#turandot was GORGEOUS

[theclassymike]

Dylan Sprouse in the movie Beautiful Disaster (2023)

[decemberelegy]

Mine's Savchenko/Massot's free skate at the 2018 Olympics. They're the ones that got me watching figure skating one year prior and to watch them win the Olympics in real time was one of the most special moments in my life as a skating fan. In 4th after the short program, then delivered this stunning, picture perfect free... It was before sunrise in my city and I was holding my breath watching this. Incredible moment. Incredible performance.

which figure skating programme permanently altered your brain chemistry?

(any discipline!)

fs fans pls interact, trying to find some moots who are equally obsessed with this crazy sport :')

[narumitsuserver]

Let no one sleep

by @azalawa-scroggs, art by @rendevok

Dramatic and lyrical, this alternate universe inspired by the opera Turandot will make you travel to a land of riddles and mystery. Follow the traveller as he navigates the mortal challenges laid by Prince Miles and investigates the kingdom's history to figure out the reason behind the prince's cruelty, flanked by High Priestess Maya and Healer Gumshoe, in classic Ace Attorney fashion. Illustrated with three gorgeous tapestries by Rendevok!

Fic by @azalawa-scroggs | art by @rendevok

[peppermint-chocolate-cherries]

Headcanons - Hetalians Singing Opera

In case you haven't noticed before, I am both a Hetalia fan and an opera nerd. I played piano as a kid and sang for a couple years too, learned about a few operas as a teenager in my music history courses, and my adulthood Spotify library is probably 40% full opera recordings and 40% Broadway musicals. I'm way out of practice now, but I can still hit a high C if I try.

Naturally, since it's not happening in real life, I've allowed my imagination to be run over with imagining which Hetalians would sing what parts in all these operas I know. Some of them are very constant in what voice type I give them, whereas others vary. And of course, I do this with Broadway musicals too, but the women tend to sing lower there too.

So, what voice types do I headcanon for these Hetalians? Read below to find out!

First, our conductor is always 100% Austria, because who else would we have do it?

Nyo!Canada - Soprano coloratura

Yes, I will address my bias right off the bat, my beloved (self-insert) muse is a soprano that can sing all those INSANELY high parts. Think the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann, Violetta in La Traviata, and of course Lucia di Laamermoor and Turandot.

Liechtenstein - Soprano (soubrette)

This sweet girl's range can vary from low to high, but I like giving her roles where she is indeed the sweet young woman entering adulthood. I'm thinking Zerlina from Don Giovanni or Liu from Turandot. I've also imagined her in trouser roles too, the Composer in Ariadne aux Naxos and Cherubino in Nozze di Figaro.

Czechia - Soprano as well, more background. I have imagined her as Sieglinde in Die Walkure.

Seychelles - Soprano as well, more background. She could sing a lot of soubrette roles like Liechtenstein, and I've also imagined her singing Aida.

Belarus - Mezzo soprano

I sometimes can't decide how high or how low Belarus should be able to sing. Sometimes she's a powerhouse dramatic soprano (Ariadne aux Naxos), sometimes she nails the trouser roles (Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier), but regardless she can take on a lead role like Suzanna in Nozze di Figaro no problem.

Belgium - Mezzo soprano, occasional leads but a lot of background characters. She would 100% sing Carmen.

Monaco - Mezzo soprano, occasional leads but a lot of background characters. She's my original Despina for Cosi Fan Tutte.

Ukraine - Mezzo soprano or alto, more of a background character.

Hungary - Alto, very much a background character. Basically, I've tried to imagine filling all 11 ladies roles in Die Walkure.

Veneziano - Tenor

One of our two lead tenors, he's singing all the roles Pavarrotti did. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Lithuania - Tenor

This might be a surprise, but I like to think he's a tenor too. Along with my bias of having nyo!Canada sing the prima donna soprano roles, I like having Liet with her as the lead tenor. Also, Belarus refuses to sing anything where she and Liet have to be romantic.

Latvia - Tenor, but more minor roles at most.

Poland - Tenor, but more minor roles at most.

Romano - Baritone

Yes, he's a baritone, but with a higher range bordering tenor. He doesn't get all the leads like his brother does, but there are some gorgeous higher-range baritone roles that he would sing so well. He is 100% Figaro, nobody can take that character from him.

Switzerland - Baritone

Full disclaimer for pretty much ALL the baritones, I've been unable to decide over time what range they should be. Switzerland started as a lower baritone, before I incorporated other baritones that could sing lower, so nowadays he can sing higher roles. If he were to learn Russian, he'd be good at singing Eugene Onegin.

Germany - Baritone

Tends to be a mid-range baritone, sometimes lower or higher as needed. He's the main one where I've previously assigned roles to, before handing them off to another baritone as I've expanded the cast. At the moment, good examples for him are Count Almaviva in Nozze di Figaro or Enrico in Lucia di Laamermoor.

Spain - Bass baritone

Yeah, here's a hot take, Spain singing lower than Germany. To be completely fair, this is probably the range where they can sing the same notes, but it's a matter of the roles in the story. I like having Spain play those elder figures, sometimes a father, and they keep getting written as bass or bass baritones.

Also, it helps that he has brown hair and green eyes, so that he looks like a father figure to both our lead tenors above.

