#he conducts some of the best bits AND explains the opera AND gives a great primer on how to listen to opera and feel it

[mobydyke]

i cant believe fidelio isn’t a more popular fandom plot!

yeah it's sooooo good!!!! I wish ppl knew her 😢 imo it's not popular bc obv opera is pretty inaccessible for the younger crowd and also it's rly rarely performed because it's so technically difficult for the singers

[somethingimworkingon]

“You had to be there”: in conversation with Albert Watson for Vogue CS, April 2023

Carmen Dell’Orefice photographed by Albert Watson, Vogue CS, April 2023

“You had to be there,” says Albert Watson. The legendary Scottish photographer is talking me through his shoot with the every-bit-as-legendary Carmen Dell’Orefice, the original supermodel, who makes her Vogue CS debut this month at the tender age of 91.

In one particular picture, Carmen, statuesque in opera gloves and giant shades, appears to be rising like an Art Deco Venus out of a red and white mosaic cloud, yards of Lever Couture dress pooling below her. How, I want to know, did he make her look so – well, so tall? “There’s a ledge that she’s standing on at the back of the elevator,” Albert explains – “we shot in a freight elevator” – next to the makeup area at the photographer’s studio in New York. Despite the fact that she is “very fragile: two people had to escort her onto the set, if she’s standing for any more than five minutes she gets vertigo,” Carmen remains, clearly, the eternal, consummate professional. “Once she was on the set,” Watson continues, “once that flash went, she [said] to herself, ‘Ok Carmen, pull yourself together, let’s go!’ She would laugh, give a little something [special] for every shot.” She may not have been actually levitating, but some kind of magic appears to have been happening. Not a gesture, not a moment was wasted. “There were sometimes just five frames – click, click, click, click – done.”

The very idea of a nonagenarian with vertigo posing in dark glasses and couture several feet off the ground, in an elevator, is dizzying, and Watson is candid about the challenges. Early ideas discussed with the team in Prague included a shoot with a Surrealist theme. The immense depth of Watson’s knowledge, his decades of experience – not to mention his great gift for storytelling – are evident as he explains to me, in detail, how a Surrealist-influenced shoot would work, how the model would move, how long the shots would take, how the photographer would conduct the sitting. He mentions the Vogue masters Horst and Erwin Blumenfeld, as well as Welsh theatrical photographer and set designer Angus McBean. But then: “I had a coffee with Carmen a week [before the shoot]… She is beautiful, people looked at her as she left the coffee shop… [but] she is fragile,” and he knew that this shoot needed to go in a different direction. “As far as conceptualising it, I knew that my energy was best served to pour energy onto Carmen, to make her feel good about the shooting. If I had a 20-year-old model I could pour my energy into the concept – but you have to accept this is Carmen, a 91-year-old, and that’s kind of remarkable.” And, in the end? “It was fabulous!” Albert says, warmly. “She is a wonderful person” – as well as a part of fashion history. He describes the project as “photographing somebody from another era, even before my time. She pointed out that when I first picked up a camera she had already been working as a model for twenty years – and I’ve been a photographer for fifty years!”

Albert Watson is 81, and has shot over a hundred Vogue covers. He started working with the magazine in 1976 (Carmen appeared on her first Vogue cover, aged 15, in 1946). Born in Edinburgh, Watson retains a soft Scottish accent, despite having lived in the US since the seventies. “I started off at art college as a graphic designer,” he says. Impressively, the fact that he was born blind in one eye seems never to have held him back. “As a craft subject I had two years of photography.” He then spent two years studying film at the Royal College of Art, but it was photography which was to dominate his career. Early test sessions for Max Factor in Los Angeles brought him to the attention of magazines, including Vogue, and his first celebrity image, of Alfred Hitchcock holding a dead goose for the Christmas 1973 issue of Harper's Bazaar, set the stage for a career in A-list portraiture. From Steve Jobs to Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger to Queen Elizabeth II, Watson has photographed many of the most famous faces of our times, as well as hundreds of actors, musicians and other celebrities.

Going back to the Vogue CS cover story, “I approached the shooting like it was portraiture,” says Albert. “My preparation in this case was that it had to be minimal, treating Carmen as a celebrity [rather than] a model, [where we] catch glimpses of the fashion.” I mention that some of the shots have a feel of Irving Penn, some of the styling, the hats and fascinators, reminds me of Lilian Bassman photographs. Albert doesn’t disagree. “You could sense, when you photographed Carmen, a little bit of a thread going all the way backwards to the 1990s, the 1980s, the seventies, the sixties and into the fifties. You could feel that [history] from her, the way she projects it.”

Carmen Dell’Orefice photographed by Albert Watson, Vogue CS, April 2023

As well as shooting portraits, fashion, and covers for magazines including GQ, Rolling Stone and Details, Watson has photographed major ad campaigns, directed TV commercials, and shot film posters and album covers. He also keeps up a steady stream of personal work, including still life and even landscape photography. You’ve shot so many different kinds of subjects, I say: do you have different mindsets for different kinds of photography? Do you feel differently when you’re shooting different subjects? “I do!” This is a good moment to point out that Albert is also an educator, a teacher of photography students. His Masters of Photography series covers everything from “The importance of casting and hair & makeup” to “Photographing sand dunes.” He tells me about taking time off between fashion shoots to travel in the north of his native Scotland, which in turn leads a fascinating discussion of his methodology when it comes to preparing and conceptualising photo shoots.

“I’m not a landscape photographer,” he says, “but I always wanted to spend six weeks just doing landscapes, no faces in front of me. [In 2013] I went to the Orkney Islands to do ‘portraits’ of the standing stones there. I went to the Isle of Skye [with] a book of paintings by Degas.” While Degas is famous for his Impressionist studies of ballet dancers and jockeys, Watson took a book of his less well-known landscapes. “I was fascinated by the fact that he would paint a rather boring hill – if I was standing behind Degas and took a picture of it [with a camera] and showed it to you you’d go, ‘Ok, it’s a picture of a hill,’ whereas if you look at the Degas painting you say, ‘Wow, what a beautiful painting.’ The thing is that Degas is doing an interpretation of what he sees in front of him, and I’m taking a picture… so I get an exact copy of what’s in front of me.”

Watson talks about how two photographers shooting the same landscape may end up with the same image, whereas two painters rarely will. He’s describing the need to push photography, beyond simply recording what is in front of the camera. “You have to try and control the landscape,” he says, “don’t let the landscape dominate the final image.” Some of his endeavours seem almost like Buddhist meditations – spending three days, ten hours a day, photographing reflections caused by the wind on a Scottish loch, for instance. Or getting up every day at 4.30am to be on the road by 5.30am, when it was still dark, to do “a series of pictures in a beautiful kind of forest, using the headlights of the cars as lights going through the forest.”

Carmen Dell’Orefice photographed by Albert Watson, Vogue CS, April 2023

Watson’s landscape photography isn’t simply an endurance test – even though “I chose October deliberately because the weather was bad!” He approaches it with as much professional preparation as any of his commissioned work: “I had two assistants with me, to make me very efficient, and able to quickly get up a mountain to take a picture, and quickly down.” He also uses it a way of reflecting deeply on the meaning of the images. “I wrote down a lot of things that were connecting landscapes to an emotional response.” On Skye he was musing on “Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Victorian romantic paintings” and when I ask him about how he keeps track of all these ideas, all these concepts, projects, he replies, “I’m taking notes all the time. I have a diary with me, and I’ve a diary by my bedside. Sometimes I wake up in the morning with an idea, go to sleep get an idea…” He talks about jotting things in a little notebook – “Landseer [the nineteenth century English animal painter and sculptor], some of the German Romantic painters from the 1860s, 1880s.”

On Skye, he also spent time taking pictures of the landscape specifically to manipulate them later – “shooting for a computer,” as he calls it. In his eighties, Watson still has a strong interest in innovation, and is unfazed by technology. His Instagram account, @albertwatsonphotography, is beautifully curated (“my son does that, he does a great job”) and has a strong following, but Watson is shrewd about the platform, well aware of what generates likes and what doesn’t. “With Instagram you have to be careful. Instagram is kind of a false reading of how popular your work is.” A combination of old and new, published and unpublished work, the account is also an educational tour through five decades of image-making, an excellent resource for photographers, students, designers and photography lovers alike. I ask him to talk a bit more about his own resources, and what kind of advice he offers to younger generations today. Unsurprisingly, Albert has a wealth of brilliant insights on the topic.

