Saturday, January 07, 2006

Low-Key Multi-tasking

After an evening of margaritas and Parsifal chez moi last night, the apartment is in need of a real tidy.

So I figured I'd listen to the second half of what has proven itself to be the Olive Garden of Italian opera, L'Elisir d"Amore. With this distinction in mind, only a very few comments are in order:

First, if Margaret Juntwait rrrolls one more rr I will shoot my radio...well, shoot it an evil look. She is the worst.

Rrrramon Vargas as the "completely gullible but all heart" Nemorrrrino is sounding pretty terrific this afternoon. I agree with Alex--he is sounding better here than in the the ill-fated Romeo et Juliette prima (and he was pretty solid there, too). The audience is certainly eating it up. I still think I will skip his duke in Rigoletto in Rome.

Ruth Ann Swenson is in her element and generallly doing fine. Certainly more comfortable than a couple other things I have heard her in of late (Micaela in Carmen and Mimi in Boheme) A few moments of connecting with her former splendor here and there, and a few more of standing at the biglietterie for "out to pasture". This post over at Parterre makes us wonder whether the latter is more true than we care to discuss.

Anyway, a worthy distraction from this hospitaliano is Maury D's clever assessment of the Wozzeck Ultima last night.

Up next: Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall tomorrow afternoon. It'll be like a 6 year old running into his 1st grade teacher outside the classroom (but I thought you LIVED there, Mrs. Jones...).

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