#menotti's the medium

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Opera Society of Washington - Menotti's The Medium - Vinyl - LP - Columbia rec. - 1971

[spookyfoxdreamer]

[your-local-granny]

gian carlo menotti's the medium i love you so deeply so dearly words cannot express it oh my GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … November 23

1876 – Manuel De Falla, Spanish composer, born (d.1946); Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying that he considered de Falla the shyest man he had ever met, "even smaller than myself, and as modest and withdrawn as an oyster shell ..." He was said to have been involved in a ménage á trois with composer Maurice Ravel and pianist Ricardo Viñes.

De Falla became close friends with Diaghalev and Massine, with whom he collaborated on The Three-Cornered Hat. It was, incidentally, immediately after the first performance of this ballet, that Massine announced his engagement to Lydia Sokolova, who had just performed the leading role, and was then dismissed from the Ballet Russes by the enraged Diaghelev.

1924 – The famed British-American anthropologist Colin Turnbull was born on this date (d.1994). Best known for this groundbreaking books The Forest People & The Mountain People, Turnbull was also one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.

Turnbull was an unconventional scholar who rejected neutrality. He idealized the BaMbuti and reviled the Ik, and described the latter as lacking any sense of altruism, in that they force their children out of their homes at the age of three, and gorge on whatever occasional excesses of food they might find until they became sick, rather than save or share. However, several anthropologists have since argued that a particularly serious famine suffered by the Ik during the period of Turnbull's visit may have distorted their normal behavior and customs, and some passages in his book make it clear that the behavior and customs of the Ik during the period he describes were drastically different from what was normal for them before they were uprooted from their original way of life.

Turnbull with MButi children.

In the US, he lived with his professional collaborator and partner of 30 years, the African American Dr. Joseph Towles, as an openly gay, interracial couple in one of the most conservative areas of the 1960s - rural Virginia.

During this time he also took up the political cause of death row inmates. After his partner's death in 1988, Turnbull, strongly affected, gave all his belongings to the United Negro College Fund. In 1989, he moved to Bloomington, Indiana to participate to the building of Tibetan Cultural Center with his friend Thupten Jigme Norbu, elder brother of the 14th Dalai Lama. In 1991 - 1992, he moved to Dharamsala, India where he took the monks' vow of Tibetan Buddhism, given to him by the Dalai Lama. He was then given a buddhist name.

He died in Virginia in 1994, aged 69. Both Towles and Turnbull died from complications of AIDS.

1926 – Roger Englander (d.2021) was an American director and producer. He won a Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for five more in the category Outstanding Directing.

Born in Clevelend, Ohio, Englander attended Cleveland Heights High School where he studied piano, trumpet and French horn; he also conducted the school orchestra. He studied drama, composition and theory at the University of Chicago and graduated in 1945.

Englander produced all 53 episodes for Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts at CBS from 1958 until 1972. Earlier, he was the prop manager for Bernstein's production of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at Tanglewood in 1946. He staged several of Gian Carlo Menotti's operas, including The Telephone and The Medium for WPTZ (Philadelphia).

Englander wrote Opera, What's All the Screaming About? in 1983. He also directed several episodes of Omnibus and produced episodes of The Bell Telephone Hour which earned him a Peabody Award in 1959.

Englander died in February 2021, of pneumonia at the hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, at the age of 94. He was survived by his long-time companion Michael Dupré.

1933 – The New York tabloid Broadway Brevities, under the headline "Fags Tickle Nudes," published an article warning that "Pansy men of the nation" were invading steam baths and turning them into replicas of the orgy houses in Rome at the time of Nero.

Joe Zee (R) and husband Rob Younkers

1968 – Joe Zee is a Hong Kong-born Canadian fashion stylist, journalist, and producer, known for Entertainment Tonight (1981), FABLife (2015) and Celebrity Style Story (2012). Zee served as creative director of Elle for seven years. He became editor-in-chief and executive creative officer of Yahoo! Style in April 2014. He resigned from Yahoo in June 2017.