“I always say to younger photographers: ‘preparation,’” he begins. “They immediately think, ‘must charge the batteries in my camera!’ But it’s nothing to do with that. It’s conceptual preparation… When I’m preparing a shooting, I’ll go through a lot of books.” Watson admits, “the one thing that amazes me that young photographers don’t use nowadays… [is] books.” He talks about how books can be a source of ideas and inspiration, even if you end up taking things in a different direction than originally planned. A book is like a road map, but you don’t have to follow it faithfully: “It’s like you head out from London to go to Cornwall and you end up in Wales – the important thing is the book gets you out of London!”

His book collection is “about 30% photography, 70% art. That is a major difference,” he points out. “You’d imagine for a photographer it’d be 92% photography. But there are books on art, architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, books on the Maya, the Aztecs… a complete collection of [seventeenth century English architect] Vanbrugh drawings, Michelangelo drawings...” With thousands of volumes at his disposal – “I have five libraries in my apartment” – it’s also important not to get overwhelmed. Or overburdened on set. Albert’s trick is to use the iPhone to snap images from his library and collect them in albums on the phone to use as reference, especially when travelling. It’s an elegant solution, as practical as it is contemporary.

Watson himself has been the subject of several books, from the educational (Creating Photographs, from the Masters of Photography series), to the spectacular (Kaos, a dazzling career overview published by Taschen in 2017 in a limited edition priced at £2,000). His work has also been featured in catalogues from scores of exhibitions. Watson, The Maestro, at Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center through March 30, 2023, is his first retrospective in Korea and his largest exhibition to date in Asia. Meanwhile, those hauntingly beautiful images from the Isle of Skye can be seen in an online exhibition at the virtual gallery, CameraWork.de.

I ask if there any books he would recommend? “One of the best things for photography students, and design students,” he says, “is photography catalogues from [auction houses] Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips – Phillips does nice big ones” (as both a photography lecturer and former Phillips art director, I’m delighted to hear this.) “You can buy these things [on Ebay] going back fifty years,” Albert points out. “For thirty bucks you’ve got a thousand images by classic photographers! It's a great teaching tool.”

Our interview is nearly over, there’s just time for one last question, so I ask what motivates him – to teach, to experiment, to plan, to shoot – “What inspires you to keep doing what you’re doing?” Albert laughs. “I’m addicted to photography!... I always found the technical side of photography a pain in the neck, so I was never enthusiastic about that, but I did realise that if you want to be a photographer you have to have to bite the bullet, do your homework. I’m glad I did, because working hard on things like lighting, it opens creative doors for you. You can solve things quicker if you know how to light.”

[archive-03012022]

great comet 8/24/17 (matinee with dave malloy + blaine krauss u/s anatole)

ok so this is more for me to remember than for anyone else but here’s a song-by-song breakdown of great comet from when i saw it lol (lots about technical stuff)

i was in the top row of banquettes which is honestly the best place to sit in the entire theatre. we could see every part of the theatre (balcony and mezz included) without having to spin our heads around like owls and there was a+++ audience interaction (i’ll get to that later)

pre-show

ok so everyone literally burst out of the entrances randomly without any warning and just started talking to everyone it was great

a man with a sparkly mustache made sure we were all ok with strobe lights and if not to just deal with it and cover our eyes

i got a pierogi box thrown at my face. fun times.

theres an announcer guy that starts speaking in russian and english before just switching over to english

announcer: cameras? ensemble: NEIT!

my grandmother got super into this format and started shouting along #quality family bonding

prologue

dave malloy is a god end of story

but seriously the prologue is such a jam 

before the song actually starts theres a super sad scene of natasha saying goodbye to andrey and she hands him his coat and letters and he gives her the locket (she has a hearbreaking “no!” as he starts leaving)

the lights go from basically pitch black to full blast at the line “anD THIS IS ALL IN YOUR PROGRAM”

denee benton is so beautiful

the ensemble was roaming around everywhere and came over to where we were a LOT

bolkonsky made his entrance right next to us after his costume change right before the minor characters line by screaming and jumping through a curtain with his guitar 

the whole ensemble gathers on the platform by the doors for the beginning of pierre

pierre

dave malloy is a god end of story

while they’re all gathered watching pierre for the first bit of pierre, sonya is rubbing natasha’s back, reassuring and soothing her

i love the ensemble,,,,,, so much,,,,,,,,

helene conducts all the women dancing during “he is charming he has no sex”

the “good russian men” part singled out azudi and he looked so offended at pierre lol

all of the “ahhhh”s were magical

theres not much that hasn’t already been said about this song tbh?

oh and right after it’s over all the ensemble members drop out of their poses and deadpan, walking to the exits with bored expressions like “alright shows over, bye guys, our job is done”

moscow

marya? hates sonya so much?

but when they’re introducing each other natasha is super prim and proper and sonya does this awkward, lopsided bow with her little hand puff half hanging off brittain is such a dork im love her

natasha’s humming is so childish/naive i love it

“you’ll read to me while i K N I T”

marya casually roasting the audience? iconic

marya’s whole speech to natasha is honestly just great

mary walks between marya and natasha when she’s mentioned

private and intimate life of the house

he

draws

out

every

single

word

“people enjoy me though” got a really good laugh

gelsey bell? the godsent angel? yes, Her

B R I N G M E M Y S L I P P E R S (he finally started screaming it again)

“natasha is young and worthless and dumb” natasha literally looks so offended its great

mary picks a “suitor” from the audience and he was so confused

BOLKONSKY KISSED HIS “CHEAP FRENCH THING” ON THE LIPS FOR SUCH A LONG TIME AND HER DAUGHTER WAS LITERALLY DYING BEHIND HER

paul pinto’s servant character. that’s all.

marya plays the cowbell during the “where are my glasses” breakdown and generally looks disappointed in him the whole time 

natasha and bolkonskys

there was a 12 year old boy who had no clue what was happening and kept getting in the way of them putting the stools down it was great

all of bolkonsky’s interjections are met with a really quick spot on him and idk it was just super funny to me (he also did this really weird/hilarious lip trill at the end of “i do not wish to see herrrrrRRRRR”

denee and gelseys harmonies 

mary and natasha’s fake laughter

“says the mean old man in his underthings”

HOLY SHIT GUYS WAIT

WHEN MARY SAYS “AND HE LOOKED AT HER ONCE / HEAD TO TOE” BOLKONSKY MUTTERED “NOT IN MY HOUSE” AND I DIED

bolkonsky exits past marya who, once again, just sort of glared at him

no one else

the blue light change??

all of the light bulbs slowly start coming down and fading on to look like stars its gorgeous

at the “we were angels once, don’t you remember?” she said it right to this teenage girl at a table who literally grinned and turned away to be like “holy shit that just happened” it was really sweet

natasha is so innocent throughout the whole song its honestly so beautiful

andrey is shown in a blue spotlight with snow falling around him and he unwinds the red ribbon from her letters (and wraps it around his wrist like a bracelet for safe keeping) and starts reading them 

when he leaves and runs into the darkness natasha steps into his spot under the snow and starts singing the “you and i”s after him

the opera

marya is such a godmother is so cute

sonya’s narration is gorgrous and i’ll never get over it

ensemble members twirl mirrors around natasha at the beginning

this song makes me think about how important it is for natasha to have people like her which makes the ending even more sad :(

helene’s entrance is honestly so her idek how else to explain it

pierre’s fist pump when he says “though i’m enjoying myself at home :D”

marya is super obvious about mentioning pierre to helene since she’s with dolokov

the curtain “rising” is shown by the lightbulbs going back into the ceiling

the opera is such a good satire

GELSEY’S GOT SOME PIPES

when the dancers are “dying” they’re making this really funny, drawn out sighing noises and its amazing

denee’s face was hilarious after the dance seen she was just like :o

anatoles entrance is so extra

with every little *bum* *bum* he moved his head in a different direction and the lights flashed