He has 100% fought with Romano over singing Escamillo in Carmen (he's a Spanish matador!), but I've also imagined him as Giorgio Germont in La Traviata, Timur in Turandot, Don Bartolo in Nozze di Figaro & Barber of Seville, Wotan in the Ring Series, and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Netherlands - Bass baritone

A newer addition to the cast, mainly because I needed a nation who could look like a father figure to sing Nabucco and Rigoletto.

Sweden - Bass

We need a bass singer somewhere, so Sweden's a newer addition to the cast. Once again, a lot of minor roles, though he'd do well as Dapertutto in The Tales of Hoffmann.

That's what I've got. If your as much of a nerd about both Hetalia and opera as I am (is there anybody out there as weird as me???), let me know what you think.

[callmearcturus]

Can you post your MI movie ranking again? Not sure if it was ranking or viewing order but either way you’ve convinced me to watch these

Okay what my suggested viewing order is:

Ghost Protocol (MI4)

Rogue Nation (MI5)

Fallout (MI6)

Mission Impossible 1 (MI1)

Dead Reckoning Part One (MI7)

Ghost Protocol is the weakest of this batch of movies, but it is still in my opinion an incredible on-ramp. I always pitch it the same way, but GP is just a Leverage episode with a blockbuster budget. It's the soft-reboot of the series, it has some of the best team chemistry, it's funny, it has two of my favorite moments of pure physicality in the entire series. It's a great intro.

Rogue Nation is like the Platonic Ideal of an MI movie. It's the Ethan-and-Benji movie, and their chemistry is truly amazing. The Turandot sequence is so fucking glorious, and Ilsa Faust is great AND SOLOMON LANE IS OUR BEST VILLAIN BY FAR. In GP the villain is a non-entity to drive the plot. RN has some fucking baller character writing. Also has the funniest moment in any MI.

Fallout is a perfect movie. I could say more but there's no point. Fallout is a perfect movie. It's gorgeous. It's emotional. It's tense. It's character-driven. I love it.

Mission Impossible The Original is going to surprise you. It's a dense, tense, psychosexual thriller and explains......... so fucking much about Ethan Hunt and his lingering trauma. I adore it. Except the action movie ending is stupid, but right before the action movie ending, it gives you a hot sexy thriller ending, so it's fine.

And you need the context of MI1 to truly get Dead Reckoning, because it is a movie obsessed with the legacy of the series. It's really fucking good. But save it for last.

What about MI2 and MI3? If you think you would enjoy a dumb stupid flashy hilarious action movie that is the diametric opposite of every other MI movie, watch MI2. It's fun.

I cannot recommend watching MI3, I think it's absolutely terrible. MI2 is stupid but at least it has an identity as a movie. MI3 is a confused mess that throws all continuity out the window and almost breaks the idea of Ethan Hunt imo because it doesn't know what it wants to do, what to say, it's pointless.

My personal MI film ranking:

Fallout

Rogue Nation

Mission Impossible 1

Dead Reckoning Part One

Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible 2

placeholder for the worst possible iteration of Dead Reckoning Part Two

Mission Impossible 3

[azalawa-scroggs]

Happy "Fantasy AU" day of Narumitsu week! Look at the fantastic tapestry Julie did for my fanfic again!!!

And the second chapter is live! One left to go...

Act II ~ The Challenge

A tapestry for chapter 2 of Let No One Sleep by @azalawa-scroggs on ao3

[terrainofheartfelt]

Lit™ Opera Lit - Abridged

for @clarasamelia

Jo enabled me into doing this though I’ve been tempted to for a WHILE, so here, have an Opera Primer Playlist, by me. A few notes before we begin:

This says Abridged, because the original Lit™ Opera Lit on my spotify is….5 ½ hours long, and I didn’t want to throw ALL that at someone new to the genre. So. (It is public on my spotify if you wanna take a peek)

Also, this is not a music history survey, and is therefore very biased to my tastes as a lover of romantic opera and as a trained mezzo soprano. #lowvoicesupremacy

And there is sooooooooooooooooooo much more I want to share so if anyone has any questions or wants a rec of something else please feel free to ask and I would be happy to answer! 

Actually, new ask game time: send me a pop culture media thing and I can relate it back to opera in 6 degrees or less. 

*means I’ve sung it before!

Okay, onto the playlist

Overture – La forza del destino, Verdi

You gotta start off an opera with a good overture right???? And this one is a fave, BY a fave. Overtures are sort of a…musical trailer of everything you’re going to hear in the show before it starts. It’s a sneak peek, it’s the opening credits, it’s a goddamn shame we don’t do them anymore. For real I went to a concert earlier this fall and the orchestra played the overture to The Sound of Music and it was glorious and I remember thinking “they don’t make em like this anymore!” Anyways, idk much about Forza because there’s no mezzos, but it’s a gutwrenching tragedy with glorious music, and this overture FUCKS

“Gira la cote!”* — Turandot, Puccini

First things first, lemme just say this outright, yes, this opera is racist. All white European composers were perpetrators of Orientalism in their music, Puccini being one of the more notorious. As such, opera is a thing that you have to engage with critically, but I don’t want to make that sound like it’s “work,” because I don’ twant to prolong this thing that you have to perform some sort of intellectual labor before you can enjoy opera, but you have to give it the same grace and critical eye you give other media, fuck I run a gossip girl blog, it’s like that, you know? Okay, sermon out of the way, this opera is about a Chinese princess, who vows to never marry because, honestly men have given her very little reason to want to, so she poses this challenge: if a man wants to marry her, he must answer three riddles, and if he gets even one of them wrong, she takes his head. This chorus is the opening of the show, when her latest failed suitor is about to get his head chopped off, the chorus of her subjects love the free show, and are shouting “gira la cote! / sharpen the blade!” and, reader, it fucks. 

“Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém (Song to the Moon)” — Rusalka, Dvořák

It’s the little mermaid!!!!!!!!! No, seriously, it’s based on the same myth. From my sweet Czech prince, Tony, this masterpiece tells its own spin on a Slavic version of the fairytale. This is, effectively, the “part of your world” song, Rusalka begs the moon to pass on a message of love to her human prince. And it is…one of the most glorious arias ever, to the point that sometimes I’m like “ugh, overdone” but really, it’s gorgeous, and when sung right, transcendent. 

“Čury mury fuk” — Rusalka, Dvořák

Ježibaba, aka Baba Yaga, aka Ursula, sings about how she’s gonna poison the beautiful sprite Rusalka. Fun fact: the saying for mezzo roles is: witches, bitches, and britches, because the archetypes low-voiced women always sing in opera are always either witches, bitches, or pants roles (women playing a male character, usually a teenaged boy). I was more a Mistresses and Princesses mezzo meself, so really…just bitches….

“Amami, Alfredo” — La Traviata, Verdi

Verdi is my absolute favorite, my opera blorbo, I love him so very much. The way he writes emotion into his orchestra is just hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Anyways. Traviata is perhaps the most popular opera in the world (tied with Carmen). If you don’t think you know it, you do. It’s based off Dumas’ La Dame aux Camellias, and the direct inspiration for the film Moulin Rouge! (though not the musical, evidently, it’s fine I’ve ranted about that elsewhere). AND, it’s featured in the garden party scene in Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement! What you here Anne Hathaway listening to there is the grand ending to the famous aria “Sempre libera,” but to me, the most sublime moment in the opera is this one, in Act II, Violetta’s lover’s father comes to plead with her to leave his son, Alfredo, because Violetta is a courtesan and therefore a detriment to the noble family’s reputation…yeah. And Violetta agrees, not wanting to send Alfredo’s family into poverty or ruin the reputation of his little sister (that she’s never met btw, fuckin catholics), plus, it’s hinted that Violetta already knows that she is dying of tuberculosis (consumption), so she decides to leave and go back to her old life, and when Alfredo returns as she’s trying to write him a farewell letter, she has this outburst of emotion. It’s brief, but, jesus christ—

Amami, Alfredo, quant'io t'amo. Addio. / Love me, Alfredo, how I love you. Goodbye.

"Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso" — La Rondine, Puccini

Another opera based of the lady of the camellias! (She was indeed a real person, Marie Duplessis, I read a biography about her! It’s so fascinating!) This one has a bit of a different plot and play out, but the theme is the same. There’s actually some dispute about there being multiple endings to this opera (Turandot too I guess, but I digress) Magda, a glamorous courtesan of Paris, bored of her gilded cage, puts on a disguise and goes out for the night, and meets up again with the hot young poet who came to her house party earlier that night, they share a drink, meanwhile Magda’s maid has a drink in the same bar with her tenor lover, what results is this, what me and my friends call The Best Quartet Ever. it sounds exactly like falling in love in Paris. No offense, but tswift could never.

"È amabile invero cotal giovinotto” — Rigoletto, Verdi†

Hi, it’s me with my low voice supremacy agenda again. There’s a much more famous quartet, but. My house.  Based off of a play by Victor Hugo, Rigoletto is a jester who has enough of his boss’ bullshit. His boss being the Duke. What puts him over the edge? The scumbag of a Duke seduces Rig’s daughter, Gilda, and now Gilda thinks she’s in love, but Rig has worked for the Duke long enough to know that, best case, she’ll have her heartbroken.  But that is all just BACKGROUND for this scene. Rigoletto hires an assassin-slash-bartender to take care of the Duke for him, so this guy, Sparafucile, gets the Duke drunk, but now, unfortunately, the assasin’s sister, Maddalena, has a crush on the fuck. She demands that her brother spare the duke’s life, but Sparafucile promised Rigoletto a body. So while a storm hits, Spara tells his sister “fine, the next person that knocks on the door, i’ll kill instead.” Gilda, of course, overhears all of this, and decides that what she has to do his take the place of the man she loves, and knocks on the door (babygirl, it’s NOT WORTH IT) †I’ve never done one of these roles, but I have been in the opera!

“Pourquoi me réveiller” — Werther, Massenet

An underrated, imho, French tragedy. Is it because the heroine is a mezzo? Who’s to say.  Based off Goethe’s Die Leiden des jungen Werther, it follows the tragic star-crossed love of Werther, the poet, and Charlotte, the woman who loves him, but for ehr family’s financial security and stature marries another man she doesn’t love. This moment in the opera comes after Charlotte’s two barn-burner arias, when she looks over her letters from Werther and realizes the depth of her feelings, Werther comes to see her in this moment of vulnerability, and recites this piece of poetry. It’s sexy and angsty and the build-up to the explosion of emotion that’s about to take place.  And because I’m me, I’ll just say: it’s dair-coded.

