If one performance of Turandot is good, two are better. The other day I watched the video of the production at The Forbidden City of Beijing, conducted by Zubin Mehta (1998, I think). A brilliant and fascinating production. The principals were triple-cast (since the production was performed for nine straight nights); this particular cast included Giovanna Casolla in the title role (very very good, in a role that rarely descends out of the stratosphere), Barbara Frittoli as Liu (wonderful), and Russian tenor Sergej Larin as Calaf. A superb voice, in some ways reminiscent of Pavarotti, except that Pavarotti was a better actor (!). (In an interview, Larin said this was probably the largest stage he had ever performed on. Nevertheless, he just stood in the middle of it like a stump.) And Calaf was still a jerk. A rather different take on Ping, Pang and Pong, which was interesting.
Several other productions are available on DVD. I'll have to check them out.
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I have a Portland friend who's a huge opera fan, but I have only sporadically attended live performances. Have you gone to any of the Live Broadcasts in movie theaters? I saw a preview for Magic Flute (repeat I think) which looked gorgeous.
The past few days of the General Convention have been encouraging. I was amused by the Oregonian's headline which said something like "Episcopalians seek more gay bishops."
Would you like to follow my blog? It's latinoartadventure.blogspot.com. I have no illusions about it, but it would be nice to have one more follower.
See you in Denver.
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