helene and anatole have this creepy little moment where they’re standing under a light bulb and anatole taps his cheek for her to kiss but turns his head so she kisses him on the lips and right as their lips touch the lightbulb goes out

the opera singers continue miming in the doorways of the balcony and it was really cool to see

the ensemble was in costumes on the stairs acting out the opera as well

not only was anatole constantly looking at natasha, so was helene,,,,,,,,,

natasha hallucinates andrey’s dead body being torn apart, holding out the ribbon that held her letters together towards her

natasha and anatole

anatole checks himself out in the mirror before entering the box (blaine was really funny in purposefully pulling down a single curl over his forhead for ~fashion~)

i feel like he sings deeper than anatole but its wayyyy smoother like damn

when he’s asking natasha to the costume tournament her little “oh (:? oh,,,, i (:” when shes feigning modesty gives me life

blaines voice holy s h i t

when he grabs her from behind its really sensual and denee moaned really loudly and i

have i mentioned i love blaine’s voice

when anatole steals her flower natasha looks so scandalized

at one point he smells it and seems so in love

helene is watching the whole thing go down (basically the whole time the two of them are “alone” together she’s watching them)

after chasing each other around the stage a bunch them sitting down next to each other was treated as a Big Moment

the duel

in between songs anatole walks to pierre’s study fist bumping and grabbing at his head like “YES! YES YES!”

at “oh dear andrey’s betrothed?” anatole did like this little so-so hand gesture that was hilarious

the strobe lighting was way more intense than i expected

i watched grace mclean grind on a riding crop and then put it between her teeth it was great

lowkey threesome up in the mezz/balcony

and the girls were essentially using the railings as stripper poles

during “just as a duck is made to swim in water, god has made me as i am” anatole moonwalks, does the chicken dance, and gets grinded on by two girls

there was just A Lot during the duel

but i was too focused on celia mae’s glow in the dark thong to notice most of it

“here’s to health of married women.... and their lovers ;D”

oh i just remembered there was girl passed out drunk over someone’s box and all the people sitting in it were howling with laughter

helene’s voice is cracking when she says “he will kill you stupid husband” and might i say,,,,,,,,,, character depth

paul pinto’s announcer voice for duel

helene screams when the gun is shot

when pierre holds out his arms to be shot but starts looking around in confusion omg

idk but i love “we live to love another day”

dust and ashes

dave’s version is honestly so gut-wrenching

i never noticed in the recording but the strings on this song are honestly so beautiful??

he acts the hell out of this song and its just so :(

during the “we are asleep until we fall in love” the ensemble lines up in the orch aisles and in front of the mezz all backlit and its just so haunting 

as their “ah”s get more and more intense the lights don’t change at all and it just seems very church choir-y

sunday morning

sonya and natasha seem like they’re sneaking around in the beginning and its really cute

“everyone sees a man” is delivered so well, like she’s trying to reassure her 

the whole time natasha is staring into the mirror pierre is standing right behind her looking at her through the mirror

marya still hates sonya

charming

helene enters through the double doors with her face covered by her cloak and its sort of a mystery who it is until she starts singing

natasha seems embarrassed at first (since shes basically in her underwear) but then starts fixing her garters and stuff almost like she’s trying to impress her

amber gray holy shit

since natasha is still in just her corset and garters helene gives her her cloak 

“he was thinking about you, kept sighing about you” natasha literally lights up and puts her hand over her mouth and walks away like a middle schooler lol

when natasha gets her dress on first she runs around and twirls but then starts imitating helene but its still really childish

helene yanks andrey’s necklace off of natasha before giving her her own and keeping it for herself

in summary this song is Not Straight Whatsoever

the ball

all of the couples enter from the doors doing this weird little movement before going down the stairs 

two girls danced in front of us together (edit: it was gelsey and katrina i only just remembered) and it made my day 

all of the dancers (all through out the theatre, all the way into the balcony) are doing the same movements as anatole and natasha but since they’re in dark greens/black and anatole and natasha are in white it’s easy to not get distracting

blaine as anatole,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah

the “i love another” seems a bit forced on natasha’s side like she’s just saying it out of habit rather than for real

helene is still watching them

the kiss

lasts

a

long

time

BUT

when you look away you see that everyone has wine glasses and are putting their fingers around the rim to make the little noise

helene has a lightbulb over her and a spot. she’s the last one to stop.

the way natasha’s little part after the kiss goes it makes her look like she’s going to choose andrey because she’s singing to the orchestra but turns to anatole to sing the “i will love youuuu” part

the ensemble is lined up on the staircase, “ahhh”ing and holding their glasses up to toast them

anatole and natasha run through the doors together

letters

the whole cast comes in through the double doors

my grandmother screamed “HEY HANDSOME” when blaine passed by wlfkjvbvjnrev

most of the cast had stuck their letters to audience members into their bras/shirts

andrey stands on the platform in front of the doors (the same place he enters pierre and andrey) and pierre speaks directly to him for his letter

at “it is NAPOLEON” the portrait of napoleon on the wall (which was right above my seat lol) lights up and pierre starts pointing the gun at him

anatole and andrey stand on walkways next to each other when natasha is writing her letter

pierre, natasha, and mary all stand in a circle around the study singing at each other and it looks really cool

ok so anatole’s love letter..............

dolokov was holding the letter

they actually made the woman passing the letter walk up on stage to pass it to natasha

blaines “just says yes”s were suuuuuuuuuuper stretched out but he was pressing his face in her chest, stomach, thighs and trailing his hand up her whole body and it was uhhhhhh way more sensual than how lucas steele plays anatole

sonya and natasha

sonya steals the letter from natasha while shes’s sleeping

their argument is honestly everything

“its seems to me i’ve loved him a hundred years............ :)” sonya is just like “what the fuck natalie”

“would you think so badly of me??” brings me back to how much natasha just wants to be loved and cared for 

sonya and natasha yelling at each other is so heartbreaking

her letter to mary is all very final

sonya alone

the whole theatre is dark and theres a single lightbulb and spot on sonya as she sings

natasha makes her way up the stairs to the mezzanine (PASSES ANDREY WHO’S SITTING THERE WATCHING HER)

and wanders all the way across the mezz and back down the stairs on the other side

the whole time, sonya never takes her eyes off of her

i think we need to appreciate that in the realm of musical theatre, there are no other songs about just loving your friend? and wanting to help them?

“i know you’ve forgotten  me” natasha is back in front of the stage left stairs, but a light bulb lights up over her and she stops, looking at sonya

“it’s all on me” kills me she’s so selfless shes sacrificing her friendship with her best friend just to save her and just kjvn;efvaer

preparations

pierre literally doesnt care about what anatole’s doing 

theres a spot on sonya and natasha when they are mentioned

helene brings dolokov the tea

anatole shaves in front of a mirror

there was still shaving cream left on his face and dolokov had to wipe it off his face while they were arguing lol

the two of them were arguing really aggressively it was intense

i think helene was playing the drum during this whole part

balaga/the abduction

paul pinto deserved a tony

my grandmother stole egg shakers from the row in front of us

balaga runs up into the mezz and starts wreaking havoc it’s great

the musicians were all running all over the place saying hi to audience members and generally being great

anatole’s “woooooooooooo” and cape spin was a sight to behold tbh

blaine did a little “mm” noise when everyone went quiet after the big "WOOOOOOOOAHHHHHHHH”

his “gooooooooooooodbye” was so stretched out that the ensemble started swaying really slowly but then had to go the other way before starting again it was really funny

during the goodbye my gypsy lovers part marya slid on the end of the banquette seats i was in and i was freaking out so she blew me a fucking kiss and ran away

everyone dancing in a circle around the study

there was a little accordion-off 

alex gibson came over and was like “WATCH ME! WATCH ME OVER HERE!” and had a dance off with a guy all the way up in the balcony

there were people dancing allllllllll over these platforms through out the theatre there was never a dull moment

alex gibson also started humping a drum next to us and banging it while he moaned

he was so into it that he didn’t realize he was blocking lauren zakrin from chucking pages of war and peace everywhere (which i caught out of the air which is pretty neat)

one of katrina’s braids was coming loose so she started helicopter-ing them in our faces

i saw helene and marya make out and it was great

all of it was so completely organized chaos that was so incredible watch i love rachel chavkin with all my heart

when anatole sat down on the banquette next to the girl he made her kiss him on the cheek and did the “stretching” to put an arm around her thing it was hilarious

the girl leaned her head on him and they just chilled out (they actually looked like a real couple tbh) for an awkwardly long time before they all ran up the stairs

marya’s entrance is just as incredible as you would imagine

anatole did like a little smile like “uhh, hi” and then sprinted down the stairs away 

in my house

grace mclean deserved a nomination for best featured. seriously.