“Pietà! perdon!...O don fatale” — Don Carlos, Verdi†

Verdi wrote this opera for the bisexuals!!!! So, there’s a big ol’ convoluted love pentagon going on in the court of Phillip II of Spain, but what you need to know in this scene is: Eboli, a courtier and friend of the queen Elisabeth de Valois (daughter of Catherine de Medici, fun fact), frames Elisabeth for cheating on her husband with her stepson (complicated, I know). And Eboli is acting out of homoerotic jealousy because she wanted Carlo (the stepson) herself, and what is a rival if not a crush you’re mad about having? After her subterfuge blows up in her face, Eboli throws herself at Elisabeth’s feet begging for mercy (“pietà”), and confesses to setting Elisabeth up, and even, sleeping with the king. Elisabeth is heartbroken and furious at the betrayal, and banishes Eboli to a convent. Once alone, Eboli curses the beauty she was born with that brought her here, and laments that she’ll never see Elisabeth again (GAY). And then, she realizes there’s still a chance to save Carlo, who’s been jailed for treason.  This opera is in my top 5 favorites, and this excerpt has one of my top 5 favorite musical moments, the low strings after Eboli confesses, the pain and betrayal you can FEEL in the strings and it’s so !!!!! I am not capable of being normal about it. I’m listening while writing this and CHILLS (Also, I saw this live very recently and it was extraordinary! And they did something interesting with the supertitles and the acting that implied that – rather than a presumed consensual encounter – Phillip assaulted Eboli, which paints her aria cursing her looks in an entirely new light!!!!!) †I’ve not done this publicly, but it was in my repertoire

“E qual via scegliete?” — Tosca, Puccini†

I tried to keep this brief and not put on too many things, but I can’t not put Tosca on here! This is my second favorite part of the opera (my first favorite is the finale, but that’s like, only 30 seconds, so), and it fucks. Floria Tosca, a famous singer in Rome, is put in an impossible position by absolute dirtbag Scarpia, who takes her lover Mario Cavaradossi political prisoner. Cavaradossi, a republican and therefore enemy of the Italian state, is sentenced to death, but Scarpia promises he’ll set C free if Tosca spends a night with him. She’s heartbroken by this choice, but she agrees. She insists that Scarpia sign the paperwork granting the both of them safe passage out of Rome, and he also promises that the firing squad will fake C’s death to give them a cover to escape. The tension in this scene is delicious, and it builds and builds, and the STRINGS. While Scarpia is writing, Tosca takes a knife from his dinner table. When it’s done and her and her lover’s escape is promised (Scarpia will actually betray her one more time, but she doesn’t know that yet), Scarpia moves to put his arms around her (gross, I know), and says “Tosca, finalmente e mio! / Tosca is finally mine!” and she STABS him. Rather than being raped by this absolute toilet plunger of a man, she KILLS him. She stabs him, and he cries out and goes down, and she taunts him, telling him to “feel the kiss of Tosca” and she stands over him saying “Muori, muori,” in this raw, low voice like die, bitch! It is sooooo thrilling to watch. This is a scene I will never get tired of. In a genre where women characters are too frequently brutalized for nothing, seeing a woman kill her would-be rapist is just — so satisfying.  †I’ve only been in the chorus of this opera

“Ohimè!... morir mi sento!”(Scena del giudizio) — Aida, Verdi

Regrettably, my favorite mezzo recording of this (Dolora Zajick) involves both James Levine and Placido Domingo, both of whom are pieces of shit! I’ve selected Cossotto’s instead, but if you come away from this playlist knowing one thing, it’s that James Levine and Placido Domingo are pieces of shit whose supposed skill is not worth all the pain and misery they caused. And now back to the music! Also, this opera has a racist history that companies are still working to move away from. They could work a little bit faster, tbh. A favorite opera and a dream role for me, tbh. Amneris, daughter of the king, gets carried away with jealousy when she discovers the man of her affection, Radames, is in love with her servant Aida, a prisoner of war who turns out to be a princess of an enemy nation. Amneris’ fury gets Radames and Aida caught. Taken by regret and pain and, let’s face it, more homoerotic angst, Amneris eavesdrops on Radames’ trial before the elders, and her dread builds as Radames refuses to speak in his defense. He’s sentenced to death—buried alive—and Amneris and the orchestra react viscerally to the sentence. Like her pleas for mercy when the scene hits its climax, those pietas…

“O furibonda iena…Quest’ultimo bacio”* — La Gioconda, Ponchielli

UNDERRATED OPERA OF ALL TIME. No but really. This is just…everything. This is a grand opera masterwork by this guy, Amilcare, who was Puccini’s teacher, and so few people know about it which is a SHAME. But, understandable, it’s notoriously hard to produce, and expensive, since the finale of Act II involves sinking a pirate ship…but the MUSIC.  It’s another convoluted and vaguely homoerotic love triangle. Laura and Enzo were in love, then pulled apart. Enzo sought comfort in a singer, known only as La Gioconda, and she is madly in love with him, but when Laura comes back into his life, that’s it for him. There’s ship burnings and evil husbands and a ballet (which you may know as the K-9 Advantix commercial song), but it all comes to this finale. Though she vowed Laura was her rival, Gioconda learns that Laura saved her mother once, and was under her mother’s blessing, noted by the rosary Gioconda’s mother gave her, that Laura always carries with her. So, bound by honor to her mother and desire to see her ex Enzo happy, Gioconda schemes to help Laura fake her death to escape her abusive husband, and gets Enzo to come to them just as Laura’s waking up from her sleeping draught (think R&J, but happier ending).  Enzo comes in spitting mad, thinking Gioconda is responsible for his Laura’s death, and Gio—who’s going through some shit of her own—is ready to let him kill her, and then Laura wakes, and calls Enzo’s name, and the relief in the orchestra is PALPABLE, while Gioconda sings quietly to herself “oh darkness, hide me.” After they’ve reunited, Gioconda tells them the rest of her plan, she’s got a boat to get them out of the city, and from there they can start a new life. Through her own pain and grief, in an act of unbridled selflessness and compassion, she tells them: “Amatevi. Siate felici. / Love each other. Be happy.” and they thank her and promise to remember her. And, I mean, how often does the mezzo get to win like that?

