentiment is well taken! (I hope this isn't too diappointing...)

[sfmike]

Along with thirty other guys, I was a "Super Seaman" in the recent San Francisco production of "Billy Budd." When Nathan Gunn took his shirt off for the first time at the piano dress, there was an audible gasp from the assembled male chorus with one of them whispering, "why does he bother singing opera when he could just be a porno star?" For the record, Gunn was charming to everyone and friendly to work with. I wasn't crazy about the production (way too German expressionist for my taste) but the cast was wonderful and Runnicles the conductor along with the huge male chorus were both simply spectacular. And the opera itself is one of the truly great ones.

[M. C-]

Interesting that "porn star" has moved above "opera star" in the hierarchy of desirable careers.

I took no offense to the SF production of Billy Budd, except for the terrible, ineffectual staging of the moment that Billy kills Claggart. I certainly preferred your costumes in Billy Budd to those weirdo rubbery things you had to wear in Dutchman. In any case, the singing was really fine all around, Kim Begley especially. Thanks to you all for a good show!

Oh, btw, the photo of Nathan with the god-awful hair extensions is from the Philadelphia production of Pearl Fishers, where his Nadir was William Burden.

[Mezzogregory]

I feel so out of the loop. I've yet to hear "The Oceanliner". From what I read here and on Seiglinde's Diaries, I guess I'll just have to make this happen. Thanks again for a great blog. Please feel free to write more---in all your spare time...

[M. C-]

Looks like she's scheduled to sing Tosca on the April 9 Met broadcast...

But what are you doing up, blog surfing at 11pm on Easter Eve? Don't you have a 7:30am call tomorrow morning like I do? (yawn)

[Mezzogregory]

Ha ha! It was only 9:15 for me!
Easter has ended. Let us go in peace and have brunch. Alleluia.