the maid servant tries to apologize to marya but she just points her back inside the doors

ok so grace kept it all super calm and contained until she exploded on natasha

she honestly plays this scene so well she’s ocnstantly jumping between concern, disappointment, and pure, unfiltered rage

natasha screaming is terrifying

when natasha “falls to the sofa” (she’s stand completely upright with her arms crossed) marya softens and becomes very calm again but when sonya tries to go to her she snaps again

natasha? still? thinks? anatoles? coming? :(

a call to pierre

the letter is followed by the light bulbs and lights under the mezz as it makes its way across the stage

paul pinto is the best

he stretches out the announcement

so

much

“........................................w h a t”

grace and dave have such good chemistry

the ensemble’s vocals make this scene so much more tense

“natasha and A N A T O L E  K U R A G I N”

marya’s whole demeanor changes when she hears that he’s married

find anatole

pierre literally walks down to the study, back up, puts on a coat and is already wheezing its actually pretty funny

“the club” is just the ensemble along the stairs and mezz dimly lit and gathered in small groups pantomiming its really realistic

“he cant BE MARRIED!” is said in complete disbelief and heartbreak

helene sits with anatole’s head on her lap

on his way to the study anatole passes sonya who glares at him

and if looks could kill

pierre and anatole

blaine plays off anatole as faking his confidence from the very start of the scene thinking pierre will just let him off

pierre literally pins him down and almost bashes his head in with a paperweight

OH WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED

helen is watching the whole thing from the stage right staircase (she was right in front of me) as if she’s eavesdropping from the hallway or something

she flinches when pierre stars grabbing at anatole and reaches her hand out to help when he’s about to hurt him

the letters look almost exactly like the ones natasha gave to andrey #parallels

anatole sits at someone’s table pouting and covering his ears like a child throwing a tantrum

“amuse yourself with women like my wife” helene actually seemed a little surprised at pierre actually knowing about their relationship

it hit me during the show that the only reason that anatole is upset is because pierre is calling him names which is just so childish considering everything happening

natasha walks between them arguing and pours arsenic into her glass, chugging it and then lets out this guttural scream

she runs up and meets marya and sonya who rush her through a curtained exit

blaine can hit the petersburg note 

natasha very ill

this song is honestly just so haunting

dolokov plays guitar in the double doors

the whole stage is dimly lit and its all very ominous

pierre and andrey

andrey enters through the same doors he left during the prologue and speaks to pierre on the opposite side of the stage before they meet in the middle platform

the “well, how are you?” seems a bit comical and sarcastic

i could write essays about how much “theres a war going on” does for the story at this point

andrey acts like he doesn’t really care about the whole ordeal and like he’s already trying to distance himself from it, almost laughing at himself

“i much regret her illness” is so cold and passive aggressive that it hurts

oh and if this scene didnt hurt enough, mary is watching the entire thing

after “dont every speak of this again” he shoves pierre. hard.

when he leaves, he passes mary who smiles and tries to hug him but he just puts his hand up and walks past her before taking his place in his father’s chair and folds in on himself

natasha and pierre

i’ve been classically conditioned to cry to these piano notes no joke

natasha comes down the stairs really slowly, relying heavily on the railing to help her

pierre tries to help but she brushes him off

she’s in a white, shapeless nightgown (she only wears white through the whole show), is barefoot, and has her hair in a braid and looks like a little girl

when she starts singing its very weak

ALL 👏 SHE 👏 WANTS 👏 IS 👏 LOVE 👏 AND 👏 TO 👏 BE 👏 FORGIVEN 👏

oh and all of the ensemble members since find anatole have taken places all over the theatre and are just. sitting. watching the ending of the show. i noticed mostly courtney basset sitting cross-legged on the walkway in the orchestra

when natasha begins to cry, its not crying. it’s loud, almost primal sobbing

pierre is just so tender towards her and :’)

when pierre tell her that she can talk to him they both look confused

right before the proposal natasha is making her way up the stairs and turns back around when pierre starts talking

dave’s delivery of the proposal is So Good

he choked on the “and for your love”

the mini pierre reprise is heartwrenching

natasha made her way really slowly back up to the doors, but seems hopeful

the great comet of 1812 

ok so

the song is song in complete darkness, theres barely even a spotlight on pierre

veeeeeery slowly individual light bulbs start fading on but you cant see much

then the chandeliers start to slowly light up

but this is all super gradual and doesn’t really become notciable for a few minutes

hearing the ensemble coming in from all sides is gorgeous

then the comet prop above pierre’s study starts lowering (i think around the time its mentioned by name for the first time)

as most of the chandeliers are coming on, a tiny light on the bottom of the comet fades on and starts illuminating the larger comet

now the entire theatre is lit only by the lightbulbs, chandeliers, and the slwoly brightening comet. no table lamps, no stage lights, nothing.

as the final minute or so approaches all of the lights start to dim except for the comet until it’s the only thing remaining lit

and in 100% honesty every single one of the 1200 people in that theatre had their eyes fixed on it for the final moments of the show

then, as the song ends, the lights on the comet fade until only the tiny light on the bottom remains. pierre is collapsed in his chair looking up peacefully and the conductor raises his hands to praise it as it’s dimming until the theatre is in complete darkness

anyway this really wasnt for anyone else to read but if you made it this far? im sorry? this was a complete mess i’m still a wreck from this show

[peppermint-shamrock]

Fic Recs

So there’s an event going on called “Fic Rec Days”, I thought I would do my best to participate. To be entirely honest, I don’t read that much fanfiction these days, as I prefer writing it. Still, I tried to put together a list of fics to recommend! (No particular order).

Worst Case Scenario

Author: Xparrot

Fandom: YGO DM

Summary: An experiment gone awry sends Kaiba through time to unexpected, unacceptable future.

Pairings: None, really. Slight implication that Jou and Mai got together but Mai is never mentioned by name.

My thoughts: Man does this fic have some unfortunate implications for the ending of DSOD. It was written more than 10 years ago but it’s eerie how little would have to be changed to make this be set post-DSOD - Mokuba’s plea for assurance going unanswered seems all the more ominous when I think about this fic.

The story is fairly straightforward, Kaiba accidentally travels to 30 years in the future, finds he can’t get back, and that things have changed for the worse. The twist was pretty obvious from early on (at least for me...and I’ve probably spoiled it for you just with explaining my thoughts on it...not really any way to express that without giving it away though). There’s some humor, and some emotional/angsty parts, and overall things are resolved fairly easily. It’s enjoyable, but like I said, the real draw of it for me now is juxtaposing it with DSOD.

Violin

Author: HakureiRyuu

Fandom: YGO DM

Summary: A few drumbeats accentuated the lyrics, and as the second verse flowed into the chorus, the violin began its soft melody again, a different tune this time. It actually seemed a bit more confident, more willing to take the spotlight, and Anzu found herself encouraging the little instrument. It was so easily overlooked, its quiet little melody overshadowed by the louder instruments, but beautiful all the same...Oh my god... With all the subtlety of a ton of bricks, the realization hit her.She wasn't thinking about the violin at all.

Pairings: Peachshipping

My thoughts: This is a lovely fic about Anzu realizing that she’s in love with Yuugi. It’s beautifully written and flows really well, incorporating Anzu’s thoughts about the music she’s listening to with her thoughts about Yuugi, with some nice little flashbacks, both about things that happened in the series, as well as other things, like Anzu’s dream to become a dancer being sparked by an opera. I like it because it focuses on that period of confusion between when she realizes it and when she accepts it - it’s not an immediate thing. Which I think reflects how it would take Anzu to realize this.