LITTLE WOMEN* (2005) MY BELOVED. It’s not on spotify, but I couldn’t not put this opera on this playlist for you, Jo <333 so, please see below for youtube links. the story is already important to me, and being in the opera when I was in college only made it even more so, and it’s a forever favorite and forever special in my heart. This is the only contemporary opera on this list, and it’s a wide and varied field, but in many ways, it’s a host unto itself (but if anyone wants to hear more contemporary stuff, I’d be happy to share!) Now, LW has a mixed reputation amongst operaphiles, who’s to say why? Misogyny, misogyny is why. But more than that, LW is such a domestic drama in a way that is not really conventional in opera, with its fantasy plots and royal characters and otherworldliness about it, but LW has always been about the small intricacies of family, which is why when Greta Gerwig put in that line about domestic struggles and joys in her film I felt so fucking SEEN. It is a technically challenging work, rife with lots of 21st century music toughness that makes the music hard to learn, but it’s absolutely not inaccessible to listen to. But, you know, call a spade what it is, a goddamn shovel, and LW is an opera with a majority women cast. You can count the men in the show on one hand, and that combined with its lack of a typical “operatic” story, and it’s challenging 21st century sound, makes lots of people keen to dismiss it. But those people, are WRONG. It’s a beautiful opera, meaningful and powerful and it sounds pretty, and I will die on that hill. 

“Perfect as we are” — Little Women, Adamo

Jo has a total of…three? arias in the show, and this is the second. After a meeting of the pickwick club and a chat with Laurie, Jo is in her attic trying to write her next “potboiler,” but keeps getting distracted by what she and Laurie were talking about, mainly, the possibility of Meg being in love with Laurie’s tutor, Brooke. It’s another hint at the main conflict of the opera (which is plainly stated in the next selection). Jo is happy with her family and her best friend, and she doesn’t see why any of it has to change. But it won’t be up to her. I love this one because it goes back and forth between Jo trying to write and find the right words for her story, and monologuing at an invisible Laurie, and her monologue helps her find that word and then she’s back in it. It’s so whimsical and just very her. I love it so much. Low voice supremacy

“Things change, Jo”

THIS ARIA!!!!!! Jo is so upset when Meg decides to marry John Brooke, and she plaintively sings “Why don’t you love me anymore?” and her big sister says, “Of course I love you!....but once I saw him, once he looked at me….I can’t explain it, Jo. I love you. Things end – no,” and that’s the lead in to the aria. She’s trying to explain her heart to her sister, and the poetry of it is glorious and the MUSIC. It’s a plea, really, a begging for Jo to understand her side: childhood was always going to end, and what a happy ending. The “Things change, Jo,” leitmotif is repeated over and over again. It’s the central conflict: Jo versus Change. Laurie repeats the motif when he proposes to Jo, Beth repeats it as she’s dying (her death aria is EXQUISITE I just can’t include it here because it makes me too emotional), and interestingly, when Laurie and Amy are abroad together, he sings the dissonant three-note motif, and then Amy resolves it. “Things change, Amy.” / “And a good thing too.” GENIUS. Adamo is a genius. 

My best friend from college sings this aria and also preaches the gospel of Adamo’s LW to me, and she texted me out of the blue the other day: If someone doesn’t like Things Change Jo…they’re misogynist. I don’t make the rules. And she’s right. It may sound like I’m coming down hard but I have heard so many people (mostly cismen) talk down at this opera and at people for liking it, and I’m over it. It’s good!!!!!! This isn’t me trying to say “you better like this or ELSE” but “I have so much love for this and it means so much to me personally and so I dearly hope you’ll give yourself a chance to like it too.”

“Let me look at you”* (Quartet)

THEE finale! Jo is alone in her attic again, and she finally surrenders, to her grief, to the current of change running through her life. Surrounded by the ghosts of her sisters, she makes peace with each of them, and they sing about how life has pulled them to separate goals, but they will always still have the love between them. I want to cry even as I’m writing this, it’s so beautiful and so meaningful. Jo ends the quartet with the exact same line as the end of her aria above “how grateful I am,” but it means something different now!!!! And she echoes the melody of “perfect as we are” a minute later, when Bhaer knocks on the door and asks if now is a good time, she sings “Now is all there is.” best finale ever. Except tosca, maybe.

I sang the role of Marmee when I was in the opera, but on my senior recital, this was my closer, and I sang it with 3 of my closest friends who were also graduating that year. Our groupchat is still called the March Sisters. And. AND. my friend who sang Meg is getting married next summer, and we are all bridesmaids. She really did find her knight 😭😭😭😭😭

[jenthehumanist]

My son's musical tastes

My son is now driving. He has a 45 min commute to the opera house 2 to 3 times a week for rehearsals. He's a senior in high school. I've been driving him since he was 7. So - 11 years now I've made that trip. Now, I can stay home and enjoy myself while he drives himself. Yay.

