Mathieu Duplay 🌈

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Fidelio
Anna Bolena
Les Troyens
Tristan und Isolde
Eugene Onegin
Simon Boccanegra
Der Freischütz
The Bartered Bride
Boris Godunov
Faust (the original, recently revived 1859 version)

At the Opéra Comique, which is exactly the right venue. I was very young at the time (he says coquettishly).

It's an extraordinary opera, but the last singer who made me enjoy it live was Teresa Berganza (too) many years ago.

“Pioneer” is the word: lesbian heroine Sylvia Townsend Warner wrote 7 utterly distinct novels which you probably don’t know since they are all so different to each other, 150 short stories, a history of Tudor church music and much else. Her (umpteen) letters are fascinating.
Please repost to help.

*know

In 2021, the UAE was ranked among the 20 most dangerous places for LGBTQ tourists to visit.[185] In 2022, several LGBTQ tourists who travelled to Dubai were deported. In March 2022, Thai transgender model Rachaya Noppakaroon visited Dubai to perform at the Expo 2020, but was sent back because her passport gave her sex as male.[186] In another case, a French influencer on TikTok and Snapchat, Ibrahim Godin, was sent back from Dubai because the authorities assumed his male friend travelling with him was his boyfriend. Ibrahim filed a complaint for "public defamation because of sexual orientation", and an investigation was opened by the Vesoul police. He said, "Dubai is not all pretty, all rosy as we see on social networks."[187][188] (from the Wikipedia entry on Dubai)

YouTube video by Hans Friedrich Gunther Lotte Lenya in Alabama Song by Kurt Weill recording 1930

I used to wonder what influencers did, and why they were called that. Now I now. They get people who should know better - ordinary people with 26 followers on Instagram - to go on holiday to hellholes like Dubai, where they can be swiftly induced to part with their money. And it works, apparently.

Obviously, the Magic Flute is another "Egyptian" opera. Gérard de Nerval fantasised about having it produced in the Great Pyramid (yes, *inside* it).

In a sense, Radamès is like Norma's Pollione, a weak and indecisive character torn between two strong women (another Classical or near-Classical reference).

...like Carmen or L'Arlésienne, and were it not for decades of Pavlovian conditioning, I don't think it would remind anyone of the banks of the Nile.

My impression is that Verdi didn't know much about Egypt and wasn't interested in finding out more. The music certainly doesn't try very hard to sound "Oriental", except in a couple of places - wheras the influence of Gregorian chant is everywhere in choral passages. The beginning of Act 3 sounds...

1907 depiction of the American soprano Emma Eames as the eponymous character in Verdi's opera Aida. She wears long, flowing robes, a pale blue veil and a golden headdress. She appears to be standing underneath the night sky in the middle of an open-air courtyard, surrounded by a dimly visible colonnade.

Interestingly, nineteenth-century illustrations suggest that sets and costumes conterintuitively looked more "Greek" than "Egyptian," as in this 1907 depiction of Emma Eames as Aida (the colonnade, the long, flowing robes...). Note the absence of blackface. This could be the Queen of the Night.

I don't see any signs of Jesus's involvement in any of this. Quite the opposite, in fact.

a close up of a statue of a woman with a purple flower in her hand Alt: Miss Piggy in an Egyptian-looking wig and costume winks at the audience.

Miss Piggy's long-awaited debut as Amneris.

Carreras does unfortunately exemplify the "belting" approach, but Freni is pretty much ideal.

The Egyptian/Orientalist claptrap is largely to blame and should be retired at this point.

I don't think it is Verdi's best, but it generally gets a bum deal from lazy performers who think that they can get away with belting it out while live elephants march in the background. Really good recordings are few and far between, but they invariably make me like it more than I thought I would.

YouTube video by Isappin Verdi : Aida H.V.Karajan 1979 Salzburg live (complete audio)

This is very good and much better than the studio recording. Karajan brings out the similarities between the triumphal scene ("Ma tu re") and the Council Chamber scene from Simone Boccanegra (it helps that his Aida is a noted Amelia Grimaldi).

One problem I have with Verdi's Aida is that I find Radamès so... irritating ("Morir per me d'amore," etc: don't make it all about yourself!). Why would a dazzling Ethiopian princess fall for this Egyptian nincompoop?

If I want a horror movie, I can just watch the news.

I dimly remember a time when the question was whether a drug worked, not whether it was "politically polarizing."

Hilarious? Hm. If I were more religious, I'd be praying for God to protect the Iranian people, as I fear they are beyond human help.

There was no plan, there was no list of candidates, and it's easier to claim that they are all dead than to admit there never were any.

I wish I knew when this was filmed. I probably should recognise the conductor, but don't.

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen.

I love my breakfast cereals.