Brief Interviews with Best Friends

Author: jkateel

Fandom: YGO DM

Summary: After Doma, the U.S. Navy conducts interviews with Jounouchi, Honda, Anzu and Kaiba in regards to Yuugi Mutou. All reports and information should be treated as classified material.

Pairings: none

My thoughts: This is the funniest fic. Well, Anzu’s chapter isn’t quite so funny as the others, but overall it’s pretty funny. Jounouchi wants food, Honda goes on a rant about Americans being rude, Kaiba is completely uncooperative (the top of the “brief” says “Who the hell let a teenager have their own company?”), and they make the mistake of trying to intimidate poor Yuugi.

The Right Present

Author: kajoqixuye

Fandom: YGO S0

Summary: It's Christmas time at Domino High, and Yugi's thinking of getting a present for Anzu. But another classmate has plans involving Anzu and Christmas…and Yugi's not part of them. When he tricks Yugi (and beats him up, of course), it's up to Yugi's other self to set things right…and get revenge. Oneshot.

Pairings: Peachshipping

My thoughts: Great characterization in this fic, and I love the game that Atem plays with the bad guy - it’s reminiscent of the talent show ep. And I’m always one for cute peachshipping moments!

Sight the King

Author: olesia.love

Fandom: YGO S0

Summary: After Yuugi wakes up at the scene of a crime with blood on his hands and a voice in his head, there's only one thing he can do: Run.

Pairings: Puzzleshipping

My thoughts: This is probably one of the best puzzleshipping fics out there. It’s done really well, and doesn’t suffer from the usual tropes that plague puzzle fics - Yuugi is quite capable here. There is smut in one of the chapters, but this author actually follows fanfiction.net rules about that and it’s blocked out. It’s very compelling, I love the plot - it’s not just romance. There are a few things that don’t really do it for me (the last few chapters were weird, it felt like the conflict had already been resolved so this new one didn’t need to be there, but it’s a minor complaint). And Jounouchi dies early on :(

Identity Theft

Author: My Misguided Fairytale

Fandom: YGO DM

Summary: Was it really only a change of clothes that made him either the Lord of a manor or a penniless vagrant? / Regency Era England AU 

Pairings: Encourageshipping

My thoughts: This is the best. Yuugi and Atem swap places, Anzu is confused and mad at everyone. All ends in a confession of desire. It’s great. Please read it. Also one of the few encourageshipping fics aside from my own where it’s actually all three of them (although it’s still mostly focused on Anzu with both of the boys, there’s attraction acknowledged between the boys as well - not that I mind just Anzu with the two boys, but I prefer all three of them together).

(æ)mæth

Author: Kim Chang-Ra

Fandom: YGO ARC V

Summary: Hokuto has been sealed into a card. Yaiba is still recovering from his loss to Isao. And Masumi, left with Akaba Himika's unsettling revelations of interdimensional invaders, is starting to have nightmares.

Pairings: None

My thoughts: I LOVE THIS FIC. It’s honestly my favorite, the most compelling fanfiction I have ever read. And not just because it’s focused on my favorite, often-ignored, minor character (Masumi). It’s just so well written. I’ve rarely seen someone attempt to write duels, let alone write them so well. This is also the fic that changed my mind on OCs in fanfic - the author does them so well, gets you very invested in his OCs, and incorporates them well enough into the fic that they don’t take over but that they feel relevant. I feel more than anything that it really captures the heart of YGO, with its’ themes, tone, and plot twists.

I just really, really love it.

I also suggest you check these cool people out:

@starmiracle (FFN link), who writes lots of lovely peachshipping, revolutionshipping, and encourageshipping!

@reijiakabutt (AO3 link), who writes great stories for Arc V, and who made me ship robustshipping.

@homura-bakura (AO3 link), who writes SO MUCH great stuff, for all the YGO.

[mastcomm]

When a Ballet Director Was Fired, Dance Stars Rallied. Or Did They?

Some of the dance world’s biggest names threatened to withdraw work from the repertoire of the Lyon Opera Ballet — a major French company — this week unless it reinstated its former artistic director.

“This is with a heavy heart,” they wrote in an open letter published in Libération, a major newspaper in France. But, they added, they saw “no other solutions.”

Yorgos Loukos, the Lyon company’s artistic director since 1991, was fired this month after a French court found him guilty of discriminating against a dancer. Mr. Loukos had refused to give the dancer a contract when she returned from maternity leave.

The Lyon Opera Ballet’s decision to fire him was “incomprehensible and arbitrary,” said the letter, which called on the French government to intervene.

The letter — in which stars appeared to hold a company to ransom — contained the signatures of around 100 people, including Benjamin Millepied, William Forsythe, and the European choreographers Jiri Kylian and Mats Ek. Sylvie Guillem, the French ballet star who retired in 2015, was listed as a signatory, as was the actress Isabelle Huppert.

But when The New York Times contacted some of the letter’s signees for comment, several disavowed it.

“I was asked to sign, but declined, because the letter spoke to internal matters of the theater of which I have no direct experience or knowledge, and I do not agree with the coercive tactics,” Mr. Forsythe said in an email.

“We’re all sad for Yorgos,” Mr. Millepied said in a telephone interview, but he said he had never put his name to the letter. “I don’t know enough to,” he said.

Didier Deschamps, the director of France’s National Theater of Dance in Paris, said in a telephone interview that he had wanted to show his support for Mr. Loukos, but had asked for the threat of withdrawing work to be removed. Brigitte Lefèvre, the director of the Festival of Dance in Cannes, France also said through a spokeswoman that she had not signed the letter.

So what happened?

Mr. Loukos’s work in Lyon has been much admired in the dance world. It “has long had an exceptionally ambitious and diverse repertory,” Roslyn Sulcas wrote in The Times in 2016. The following year, Alastair Macaulay, then The Times’s chief dance critic, named one of the company’s productions among the best of the year.

The current saga goes back to 2014, when Karline Marion, a then-34-year-old dancer, returned from maternity leave. Two days later, she received a letter saying that she would not receive a new contract.

Ms. Marion recorded a conversation with Mr. Loukos — later released by Mediacities, a French news website — in which he said that she had “done quite a bit” during her five years at the company, but that her best years were behind her. “Especially with a child,” he added, before telling the dancer to “stay in Lyon, go to the gym and look after your stuff.”

In 2017, a French court ruled that Mr. Loukos had discriminated against the dancer. Last December, an appeals court confirmed parts of the decision. The Lyon Opera Ballet said in an statement that it had then conducted an internal investigation that “revealed evidence that could be qualified as moral harassment” by Mr. Loukos.

The company fired him six months before he was due to retire.

The open letter to Libération was written by Maguy Marin, a French choreographer, with the aid of Ariane Mnouchkine, a theater director.

A spokeswoman for Ms. Marin declined to answer further questions in an email on Wednesday and did not respond to requests on Thursday to explain why the names of people who said they had disavowed the letter, or who had reservations about it, appeared in the published version.

On Thursday, Libération published an apology to its readers that included a comment from Ms. Marin and Ms. Mnouchkine, and an explanation as to how Mr. Forsythe and Mr. Millepied’s names were added to the letter. They said Mr. Forsythe had offered his support to Mr. Loukos in a telephone call, which was misinterpreted as an agreement to sign the letter.

But the pair did not apologize for Mr. Millepied’s inclusion. “Regarding the signature of Benjamin Millepied,” they said, “we received an email on Feb. 12 sent from his cellphone with the subject: ‘I agree to sign the letter for Yorgos.’”

The Times has seen a screenshot of this email, but not the full exchange.

“There seems to have been some unfortunate miscommunication about this situation,” Mr. Millepied said in an email on Thursday.

“The bottom line is that I was ultimately asked to sign and return the final version of the letter directly to the people in charge of organizing it,” he said. “I did not do so, because I did not agree with the content of the letter and the position they took.”

Some signees of the letter said they understood Mr. Loukos’s decision not to renew the dancer’s contract. “I know enough to say Loukos has great respect for the dancers in his company, even the ones who have babies,” Mr. Deschamps said.