Zee was born in Hong Kong and at the age of one, moved to Toronto where he grew up. He began working in fashion in 1990, at age 22, and ultimately moved to New York City enrolling at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

In the mid-1990s, Zee met stylist Lori Goldstein at an Allure party, and soon became her assistant.

He was described in a New York Times profile as a leader in the mass market and digital transformation of fashion: "a chatty and approachable ambassador of fashion who has aggressively thrust himself in front of hoi polloi using Twitter, blogs, v-logs and—most visibly—television."

Zee was a recurring character as boss of the reality series The City. He has also appeared on episodes of Ugly Betty, Mistresses, and General Hospital as himself. He was one of the co-hosts of the ABC daytime talk show The Fab Life.

In 2010, he made an appearance on Gossip Girl as himself.In 2015, he released his book That's What Fashion Is: Lessons and Stories from My Nonstop, Mostly Glamorous Life in Style. Zee is married to Rob Younkers, host of Logo TV's Secret Guide to Fabulous

1989 – On this date the Natural Bears Classification System was unveiled on a Usenet group. The NBCS or "bear code" is a set of symbols using letters, numbers and other characters commonly found on modern, Western computer keyboards, and used for the self-identification of those who self-identify as "bears" in the sense of a mature gay or bisexual man with facial or substantial body hair. This classification scheme was created by Bob Donahue and Jeff Stoner, and was based on the way in which star and galaxy classification systems used characteristics of an object to derive a classifying identifier.

The format of the NBCS is a sequence of space-separated descriptions that each take the form, "XMme" where X is a letter indicating some trait; M is an optional magnitude indicated by either a number or a sequence of + or - characters (the former are used for rankings that have a broad, but discrete range while the latter is used for more comparative measurements); m is an optional modifier such as "v" which indicates variability of the trait; and e is any extra (such as a parenthesized magnitude that indicates a range from the magnitude outside the parentheses to the magnitude inside).

The format includes physical traits such as "B" for beard density/length, "f" for body hair (or "fur"), "t" for height (or "tallness"), and "w" for weight. It also includes personality traits such as "d" for "the daddy factor" and sexual preferences such as "k" for "the kinky factor."

A sample bear code is: B4 d+c e+ f+ g++ k+ m w t+ r (+?)

Translation: Reasonably thick beard, definite Daddy, cub tendencies, (endowment) gets attention, above average fur, loves groping/pawing/touching, (Kinkiness) loves most things, (Muscle) some definition, Blue collar, average weight, tall, (sex) plays under special circumstances.

1998 – The Georgia Supreme Court voted 6-1 to overturn the state's sodomy law. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Robert Benham wrote, "We cannot think of any other activity that reasonable persons would rank as more private and more deserving of protection from governmental interference than consensual, private, adult sexual activity." Since the decision was based on the Georgia constitution rather than the US constitution, the decision could not be appealed.

2009 – On this date the city council of Charleston, South Carolina passed ordinances expanding the city's existing policy prohibiting discrimination in housing to include age, sexual orientation and gender identity. How important is this? In American history there is probably no other conservative city than Charleston. The Civil War was virtually born in Charleston and it is a city that was founded on the slave trade and the institutionalization of the most conservative, landowning families.

But that was then and this is now. Although the state is still a conservative hotbed, Charleston is a more cosmopolitan and urbane city. It also has a spirit of liberalism and openness. So this can only be seen as a sign of how far we have come.

The council also passed a public accommodations ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, disability, age or sexual orientation. Charleston joins a number of other cities in the south with comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinances including Charleston WV, New Orleans LA, Atlanta GA, Covington KY and Columbia SC.

2014 – In Brazil, the world's first largest same-sex wedding with 160 couples takes place in Rio de Janeiro. It was the fifth time mass same-sex weddings were held in Brazil. (The following year 185 couples married.) Claudio Nascimento of Rio Sem Homophobia (Rio without Homophobia) says, "It is an affirmative action to call attention to all of the achievements and challenges in the area of civil and human rights of the LGBT community." Brazil broke the Guinness World Record for the largest pride parade in 2009 with 4 million attendees. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Brazil since May 16, 2013, though it had already been legally recognized since 2004.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Any opera recs for a musical theater nerd who keeps wanting to check opera out and hasn’t gotten around to it yet?

ooh!!! as a lover of both opera and musical theater, YES!!!

so here are some basics:

-any operetta or light opera basically ever. some of the best: gilbert and sullivan. johann strauss’ die fledermaus (the bat). franz lehar’s die lustige witwe (the merry widow). any jacques offenbach operetta, ESPECIALLY orphée aux enfers (orpheus in the underworld, aka the one with the famous can-can) or la vie parisienne (the parisian life). leonard bernstein’s genre-defying candide.