What is interesting is finding out what he's listening to when I get the car back from him. In the past 2 weeks I've heard opera (Turandot - his favorite), musical theater (Fiddler on the Roof - his favorite), Pop with gorgeous instrumentals (Yellow Submarine - which has lovely musical interludes written by George Martin). and today - Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden). He warned me about that one since he didn't want me to be started when it came on.

It's my music collection he's listening to. I've digitized all my albums and put them on a usb drive so my car stereo can play whatever I want from my collection.

I love that he's got diverse musical tastes. I was thinking as I dropped him off at school today (don't judge, his bus comes 1.5 hours before school starts and we are 10 mins away. He rides the bus back because he's home in 10 mins). As I drove away, I thought, when I was young, if you were into pop - you didn't listen to metal. There were music cliques. I grew up with musical theater. I liked pop. Lots of my friends were into punk (a few are actually famous punk musicians). I got along with everyone, but ... I didn't get Queen. They seemed - mentalist and I wasn't even interested in trying them out. Turned out I did indeed like them at the time as they were on the pop stations. I just didn't know the names of any of the artists whose songs I liked because - it was radio. For those of you who don't know - you couldn't see who was playing - you just listened and every few songs someone would come on and say a few words and then you'd get a few more songs. We didn't have access to lyrics or names of artists unless they were huge - like the Beatles or the Carpenters.

I've made myself a Pandora station seeded with Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing. It's become my favorite Pandora station. I like it more than my Mika station seeded with Lollipop. The great thing is - it's just like the easy listening station I loved in Los Angeles growing up, KHJ. It was really the only station that played both black and white artists. What is interesting is now - I can find out who sang all these songs. There were a lot of women I thought were - Donna Summer who weren't. Lionel Richie sang everything good, whether it was Commodores or his solo stuff. We saw him last month in Tampa. Lots of Beegees. But also lots of other things. Now I know the names of who sang what.

[n0stalgicv0id]

Haha frankly you shouldn’t ask me so many questions either- I will never stop talking and your blog will end up looking like nothing but a silly back and forth between the two of us 🍓 I think it makes sense that you understand French since it is a Latin language very close to Italian ! I, for example, study Spanish which is quite easy since it’s very alike to French due the etymological roots of the words.

As for music it depends for me ! I enjoy all types of music even the silliest one though I always find myself gravitating towards poignant texts that resonate deep within my core because, I’m a poet at heart- My favorite Opera has to be Madama Butterfly by Puccini, especially with Maria Callas in the lead. I have such a great admiration for this woman 🍓🫶 !

How kind of you to associate a song to me ! A lot of people link LaLaLand to me for some reason ? I don’t know why but that’s really sweet ! You remind me of a song by a French band called Téléphone! It’s called "Un autre monde” since you seem to be very attached to everything nostalgic and dreamy, the vibe of the song fits you well too I feel !

Ahah sorry, I just enjoy to shower people with questions when I find them interesting! People will be so confused if someone stalks my blog but I don’t mind, this is my place. Are you perhaps getting a degree to languages? I always wanted to do that but at the moment I’m way too busy, maybe after I end my studies (probably never).

Madame Butterfly is such a classic one but it’s always majestic to see the different versions. The best thing about theater is seeing different costumes in all productions. It may seem obvious to say but I enjoy Otello, shakespearian works are my favorite. And Giuseppe Verdi was an amazing composer. I got the book some months ago but I still didn’t got the chance to start reading it as I continue to compulsively buy new books. It’s like an Spare me, my desk is full of stacks of books. Since you like Madame Butterfly I found some pics of 6 years ago when I visited Puccini’s house. Sorry if the quality isn’t the best but here, extremely sorry about Turandot’s dress but the glass was ruining everything so cheers. Here you go:

I still remember vividly the dress, it was so gorgeous and long. Showered in jewels and from what I recall this is the 1st version of the 1907 dress, II act. Maybe next year I’ll visit again so I can take new pics.

I never saw la la land, I just listened that song some weeks ago because they asked me to sing it so yeah lol. But it’s been in my watchlist since forever. I heard the song and it’s totally my style! I enjoy french music but I’m dry on the subject, I mainly listen to stromae and gims.

Sorry if I took so long to reply but I was looking for those pics on my pc :(

[project1939]

(Tenor Jussi Bjorling sings on Voice of Firestone, and the Nelson family poses for The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.)

Day 64- TV and Radio: 

TV: 

1. Howdy Doody, October 1st, 1952. 

2. Tales of Tomorrow, season 2, episode 7, “Substance X,” October 3rd, 1952. 

3. The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, season 1, episode 1, “The Rivals,” October 3rd, 1952. 

Radio: 

You Bet Your Life, October 1st, 1952. 

Voice of Firestone, “Jussi Bjorling,” October 3rd, 1952. 

Phil Harris and Alice Faye Show, “Hotel Harris,” October 5th, 1952. 