He said Mr. Loukos had not renewed Ms. Marion’s contract because she wasn’t a skilled enough dancer. “A director has to maintain the level of the company,” Mr. Deschamps said, though he added that Mr. Loukos “was wrong to say what he did to her.”

Mats Ek, the choreographer, said his intention in signing the letter had been to protest Mr. Loukos’s firing. He said he had not meant to send a message to young dancers that their complaints would not be listened to.

Mr. Ek said that artistic directors hired and let go of dancers for artistic reasons, and that this was a specific case. “Of course dancers can be bullied and abused and harassed, and should speak,” Mr. Ek said. “But from my point of view, Loukos has been harassed by the theater.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/when-a-ballet-director-was-fired-dance-stars-rallied-or-did-they/

[paulinedorchester]

Glover, Jane. Handel in London: A Genius and His Craft. London: Pan McMillan; New York: Pegasus Books, 2018. The subtitle The Making of a Genius appears only on the dust-jacket.

What with one thing and another, a good deal of 18th-century material passes across my dashboard. I always look at this a bit wistfully. I enjoy some 18th-century art (not all), but I’ve always found the literature difficult to engage with, and except for what came in at the very end of the century I doubt very much that I’d be able to wear to wear the clothing or coiffures: I have no cleavage to display and my hair won’t be swept back over the top of my head; it always wants to part somewhere. (This being Tumblr, someone is undoubtedly reading that and thinking, “Then wear the men’s clothing!” Sorry, dear, but you’ve got the wrong woman for that.)

However, a great deal, possibly even a plurality, of the music that I love best was composed during the first five or six decades of the 18th century. Another thing that I do when I see robes à l'anglaise and the like in this space is to wonder whether the posters are as engaged with the music of the period as they are with the images, politics, etc. With that in mind, I’m really thrilled to be able to recommend Jane Glover’s new book on the career of George Frideric Handel, who was born in Halle, Germany, in 1685, spent much of the first decade of the 18th century in Italy, and lived and worked in Great Britain (mostly London) from 1710 until his death in 1759.

Jane Glover CBE has conducted orchestras and opera companies all over the world; her discography runs to more than two dozen recordings of music from four centuries. Since 2002 she has been director of Music of the Baroque Orchestra and Chorus here in Chicago, a fact that is mysteriously omitted from the biographical blurb on the back flap. Handel in London is at least her second book (after Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music, which I haven’t read).

If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then Glover is a terrific dancer. Written for the general reader, Handel in London contains not a single musical example. For me, this was a problem at times — she writes that “the climactic parting of the Red Sea [in Israel in Egypt] is told in huge eight-part chords of contrasted dynamic,” and I wanted to know precisely how that works. But she’s so good at describing music that in the end it doesn’t matter. Glover also provides excellent capsule synopses of each of Handel’s dramatic works and vividly brings to life the the cultural, social, and even political context of Handel’s music, and the lives of 18th-century musicians and the people they worked with. 

I should add that Glover doesn’t entirely let go of musical concepts: she assumes that the reader understands conventions like time signatures, and even such a slippery concept (imho) as the notion that a particular key has inherent overtones of tragedy, comedy, or whatever else. She also has an odd habit of introducing other composers — Handel’s rivals in the London opera world of the 1720s and 30s — by their surnames only, implying that she simply assumes that you know who they are. (Fortunately the book has a good index, so you can find their full names there and then google them.)

Glover does fail to touch on a couple of issues that I was hoping that she would go into. During the mid-to-late1730s Handel gradually shifted his focus from operas (always performed in Italian, as a matter of convention) to oratorios (in English), but he kept working with the same group of singers, most of whom were from Italy, Germany, or France. Great Britain and Ireland just weren’t producing the virtuoso singers that Handel needed, and it wasn’t until about 1750 that native speakers of English formed a majority of his company. Take it from a former voice student: it’s tough to sing English intelligibly, even if it’s your first language. All those diphthongs and unvoiced consonants! So how well did the Continental singers do it, and how did the British public react to their efforts? We don’t read a single word about that.

Glover credits the texts of two of Handel’s oratorios, Solomon and Susanna, to the Jewish poet and dramatist Moses Mendes without even mentioning that many attribute them to Newburgh Hamilton, but is silent about on the subject of Handel’s Jewish audience or lack thereof, an issue about which a debate has been raging conversation has been taking place in recent years. Most of his successful oratorios draw their subject matter from the Hebrew Bible, and he is said (although not in this book) to have jokingly explained the initial failure of one that doesn’t, Theodora, by saying, “The Jews won’t come because it is a Christian story, and the ladies won’t come because it is a respectable one.” Extrapolating from these two things, some observers have concluded that there must have been a substantial Jewish audience for the oratorios (other than Theodora and Messiah). In response, others have raised questions about how many households in London’s small (ca. 10,000, at a guess) Jewish community could have afforded concert tickets. Glover also gives us an excellent summary of the controversy that surrounded Messiah at the time of its London premiere: as “an act of religion” being offered in a theater rather than a church, it was considered highly inappropriate in some quarters. But Solomon, Susanna, Israel in Egypt, etc., caused no such kerfuffle, and aren’t they also “acts of religion?” Glover must have some opinion about all this, but doesn’t bring the question up. Perhaps there is another book of Handelian social history still to be written.

None of this, however, takes away from the excellence of this beautifully-written book, which anyone with with an interest in 18th-century history and culture should read.

[globlenet-blog]

The alternative 2016 sports awards: the years best quotes, gaffes and meltdowns

https://clearwatergolfclub.com/the-alternative-2016-sports-awards-the-years-best-quotes-gaffes-and-meltdowns/

The alternative 2016 sports awards: the years best quotes, gaffes and meltdowns

Your investment medal tables: it had been another big year for sporting soap opera. The quotes, the rows and also the capybaras that made yesteryear 12 several weeks special

Star of the season

Cristiano Ronaldo won a 4th Ballon dOr, launched a variety of CR7 blankets, tossed a microphone into a lake, inspired a tantrum meme, and located the eras defining football press conference, using the press banned from asking them questions. He denied it had been his idea to possess the questions resulting from a Uefa media officer rather: I decide nothing. Also, he made an appearance to goes a magic fully-created Euro 2016 TV graphic during Portugals quarter-final. Perfect.

Ian Finch (@FinchIan)

Not only a skilful player, Ronaldo may also gob out a replay wipe #POLPOR pic.twitter.com/UC44YRv5TA

June 30, 2016

Manager of the season

Claudio Ranieri, using the edge off 2016.Hey, man, dilly-ding, dilly-dong. Seriously! Former Ranieri player Gianfranco Zola revealed the saying was attempted and tested. Hes always stated dilly-ding, dilly-dong. Hes a vibrant guy. Initially when i first heard it’ understood what he meant. He explained it a lot of occasions.

Modern footballer of the season

Lots of contenders, but two Rental property men share the title: club captain Gabby Agbonlahor, relegated on the nitrous oxide legal high 2 yrs after extending his Rental property deal because: I get that very same buzz pulling around the Rental property shirt, and team-mate Joleon Lescott, who livened up last seasons harsh run-in by tweeting a photograph of a sports car following a 6- defeat and telling the press how going lower would be a real weight off the shoulders. He left on the free in August.

Also standing his ground: Poultry midfielder Ozan Tufan upset with media critique throughout the Euros after he was caught on camera doing his hair as Croatias Luka Modric formed as much as score before him. I do not get the way a single moment by which I actually do my locks are considered an error. It damages my confidence.

Best Olympic moment

Recording the atmosphere: Nikki Hamblin and Abbey DAgostino helping one another finish Rios 5,000m after colliding mid-race. Hamblin: After I went lower it had been like: Whats happening? Why shall we be held on the floor? And all of a sudden theres this hands on my small shoulder. That girl may be the Olympic spirit, immediately.

Story from the summer time

Syrian teen Yusra Mardini winning her heat within the 100m butterfly for that Refugee Team in Rio, annually after surviving the capsize of the six-man dinghy transporting 20 refugees towards Lesbos. This is actually awesome there are plenty of tales about me now and lots of people who wish to take my picture: its assisting to spread our message. This doesn’t stop here This isn’t the finish.