-speaking of which, there are a LOT of good, reasonably short american operas out there. george gershwin’s porgy and bess (the source of MANY standards, most notably “summertime”) premiered on broadway, actually. so did gian carlo menotti’s the saint of bleecker street. others i’d recommend: menotti’s the medium, carlisle floyd’s susannah, kurt weill’s street scene. all of these are pretty intense/tragic though. my fave in a lighter vein is bernstein’s trouble in tahiti, which i saw live once and it was DELISH.

-giacomo puccini and his contemporaries are a GOLD mine for musical-loving opera newbies. they’re reasonably short operas, they’re INTENSE, they’ve got amazing scores. so:

puccini’s la bohème: yeah, rent is based on it. however: VERY MUCH NOT THE SAME. (bohème is better imo.)

puccini’s tosca: you want an intense night at the opera? this one has EVERYTHING. it’s a straight up thriller. basically everyone dies. the music is glorious.

i’m not a huge fan of puccini’s madama butterfly but miss saigon is based on it, so there’s that i guess.

puccini’s il trittico: three short (1 hour) operas with three wildly different moods: il tabarro (the cloak) is a thriller, suor angelica is about a nun Going Through Some Shit and is DEVASTATING, gianni schicchi is a side-busting comedy and also has that iconic aria “o mio babbino caro”.

pietro mascagni’s cavalleria rusticana (rustic chivalry) and ruggero leoncavallo’s pagliacci (clowns) are a frequent double bill. they’re both INTENSE short operas about infidelity and passion and revenge and murder. and they both have tunes you will recognize.

-other recommendations:

-wolfgang amadeus mozart’s die zauberflöte (the magic flute), which has lots of spoken dialogue and hit tunes. MAJOR caveat however: you’re better off picking a production that plays much more fast and loose with the dialogue and lyrics because the original is uh…HUGELY racist and sexist! look up the pacific opera project’s nintendo-themed production on youtube.

-gioachino rossini’s il barbiere di siviglia (the barber of seville). hilarious as shit. so many shenanigans. can be a little long for a newbie but yeah. plus: TUNES.

-gaetano donizetti’s l’elisir d’amore (the elixir of love), don pasquale, la fille du régiment (the daughter of the regiment), and lucia di lammermoor. the first three are hilarious comedies, the last one is a tragedy of bloody murder with an ICONIC mad scene for the soprano.

-giuseppe verdi’s rigoletto and la traviata. both pretty short (~2 hours or so). both have iconic tunes and great stories. the latter is more or less the basis of both pretty woman and moulin rouge.

-georges bizet’s carmen. SO MANY HIT TUNES YOU WILL RECOGNIZE. also the basis of carmen jones.

-maurice ravel’s l’heure espagnole (the spanish hour). it’s a short opera about a woman who juggles three lovers by hiding two of them inside clocks in her husband’s clock shop. it’s risqué and funny and fun and does not get done enough.

-if you like WEIRD german stuff: richard strauss’ salome (which i love, but it’s disturbing as fuck) and elektra (which i don’t love but respect people who do) and alban berg’s wozzeck (SUPER weird and disturbing) are all in the 1.5-2 hour range and have been known to make unexpected fans of newbies. but do not attempt these unless you’re willing to experience a total mindfuck.

i hope that helps some! fellow operablr members pls feel free to add anything i may have overlooked 💗

[lboogie1906]