There was a lot of interesting stuff today! On Voice of Firestone, “The Swedish Caruso,” tenor Jussi Bjorling sang. Bjorling definitely has a powerful voice- it's even more noticeable to me, having just heard Mario Lanza. The orchestra selections were mostly parts of operas, but they were riveting. One song I knew solely from Takarazuka- “Nessun Dorma,” from the opera Turandot. It was gorgeous. 

On You Bet Your Life, a couple won their section, won the word of the day, and then won the bonus question. That gave them $1880, which would be almost $22,000 today! There was also a bit of fun banter between the first contestant and Groucho. She said she was 46 and unmarried, so Groucho asked, “Would you like to get married?” “Not particularly.” “Why Not?” “While I’ve tried it three times.” “So what? The Republicans have tried it four times and they’re still going!” 

The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet was interesting to me, because it’s one of those shows that was a cultural reference point for decades, and I’ve never seen it. It was a decent family sit-com, made unique by the fact that they were a real family. I liked that the pace was a little slower, so it didn’t just go from punchline to punchline. 

Finally, Tales of Tomorrow was creepy to the max. It was about a mysterious substance that people in a tiny town ate to the exclusion of all else, yet they managed to thrive. What was it? (It wasn’t Soylent Green!) Most of the episode was a homerun for me, except for the fact that Ayn Rand seemed to have written part of it. When the people are just given all the food they want without having to work for it, everyone suddenly loses their ambition to go to work or do anything productive anymore. Gag me. (It’s stupid anyway, because of the simple fact that people want more than just food in life! No one would want to work for any possessions? For cars, houses, clothes, jewelry, status, etc?) 

...And now a word from today’s best sponsor: Wonder Bread! Hey kids! Do you want to grow bigger and stronger? Well, then you need to tell your mom to buy you Wonder Bread! Only Wonder Bread has 8 ways to build strong bodies! It’s got as much protein as meat, as much calcium as cottage cheese, as much phosphorous as an egg, as much iron as three lamb chops, as much vitamin B-1 as fried liver, as much vitamin B-2 as four slices of cheese, as much niacin as six sardines, and as much energy as 2 glasses of milk! That is, if you eat at least 2 slices with each meal every single day! Now watch as we tie a puppet to a red, yellow, and blue balloon, just like the package with red, yellow, and blue bubbles! Remember to nag your mother- you need 6-8 slices every day!  

[romanceyourdemons]

day 8 of my zhang yimou rewatch party with a film zhang yimou did not direct. the turandot project (2000) is a documentary about a production of puccini’s “turandot” that zhang yimou choreographed, and i enjoyed it a lot. it was very interesting to see his directing style (sure enough, he is a textbook auteur), and to see the points of friction between film- and opera-style directing and between chinese- and european-style theatrical production. and, more than that, it includes one of the most gorgeous things in the world: incredibly high-quality plus-size ming dynasty hanfu

day 1 of my zhang yimou rewatch party is codename cougar (1989). this movie is. still very bad. but it was interesting to see the clever techniques used to shave down the cost so that they could afford five helicopters and an airplane, in particular montaging through still images with a voiceover behind them for expository passages in a way that almost reminded me of the french new wave. and, against the odds, ge you makes a much better cold-blooded killer than i remember

[theclassymike]

Dylan Sprouse in the trailer for Beautiful Disaster (2023)

[harry-leroy]

2020: Year of Opera (Update March 2020) 

So, in order to expand my cultural horizons (and do this because I’ve been wanting to do this), I’m going to be trying to get through some operas this year! I’ll definitely be listening to these, and I’m going to try and find staged versions if I can - because opera is a form of theatre and performance is an important part of it. This list is based off of The Guardian’s List of Top 50 Operas, but if there’s one that you don’t see on here and recommend, let me know!

Crossed out titles will be the ones I’ve already listened to/watched, and ones with asterisks (*) by them will be ones that I’ve listened to parts of, but need to listen to the whole thing.

Also: (as of March) - I decided to switch out two of the Wagner operas for other pieces I felt that I would enjoy more. I’ve decided to keep Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin (and Parsifal - but I might end up replacing it later, I’m not sure) - the other two we’re replacing with Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella and Mozart’s Zaide. I also replaced Niccolai’s Merry Wives with Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges - due to being unable to find a performance I could watch. 

Progress as of March 6th, 2020: 13/100

1) L’Orfeo - Claudio Monteverdi (1607)

2) Dido and Aeneas* - Henry Purcell (1689)

3) Guilio Cesare (Julius Caesar) - George Frideric Handel (1724)

4) Serse (Xerxes) - Handel (1738)

5) Orfeo ed Euridice (Orpheus and Eurydice)* - Christoph Willibald Gluck (1762)

6) Idomeneo - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1781)

7) Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) - Mozart (1786)

8) Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)* - Mozart (1791)

9) Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)* - Gioachino Rossini (1816)

10) Guillaume Tell (William Tell)* - Rossini (1829)

11) Norma - Vincenzo Bellini (1831)

12) L’Elisir d’Amore (The Exilir of Love) - Gaetano Donizetti (1832)

13) Lucia di Lammermoor - Donizetti (1835)

14) Rigoletto - Giuseppe Verdi (1851)

15) La Traviata - Verdi (1853)

16) Don Carlos/Don Carlo - Verdi (1867)

17) Falstaff* - Verdi (1893)

18) Pagliacci - Ruggero Leoncavallo (1892)

19) La Bohème - Giacomo Puccini (1896)

20) Tosca* - Puccini (1900)