Most off-message

1) US womens football star Hope Solo, reflecting on their own Rio quarter-final defeat to Norway: We performed a courageous game but we performed a lot of cowards. The very best team didn’t win, I strongly, firmly think that. They wont allow it to be far. They provided the ultimate. And 2) The uniform golfers delivering their pre-Games causes of not likely to Rio. Rory McIlroy: Though the chance of infection in the Zika virus is recognized as low, it’s a risk nevertheless. Dustin Manley: My concerns concerning the Zika virus can’t be overlooked. Jason Day: The only reason behind my decision may be the danger to future people in our family. And Vijay Singh: I must take part in the Olympic games, however the Zika virus, you realize everything crap.

Best change of direction

Originated from Sepp Blatters substitute at Fifa, Gianni Infantino calling his new pay deal evidence of its emerging anti-avarice culture. Infantino stated his modest contract 1.15m fundamental plus bonuses, vehicle, house, 1,542-a-month expenses and funding for just one-off costs for example 1,100 for any tuxedo and 660 on flowers reflects greater than any word can reflect my strong will to finish recent conduct.

Former Fifa man of the season

Most relaxed because the FBI required a grip: former Concacaf mind Jeffrey Webb, who located a Harlem Renaissance-themed blackjack party in Feb while under house arrest in the Georgia mansion he bought with fraud money. Webb, looking for sentencing next May, required the Concacaf presidency this year pledging to attract a line underneath the organisations shameful Jack Warner era: We must move the clouds, and let the sunshine in.

Interview of the season

Gary and Paul ODonovan, live on RT in August after winning Irelands first rowing gold discussing the craic, Nutella, peeing in cups, how you can row (close your vision and pull just like a dog), and just how sad they believed to stay in Rio simply because they were missing the Rio-themed parties in Skibbereen. Recently these were named RT Sport Team of the season, appeared inside a new documentary Pull Just like a Dog, were interviewed for Graham Nortons New Years Eve BBC1 show, and named as Britains most Googled Irish-related search phrase within the entire 2016. Gary: Its funny the way in which its labored out.

Best commentary moments

Icelands Euro 2016 coverage, which from Irelands Cathal Dennehy and Ronan Duggan, live streaming Aprils Irish Universities Athletics Association womens 4 x 400m dramatic relay final being an outsider billed in the depths of hell to victory. Dennehy accepted later hed achieved a pitch approximately your dog whistle along with a squealing pig All of us lost the brain.

Worst commentary moments

1) Canadas Olympic broadcaster CBC apologising in August after their swimming commentator known as the entire mens 200m individual medley mistaking Michael Phelps for Ryan Lochte and 2) John Virgo, confident he was off-air during BBC1s live coverage of Mark Selby and Marco Fus epic contest at snookers World Championship in April: I wanted to watch a bit of racing this afternoon. Ill be lucky to look at some fucking Match during the day. Spokesman: Hes embarrassed and apologetic.

Pundit of the season

The clip that never grows old. Skys Steve McClaren in June, together with his in-play analysis of Englands reaction to Icelands equaliser: It has been the right response from England. You simply think: Not a problem, begin anew, keep dominating, keep getting pressure around the Iceland back four the only real factor they have got may be the big boy in advance Sigurdsson, nobody Sigthorsson Oh, ohhh

Best attitude

Mike Allardyce negotiating the 400,000 top-up that ended his 67-day England reign. He guaranteed undercover reporters hed deliver their pretend clients keynote speaking, thats what Id do, Im a keynote speaker plus good value not only the keynote speech but additionally within the bar after. I do not are available in like many of them, bang, youre off. What happens I am talking about? Im likely to stand in the bar. Possess a couple of social drinks.

Best protest

Charlton and Coventry fans, staging some pot protest in October against both clubs boards by hurling hundreds of plastic pigs in the pitch. @CAFCofficial, 3.02pm: Play is stopped. Pigs on pitch. 3.03pm: (A fantasy ones).

Social networking awards

Best live tweeting: 1) Danny Willetts brother Pete, watching the Masters in April with tweets including: Without words. I once punched that kid in the head for hurting my pet rat. Now look and: Ive shared a shower having a Masters champion. His Ryder Cup online preview in September which branded US fans pudgy, filthy cretins along with a baying mob of imbeciles didnt go down so well. 2) @hastingsufc, remaining professional from the odds in October: Apologies for insufficient updates / Ive been stung with a wasp. Even game, no significant chances. 3) And Icelands @rvkgrapevine, giving one minute-by-minute evaluation of keeper Hannes Halldorssons summer time performance against Portugal. dinns breath propelled our heroic goalkeeper to swat away that weak-ass header and: Goalkeeper Such As The High cliff FACE AT DYRHOLAEY The Only Real Factor Which Will DESTROY HIM IS CENTURIES OF Seaside EROSION.

Most sincere tweet: Sunderlands Victor Anichebe, copying and pasting an excessive amount of what his PR team sent him after Octobers defeat to West Pork @VictorAnichebe: Are you able to tweet something similar to: Unbelievable support yesterday and great effort through the lads! Hard lead to take! But we go again!

Most confused: Californian Facebook user Petra Fyde, asking her buddies and family in June: At the chance of sounding stupid How come a lot of strange men within my facebook inbox saying WILL GRIGGS Burning, YOUR DEFENSE IS PETRA FYDE?????? What the heck is happening?

And also the best-crafted pledge: @Joey7Barton, 24 May: To be a Ranger would be to sense the sacred trust of upholding everything this type of name means within this shrine of football. 15 Sep: I apologise unreservedly.

Frederick Barton (@Joey7Barton)

To become a Ranger would be to sense the sacred trust of upholding everything this type of name means within this shrine of football. pic.twitter.com/nb5yTKq420

May 24, 2016

Best put-lower

Andy Murray in August, requested by John Inverdale: Youre the very first person to ever win two Olympic tennis golds, thats an remarkable task, is it not? Murray: I believe Venus and Serena have won four each. @jk_rowling: Murray just advised John Inverdale that ladies are people too.

Best analysis

One of the footballers reacting to Brexit in June: @PetrCech:It appears as though the greatest decision within the good reputation for the united states is made with different fake campaign and lies. Italys Giorgio Chiellini:The primary problem is an eventual domino effect. I do not think the straightforward United kingdom exit can alter the equilibrium from the whole European economy, besides the acid reflux everyones feeling. I believe the discontent shouldnt result in disintegration. Jermaine Pennant @pennant83: Now we’re not in Europe whats going to take place using the next euros 2018??? And Nolito: What’s Brexit? I believe its dancing. I might be wrong.

Wisest words

25 November:England coach Eddie Johnson, hailing wing Elliot Daly within the buildup for their game against Argentina: He is doing stuff you dont coach. 26 November:Daly sent off after five minutes.

Sharpest PR

Rio 2016 spokesperson Mario Andrada explaining why organisers couldnt be anticipated to simply fix the eco-friendly water within the pool overnight: Chemistry isn’t an exact science.

Best customer support

In August Englands slow over-rate against Pakistan motivated spectator Alexis Larger to tweet: I would like 10% of my money-back. Wouldnt visit football and discover it ended after 80mins. Alex Hales tweeted back: ok DM me your bank details then transferred 4.10.

Miss of the season

Italys Simone Zaza tiptoeing his way to stardom in the place against Germany in the Euros the summers single greatest non-Ronaldo meme. Among the remixes: Zaza like a seagull rubber stamping for worms, Zaza doing Olympic dressage, and Zaza inside a queue for that toilet. Zaza: Regrettably the ball went excessive. It will likely be beside me throughout my existence.

Single worst moment of 2016

Setting a dark tone for Trump, Brexit, Farage and exactly what adopted Germany coach Joachim Lws distressing televised in-trouser scratch and sniff routine in mid-June. Im sorry for this. When you’re filled with adrenaline, unexpected things happen that you simply dont see. I’ll attempt to behave differently later on.

