Met National Council Auditions: Grand Finals

-

What a wonderful afternoon! What a great thing to see young singers singing their hearts out and all that talent onstage. I was 4/4 with my picks. Only unsure about the fifth winner, who turned out to be tenor Joseph Dennis. And thanks to my friend Gerald Martin Moore I got to meet some of the amazing winners afterwards in the reception.
These were my predictions during intermission. I was 4/4. Unsure about the final winner.


The amazing Reginald Smith, whose voice really shook the rafters.
Elegant French mezzo soprano Virginie Verrez
Amazing bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVIDammerung -- The End of the World in Met Streams

-
Image
The Norns say it's the end of the world! The nightly Met streams continue this week. Someone behind the dial at the Met must have a dark sense of humor -- for the first week of streaming they included La Boheme and La Traviata , two operas where the heroine dies of a specific infectious respiratory illness that was often acquired by lack of social distancing. This week they are doing an all-Wagner week which happens to include ... wait for it ... Götteradamerung . So try to forget the fact that the Met season has been canceled ! Try to forget that everyone in NY and NJ is essentially locked in our houses ! At the Met website we can watch the End of the World! Without further ado, here are some of my totally irrelevant musings on the Met HD offerings this week. Either way, these Wagner operas are great cleaning routines. You can disinfect your residence three times over BEFORE the first intermission:
Read more

Comparing Nutcrackers Across the Pond

-
Image
Battle of the Nutcrackers: U.S. vs. England This December season I had my usual annual ritual of putting aside money for two extremely crucial things -- a Christmas bonus for my building super and money on  Nutcracker  tickets. NYCB's  Nutcracker  is my annual Christmas binge -- every year I check out some new dancers, and see my old favorites. This year I saw four different SPF/Cavalier pairings. Truth be told, only one was the kind of transcendent, joyful complete performance that made me leave the theater on a high. The others all had some major flaws. But still, for the joy it brings me year after year, Balanchine's  Nutcracker  is unrivaled. Balanchine's classic version However this year I also decided to sample a Nutcracker cinema relay from across the pond -- Sir Peter Wright's Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet. The Wright Nutcracker this year starred Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer, Anne Rose O'Sullivan and Marcellino Sambé as Clara and Nutcra
Read more

The Mechanical Flute

-
Image
  In September 1791, a sickly Mozart conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute . Something about the mix of fairy tale magic, humor, and the sunny, eternally catchy music made the opera a huge hit. It has remained this way ever after. Audiences loved it then and love it now. It takes a lot for me to dislike a performance of The Magic Flute/Die Zauberflöte . The new production by Simon McBurney (as opposed to the abbreviated holiday version of the Julie Taymor production trotted out nearly every year) was high on my list of most anticipated events of the 22-23 season. The solo flutist, photo @ Karen Almond The evening was, however, decidedly unmagical. Simon McBurney's production (which has actually been around since 2012 and staged throughout Europe) seems determined to display all the mechanics behind the magic. We walk in and see two booths on either side of the stage. On one side is the video projection artist. On the other side is the sound effects specialist. After awhile, eye
Read more