Zelma Watson George (December 8, 1903 – July 3, 1994) was a well-known African-American philanthropist who was famous for being an alternate in the UN General Assembly and, as a headliner in Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium, the first African American to play a role that was typically played by a white actress. She enrolled at the University of Chicago and obtained a BA in Sociology. She then went on to Northwestern University and studied the pipe organ until she enrolled as a voice student at the American Conservatory of Music. She received her MA in personnel administration from NYU and her Ph.D. in Sociology. Her doctoral dissertation, A Guide to Negro Music: Towards a Sociology of Negro Music, which cataloged about 12,000 musical compositions written or enthused by African Americans, due to her extraordinary work, allowed her to receive honorary doctorates from Heidelberg College, Baldwin Wallace College, and Cleveland State University. She was an advisor to President Eisenhower's Administration. She was involved with various national government committees, which usually concerned women, youth, and African Americans. She was a part of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Forces. She served on the executive council for the American Society of African Culture. She was a long-time member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. President Nixon named her to be a part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She received numerous awards for her accomplishments, including the Dag Hammarskjöld Award, the Dahlberg Peace Award, and the Mary Bethune Gold Medallion. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl50kdOOe65/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[leporellian]

(running around youtube in rags holding a gayass little tin cup) the medium by giancarlo menotti in italian with english subtitles? medium menotti italian english subtitles not english sung italian libretto performance english closed captions subtitling clear audio tonight, queen?

trying to find a recording of an opera on youtube when you aren't looking for a specific production but rather specific production PARAMETERS is wild

[supercantaloupe]

happy sleepover saturday sasha!! ive been having a ball because my hockey team is playing well (third in the league baybee!!!) and my favorite player is on a successful revenge tour (natural hat trick (3 goals in the same period) against his old team mwah). i love reading your opera posts, tell me about the opera show(s) you saw 🥺👉👈? (if im reading your posts correctly there were two but i am unfamiliar with opera formats so dont know if they were different or a single 2 part thing) (what were your favorite parts from each? were there any specific performers you liked?) i hope youre having a nice weekend & you get to see sooo many more operas 💜❤💖💌✨

happy sleepover saturday! ah yeah last night i went to see my school's operas, instead of being one big show it was a double bill of two shorter shows in english (one one-act and one two-act, with an intermission between the two). the first one was the boor by dominick argento. this one was ostensibly a comedy but i didn't find it particularly funny tbh, and the music was much more through-composed and thoroughly 20st century than are my taste preferences. but the cast was really good -- the guy who played the boor had a lot of acting range, and the servant is a friend from rep orchestra who also did a really nice job. the second show was the medium by gian carlo menotti. this one is kind of like if an episode of the twilight zone was a fucked up little music drama and i enjoyed it more than i expected, especially since this one ends decidedly less cheerfully than the boor! i found the music more enjoyable, reminded me in a lot of parts of dave malloy's writing style -- a bit "out there," but still very much followable and tuneful. again, great cast, esp the girl who played monica. i'm always impressed by the talent of my classmates when i go see school opera productions tbh

[ask meme]

[theatreshitposting]

I just wanna direct a version of Menotti’s The Medium with an all POC main cast is that so much to ask

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

The fake medium hoist on his or her own petard made for a great opera in the hands of Gian Carlo Menotti, but director Mike Flanagan has a habit of turning almost everything he touches into dross. True, I’ve never forgiven him for adapting Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE into a mini-series that a) credits her writing to a man and b) ends up meaning the opposite of the source material. But I still know a bad film when I see one. Unlike most film critics, with whom I occasionally sympathize, I’ve yet to see the original OUIJA (2014), so I can’t rejoice that the prequel, OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL (2016), is better. There are some good ideas in the tale of a fake medium (Elisabeth Reaser) whose incorporation of a Ouija board into her cons leads to her daughter’s (Lulu Wilson) becoming possessed. Some of the possession scenes are eerie, particularly when Wilson stares at a schoolyard bully and makes him turn the slingshot he was aiming at her on himself. But there are some wholly unnecessary lifts from THE EXORCIST (1973) and a lot of the denouement depends upon people’s stupidity. The cast (including Henry Thomas as a priest, Annalise Basso as Wilson’s older sister and Sam Anderson as a grieving client) is decent, but the whole thing spirals into the toilet way too quickly. Here’s a thought. How about a horror film about a bad director-writer hoist on his own petard?