President of the season

Palermos 74-year-old owner Maurizio Zamparini entered 2016 searching to place his coach-eater image to sleep. Heres the way it unfolded:

10 Jan: Zamparini denies hes already feeling twitchy about his new coach Davide Ballardini. I won’t sack him, despite the fact that I possibly could. 11 Jan: Sacks him and hires Guillermo Barros Schelotto. 11 February:Finds out Schelotto hasn’t got his badges and hires Giovanni Bosi rather. 15 February: Sacks Bosi and rehires Giuseppe Iachini, who he sacked in November. 8 Marly:Calls Iachini a fool that has gone mad and replaces him with Walter Novellino. 12 Apr:Sacks Novellino, rehires Ballardini. People say Ive gone mad, but Im the victim here. 6 Sep: Hires Roberto de Zerbi after Ballardini resigns two games in to the season. 28 November:Denies he already has his doubts about De Zerbi. I’ll keep him. That’s my decision. 30 November: Sacks De Zerbi to be pitiful and hires Eugenio Corini to determine out a hard year. Why Corini? There wasnt much on the market.

Most British moment

In April West Indies needed an unlikely 19 in the final to win the planet T20 and Englands Ben Stokes was the person using the ball in the hands to shut the result. Four balls and 4 Carlos Brathwaite sixes later, it had been over. I send Ben commiserations, stated Brathwaite. Hes a complete legend.

Most unpredicted hero

Marcus Willbomb Willis, world No775 as he stunned Wimbledon and, almost, Roger Federer sticking it to trolls who dubbed him Cartman because of his big bones. His Wimbledon run ended having a cheque for 30,000. It is the greatest pay day Ive ever endured. I’m able to repay a few charge cards now.

Chant of the season

Huh! by Iceland. Also worth a mention: tactics-minded Carlisle fans having a Peter Andre-themed message to manager Keith Curle: Woah-oh-oh-oh, Mysterious Curle, I wanna play 3-5-2.

Best falling lower

2016s best football tumbles: Brazilian players Marcelo Cordeiro and Rossi pretending to have been headbutted by each other in October (Cordeiro: Thats just existence. Thats the sport were in) Toulouse coach Pascal Dupraz feeling upset in November by critique of his response to a paper plane brushing his head: Each one of these critics, theyre so brave and Louis van Gaals Miranda Hart pratfall in Feb, because he designed a serious point.

Best Strictly contenders

a) Everton manager Roberto Martnez, filmed dancing at a Jason Derulo concert in Feb b) Mike Allardyce, spotted in Marbella in May spinning on the spot to Rihannas We Found Love and c) Alan Pardew, marking Castles FA Cup final goal by throwing dad shapes on Wembleys touchline. The 3 of these were sacked within several weeks.

Politicians of the season

Were Icelands Ministry for Foreign Matters, @MFAIceland explaining how their 23-man Euro 2016 squad chose itself by whittling lower their people in this country of 332,529.

MFA Iceland (@MFAIceland)

@pin_upicierno pic.twitter.com/ot0Mq2lsjM

June 27, 2016

Best celebration

Michail Antonios horizontal-running grass-dance in Feb after scoring for West Pork. I saw The Simpsons Movie a few days ago. I believe I pulled them back.

Least foreseeable setback

British cyclist Adam Yates, out while watching primary peloton within the Tour de France in This summer, simply to be flattened whenever a fans belt punctured an inflatable Vittel advertising arch. He still continued to win the white-colored jersey, though.

Best clarification

Skiing star Lindsey Vonn, ambassador for Mind skis and bindings, reacted to some ski detaching mid-race in Feb by posting a video of herself destroying her Mind bindings having a hammer. After talks together with her agent she clarified: It was by no means, shape or form an expression around the performance from the Mind skis and bindings. In my opinion in Mind.

Most distracted

French fencer Enzo Lefort entering the Rio Games declaring: Ive given something to arrive here. Its important to not be distracted then being booed through the crowd after his phone fell out of his pocket mid-bout.

Best pose

Roy Hodgson, recognizing themself around the giant screen as England trailed to Iceland.

Danny Bloodstream (@dannyswfc)

Whenever you place your self on the giant screen and wish individuals to think there is a plan… pic.twitter.com/YLX3Mf6kB0

June 27, 2016

Best comeback

Andy Townsend, back on ITV for that summer time: Thats as blatant a problem as youll ever see. Could it have been certainly within the box? I do not know.

Worst luck

Australian rugby league star Jarryd Hayne, cutting short his presentation to 200 school pupils around the risks of the web when his screen began flashing up porn. Organisers stated the pictures didn’t originate from Jarryds device Hayne: It had been awkward. Wow.

Greatest last laugh

Louise Watson obtaining the second biggest fine in Wimbledon history, 9,040, for racket smashing 1,500 greater than Viktor Troickis acceptable for ranting from the worst ever umpire on the planet. She arrived on the scene ahead, though: winning 50,000 on her mixed doubles victory.

Cheapest blow

Spare a concept for Serb rowers Milos Vasic and Nenad Bedik, who showed up in Rio feeling good after 4 years of beginning training and sank after 1,250m.

Greatest attention seekers

Headlining 12 several weeks of viral animal cameos: a) an unflustered cat supporting play at Januarys Everton v Dagenham game, then losing its poise when keeper Joel Robles shooed it b) a squirrel doing the same at Marchs third T20 between Nigeria and Australia (@samuelfez: Watson in to the attack. Zampa at square leg. Maxwell gully. Squirrel deep point #SAvAUS) c) 20 mongooses storming a green during Novembers European Tours Nedbank Golf Challenge in Nigeria

and d) two pitch-invading dogs one sparking an earlier tea in Novembers second India v England Test, another chasing Gois left-back Juninho throughout a Brazilian Serie B game. Juninho stated he ran since you cant tell with dogs locals told RBS TV the stray, Zulu, is simply soppy If he sees a ball, he goes chasing. Not one of them outshone time top sporting animal, though: Brazils hefty and nonplussed golf course capybaras. Australia captain Ian Baker-Finch: That bloody factor is big. Have you ever seen it? Its half wombat, half dog. US player Matt Kuchar: Its just like a moosehead on the gigantic rat. US director Andy Levinson: It appears as though your dog. A just like a dog-pig.

Plus special mention for: Lorenzo the horse, dancing to Smooth by Santana in Rios individual dressage.

Most thorough

These warning notices stuck over the toilets in Rios Olympic Village, banning a variety of unlicensed toilet activities. US basketball star Elena Delle Donne: Guess I will not be toilet fishing today.

Most depressing fact

For fans of the certain age: in May Burys Callum Styles grew to become the very first footballer born in 2000 to look inside a League game in November fellow millennial Moise Kean switched out for Juventus within the Champions League.

Getting people together

Wales midfielder Joe Ledley: dancing for Europe last summer time. One of the headlines: La drole de danse du Gallois and Ledley enflamme le vestiaire.

Best message

Cricketer Liam Thomas wasnt frustrated in October when his prosthetic leg came off as he dived close to the boundary while fielding for that England Physical Disability team. He jumped following the ball rather and delivered a fierce return. Should there be kids available watching who thought they couldnt take part in the game before week, he stated later, I would like these to know they are able to do anything whatsoever installed their mind to.

Most satisfactory reply

Originated from 15-year-old Wimbledon women singles champion Anastasia Potapova answering press questions regarding her existence after winning the ultimate. I do not have siblings or siblings but I’ve got a duck, Vita. Shes small.

Best swagger

Haitian hurdler Jeffrey Julmis the undisputed star from the 110m hurdles in Rio. Within the selection before his race he gave your camera some textbook Usain Bolt-style attitude, then went mind over heels in the first hurdle.

Most uplifting

Showing the planet isnt totally damaged: Barcelonas under-14s side, lightly consoling their tearful Japanese rivals after beating them within the final of Augusts Junior Soccer World Challenge a mixture of hugs and pep talks.

Plus: most offended

Japanese pole vaulter Hiroki Ogita upset by reports in August that hed knocked the bar off with his penis. Irrrve never expected the foreign media to consider me lower such as this. Its false, and i’m devastated they mock and ridicule me a lot. He later tweeted: Watching again, this really is pretty funny, basically let them know myself. LOL.

Find out more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jan/01/alternative-2016-sports-awards-quotes-gaffes-meltdowns