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MAB

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Everything posted by MAB

  1. MAB
    All recordings and concert performances I've heard have been sinificantly faster.
  2. MAB
    Opera Massimo, Palermo. Muti was to have conducted. Refunded the ticket, but not the booking fee. Didn't get a refund on the hotel.
  3. MAB
    Earlier this week the opera I was seeing in Italy was cancelled due to a musicians strike, when we arrived the taxi divers were on strike too. The cost of living crisis is hitting Italy hard, so bear this in mind when you book
  4. MAB
    And good for him!
  5. MAB
    And we have a thread about audience numbers falling at ROH. Could a reason so far unmentioned be the vulgarity rhat is creeping into the art of dance?
  6. MAB
    Now that is absurd.
  7. MAB
    I detest the entrechat six in Giselle with a passiion, it is a nothing but an invention of Rudolf Nureyev's to show off his technique and seems to have become standard. It is many years since I last saw the Bolshoi dance Giselle, but they used to adhere to the oeiginal choreography, It is nothing but an ugly interpolation and if a repetiteur had any basic taste at all they would veto it altogether.
  8. MAB
    MdGegor's L'Anatomie de la sensation played at the Bastille to scores of empty seats. They learned their lesson, Dante Project was shown at the Garnier to full houses.
  9. MAB
    As a rule of thunb the Garnier always sells out because it is such a tourist attraction., I've occaasionally seen empty seats at the Bastille, but it depends very much on the programme.
  10. MAB
    Royal Opera audences are shrinking too.
  11. MAB
    At one time there were at least five of his ballets performed by the RB, so they were popular back in the day.
  12. MAB
    Once again, this is NOT about politics, it is about morality.
  13. MAB
    And are the above performances sponsored by an oligarch? It will end when Russia pulls out of Ukraine.
  14. MAB
    Bedbugs have been a problem for a long time, staying in a hotel anywhere is really a kind of insect Russian roulette. I stayed in a budget hotel in Paris right by the Opera Bastille in May and survived unbitten. On the other hand I found myself sitting next to a woman at ROH who was constantly scatching, as I left the building my ankle was itching. One of her damn fleas had gone walkabout. Life is full of hazards. I wouldn't cancel a trip out of fear of mere bedbugs.
  15. MAB
    The Gramilano review sounds like a whitewash, are any other reviews available?
  16. MAB

    Opera Ignoramus

    MAB replied to Fonty's topic in Opera & Music

    Not gruesome at all.
  17. MAB
    As I've not seen all the dancers named I don't feel qualified to vote, however of those I'm familiar with Guillaume Diop gave the finest performance I saw in the past year in songs of a Wayfarer. Not a showy role, it was his expressiveness and sensitivity that made such a deep impression.
  18. MAB
    Just one dancer or are there male and female categories?
  19. MAB
    I once watched a Maryinsky rehearsal in Baden Baden. The Medora was so perfect I actually felt shaken, even the orchestra applauded her. Sadly the lady in question couldn't replicate that perfection in performance.
  20. MAB

    Opera Ignoramus

    MAB replied to Fonty's topic in Opera & Music

    Wagner was somehing I had to grow into, but I fell in with a gang of hardcore Wagnerites at ROH. So smitten am I now I trail around Europe after my favourite helden tenor.
  21. MAB
    They didn't appear to have enough dancers for Sylphides. However according to the programme they do have a dancer called David Wall (!?)
  22. MAB

    Opera Ignoramus

    MAB replied to Fonty's topic in Opera & Music

    Hansel and Gretal? I loved the fairytale characters living in the woods. Sadly the ROH has some truly awful opera productions so do ask about them here before you book. The Cav and Pag is quite good.
  23. MAB
    Perhaps someone should start a favourites thread. Definive means to me getting so near to perfecyion in one particular role that you've never seen that role bettered. After giving it a great deal of thought I was only able to name three damcers that gave such benchmark performances that I very much doubt they will be bettered in my lifetime. The fact is with most of the great ballet roles you will see far more than one interpretation in your ballet going lifetime that will knock your socks off, it that wasn't the case there would be little point in keeping going.
  24. MAB

    Opera Ignoramus

    MAB replied to Fonty's topic in Opera & Music

    L'elisir d'amore is currently playing, It is real laugh out loud stuff and has Bryn Terfel in it. Also it is an excellent production. Might be a very good place to start.
  25. MAB
    Indeed, she was also the world's first gym bunny and in an age before mass media she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world. In Bavaria, Austria and Hungary she enjoys almost a cult following to this day. As for Juliet, it used to be theatrical lore that you had to be forty to portray Juliet. RDB has a staggering number of older character dancers to call upon, their performances of Onegin are peopled with the genuinely old. No wonder Onegin was so contemptuous of the Larin family's provincial ball with all those elderly neighbours. For once you understood why that city sophisticate couldn' stand them.
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