[hofculctr]

Hofstra University

Hofstra Opera Theater

presents

Hand of Bridge and The Medium

Hofstra Opera Theater presents a fully staged double-bill of Samuel Barber’s “Hand of Bridge” and Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Medium”.

Presented by the Hofstra University Music Department.

Friday, February 4, 8-10 p.m. and

Sunday, February 6, 3-5 p.m. John Cranford Adams Playhouse

More info and to RSVP visit https://news.hofstra.edu/event/hofstra-opera-theater-presents-hand-of-bridge-and-the-medium/

Advance registration is required. ALL GUESTS (Hofstra students, faculty, and staff, as well as visitors) that attend a Hofstra University-sponsored indoor event must be fully vaccinated. Evidence of vaccination will be required at the time of entry with Hofstra PridePass or proof of vaccination and government ID. Masks covering the mouth and nose must be worn at ALL indoor events on campus.

[downloadarmy]

The Medium - Menotti

The Medium – Menotti

With the help of her daughter and a mute servant, phony psychic Madame Flora uses her clients’ grief to deceive them. But one night, an uncanny encounter leads to murder and madness. Croatian National Theatre Zagreb’s production of The Medium offers enough suspense to rival any thriller in just one hour. Gian Carlo Menotti’s musically eclectic English-language opera mixes Italian verismo with…

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

menotti’s the medium, aka “play stupid games win stupid prizes: the opera”

[lboogie1906]

Zelma Watson George (December 8, 1903 – July 3, 1994) was a well-known African-American philanthropist who was famous for being an alternate in the UN General Assembly and, as a headliner in Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium, the first African American to play a role that was typically played by a white actress. She enrolled at the University of Chicago and obtained a BA in Sociology. She then went on to Northwestern University and studied the pipe organ until she enrolled as a voice student at the American Conservatory of Music. She received her MA in personnel administration from NYU as well as her Ph.D. in Sociology. Her doctoral dissertation, A Guide to Negro Music: Towards a Sociology of Negro Music, which cataloged about 12,000 musical compositions written or enthused by African Americans, due to her extraordinary work, allowed her to receive honorary doctorates from Heidelberg College and Baldwin Wallace College as well as Cleveland State University. She was an advisor to President Eisenhower's Administration. She was involved with various national government committees, which usually concerned women, youth, and African Americans. She was a part of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Armed Forces. She served on the executive council for the American Society of African Culture. She was a long-time member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. President Nixon named her to be a part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She received numerous awards for her accomplishments, including the Dag Hammarskjöld Award, the Dahlberg Peace Award, and the Mary Bethune Gold Medallion. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha https://www.instagram.com/p/CXO6xL5vcYu_Ayx-27hD-zZAFUVvyxlWvY0zf40/?utm_medium=tumblr

[littlethingwithfeathers]

The Sun Has Fallen: A Steve/Natasha Fic

Title: “The Sun Has Fallen” (Part two of “Friendship is Unnecessary”)

Pairing: Steve/Natasha

Rating: Explicit

Tags: Friends with benefits. Post Age of Ultron. Mild angst, lots of sex. See fic for full list of tags.

Summary:

Training for the new crop of Avengers went until well past nightfall on that first day, with only a short break in the afternoon to grab a late lunch. Just some sandwiches and fruit hastily grabbed from the kitchen, and most of that was eaten out on the training quad between sparring exercises and drills. But the haphazard breaks and long hours weren't caused by a packed schedule or ruthless discipline. Time just kept getting away from them. And in the best way.

Truth be told, training that first day was as much play and self-discovery as it was actual training. Wanda and Vision clearly had only the most tenuous understanding of their own abilities. And Rhodey and Sam were both out of practice coordinating in large groups. And thanks to the well-funded Avengers R&D lab downstairs, everyone had new or updated toys to play with. Even Steve and Natasha.

***

Read part one, “Cover Me,” set during and after Captain America: The Winter Soldier!

If you’re curious about the poetry that bookends this fic, have a listen to the aria from which it was taken: “The Black Swan” aria from Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium.