All Hail Spontaneity!
Friday, July 4th, 2003 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthIt's been an unexpected day (right up to the discovery, just now, that my train to Plymouth tomorrow leaves an hour earlier than I thought it did) so I thought I'd share
Well, first surprise was a hulking great cruise ship just below Tower Bridge. I wonder if it's still there?
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elinor was in London, and emailed me a couple of days ago to ask whether I wanted to go to an Opera Babes concert at the South Bank. [For the uninitiated: the Opera Babes are a soprano and a mezzo-soprano who had a #1 album of popular arias and are doing their best to bring classical music to a wide audience. The nice bits, anyway].
In the interests of open-mindedness, I said 'yes'.
And we were in a box!
I enjoyed it quite a lot, though there was plenty to criticise. They were dressed as Floozies; scarlet satin for the first half, black and glitter (lots of glitter) for the second. Their voices work very well together when they're in tune, but that isn't always the case. Whoever selected the programme committed a crime against music by leaving the Barcarolle from Offenbach's 'Tales of Hoffman' to the orchestra; it's a stunning sop/mezzo duet.
They could do with a few lessons in stage deportment: at present, they're both examples of why most singers should be handcuffed before giving concert recitals. It is not necessary to wave your arms around all the time. Really.
And the faux-naivete wears thin after a while: yes, yes, you were discovered busking in Covent Garden. But you were both trained singers at that point, and it's accepted practice for ROH chorus / extras to earn a few bob serenading the tourists; it doesn't imply diamonds plucked from the gutter.
Having said all that, they are a marketing product that works very well. They're aimed at the portion of the music-buying public which rushed out and bought Lakme after British Airways used that duet in their ad: rushed out, bought it and decided that most of it was dangerously modern and unstructured ...
Highlight was definitely the Bellini duet -- from Norma -- which really showed their voices to best advantage. Not quite effortless and the breathing was shaky, but spectacular -- which, actually, is how I like my Bellini.
Am horribly tempted to buy album just for Bellini fireworks.
Oh, which reminds me ...
.. the rest of my evening
Was going to puree and freeze a couple of pounds of strawberries. Puree'd and drank them, instead. But they were such a wonderful red. (ladymoonray and I made an Important Scientific Discovery last weekend. About strawberries. Go on, guess, you'll never guess.)
Walking back along the South Bank, I found that -- with the flash off -- I can get pretty good twilight shots.
Maybe it was on board the liner; there was a spectacular fireworks display somewhere around London Bridge / Tower Bridge. I was glad that I'd missed my train and had time to watch ...
Well, first surprise was a hulking great cruise ship just below Tower Bridge. I wonder if it's still there?
elinor was in London, and emailed me a couple of days ago to ask whether I wanted to go to an Opera Babes concert at the South Bank. [For the uninitiated: the Opera Babes are a soprano and a mezzo-soprano who had a #1 album of popular arias and are doing their best to bring classical music to a wide audience. The nice bits, anyway]. In the interests of open-mindedness, I said 'yes'.
And we were in a box!
I enjoyed it quite a lot, though there was plenty to criticise. They were dressed as Floozies; scarlet satin for the first half, black and glitter (lots of glitter) for the second. Their voices work very well together when they're in tune, but that isn't always the case. Whoever selected the programme committed a crime against music by leaving the Barcarolle from Offenbach's 'Tales of Hoffman' to the orchestra; it's a stunning sop/mezzo duet.
They could do with a few lessons in stage deportment: at present, they're both examples of why most singers should be handcuffed before giving concert recitals. It is not necessary to wave your arms around all the time. Really.
And the faux-naivete wears thin after a while: yes, yes, you were discovered busking in Covent Garden. But you were both trained singers at that point, and it's accepted practice for ROH chorus / extras to earn a few bob serenading the tourists; it doesn't imply diamonds plucked from the gutter.
Having said all that, they are a marketing product that works very well. They're aimed at the portion of the music-buying public which rushed out and bought Lakme after British Airways used that duet in their ad: rushed out, bought it and decided that most of it was dangerously modern and unstructured ...
Highlight was definitely the Bellini duet -- from Norma -- which really showed their voices to best advantage. Not quite effortless and the breathing was shaky, but spectacular -- which, actually, is how I like my Bellini.
Am horribly tempted to buy album just for Bellini fireworks.
Oh, which reminds me ...
.. the rest of my evening
Was going to puree and freeze a couple of pounds of strawberries. Puree'd and drank them, instead. But they were such a wonderful red. (
ladymoonray and I made an Important Scientific Discovery last weekend. About strawberries. Go on, guess, you'll never guess.)Walking back along the South Bank, I found that -- with the flash off -- I can get pretty good twilight shots.
Maybe it was on board the liner; there was a spectacular fireworks display somewhere around London Bridge / Tower Bridge. I was glad that I'd missed my train and had time to watch ...
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Date: Sunday, July 6th, 2003 01:45 pm (UTC)We had a box too at the Lyric last night. Felt very posh indeed, even though it did mean sitting almost directly over the orchestra.