21) Madama Butterfly - Puccini (1904)

22) Turandot - Puccini (1926)

23) Fidelio - Ludwig van Beethoven (1805)

24) Der Freischütz - Carl Maria von Weber (1821)

25) Lohengrin* - Richard Wagner (1850)

26) Zaide - Mozart  (1780)

27) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg - Wagner (1868)

28) Cinderella - Alma Deutscher (2017) 

29) Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) - Franz Lehár (1905)

30) Salome* - Richard Strauss (1905)

31) Der Rosenkavalier* - Strauss (1911)

32) Les Troyens - Hector Berlioz (1863/1890)

33) Carmen* - Georges Bizet (1875)

34) Manon* - Jules Massenet (1884)

35) Pelléas et Mélisande - Claude Debussy (1902)

36) The Bartered Bride - Bedrich Smetana (1866)

37) Boris Godunov - Modest Mussorgsky (1874)

38) Eugene Onegin - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1879)

39) The Queen of Spades - Tchaikovsky (1890)

40) Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk - Dmitri Shostakovich (1934)

41) War and Peace - Sergei Prokofiev (1944)

42) The Rake’s Progress - Igor Stravinsky (1951)

43) Jenufa - Leoš Janáček (1904)

44) Bluebeard’s Castle - Béla Bartók (1918)

45) Wozzeck - Alban Berg (1925)

46) Porgy and Bess - George Gershwin (1935)

47) Peter Grimes - Benjamin Britten (1945)

48) The Turn of the Screw* - Britten (1954)

49) King Priam - Michael Tippett (1962)

50) Le Grand Macabre - György Ligeti (1978)

Some Additional Operas not on that list that I want to listen to/finish listening to:

51) Armide - Jean Baptiste Lully (1686)

52) Proserpine (Proserpina) - Lully (1680)

53) Phaëton - Lully (1683)

54) Roland - Lully (1685)

55) Aida* - Verdi (1871)

56) Otello* - Verdi (1887)

57) Così fan tutte - Mozart (1790)

58) Parsifal - Wagner (1878)

59) Faust - Charles Gounod (1859)  

60) Les contes d’Hoffmann* - Offenbach (1881)

61) Elektra - Strauss (1909)

62) Rusalka - Antonin Dvorák (1901)

63) La clemenza di Tito* - Mozart (1791)

64) Lakmé* - Léo Dilibes (1883)

65) La sonnambula - Bellini (1831)

66) Die Fledermaus - Johann Strauss II (1874)

67) Roméo et Juliette* - Gounod (1867)

68) Andrea Chénier - Umberto Giodano (1896)

69) Semiramide - Rossini (1823)

70) Dialogues of the Carmelites - Francis Poulenc (1956)

71) Anna Bolena - Donizetti (1830)

72) Les Huguenots - Giacomo Meyerbeer (1836)

73) Peer Gynt* - Edvard Grieg (1876)

74) Ariadne auf Naxos - Richard Strauss (1912)

75) Billy Budd - Britten (1951)

76) HMS Pinafore - Arthur Sullivan (1878)

77) Béatrice et Bénédict* - Berlioz (1862)

78) Edgar - Puccini (1889)

79) Hippolyte et Aricie - Jean-Philippe Rameau (1733)

80) The Love for Three Oranges - Sergei Prokofiev (1919)

81) Alceste - Gluck (1767)

82) Amahl and the Night Visitors - Gian Carlo Menotti (1951)

83) King Arthur* - Purcell (1691)

84) The Nose - Shostakovich (1929)

85) Castor et Pollux - Rameau (1737)

86) The Tempest - Thomas Adès (2004)

87) Die tote Stadt - Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1920)

88) Alfonso und Estrella - Franz Schubert (1822)

89) L’étoile - Emmanuel Chabrier (1877)

90) The Fairy Queen - Purcell (1692)

91) Where the Wild Things Are - Oliver Knussen (1983)

92) The Nightingale - Igor Stravinsky (1914)

93) L’enfant et les sortilèges* - Maurice Ravel (1925)

94) Punch and Judy - Harrison Birtwistle (1968)

95) Death in Venice - Britten (1973)

96) We Come to the River - Hans Werner Henze (1984)

97) Einstein on the Beach - Philip Glass (1976)

98) Taverner - Peter Maxwell Davies (1972)

99) A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Britten (1960)

100) The Prodigal Son - Britten (1968)

[resssistance]

Kim Yelim / FS 'Turandot' / Beijing 2022 (x) (x)

[lesbienneanarchiste]

Was supposed to go see Turandot today but bc of pain and insomnia I feel like too much shit to go so we're skipping it 😔 it's not the end of the world but I legit was looking forward to it and I hate that it's not really my choice to skip it bc it's my body forcing me to and it's not fucking fair.

[dadbodgintoki]

talk about the victor spreadsheet in public

hdajkghd OKAY

so. elise (see above) and i, because we have too much time on our hands and are utterly incapable of being normal about figure skating for some reason rn, have been putting together a timeline of victor nikiforov's skating career since yuri on ice gives us like nothing to work with. victor is like a coloring book and we're just here with our crayons having the time of our damn lives.

highlights currently include: him having to miss the vancouver olys season (09-10) bc of a repetitive stress injury, leading to ppl speculating that he's going to retire at like 22 because even tho he was a juniors champ his senior career has been pretty fucking basic and "boring" (he was 5th at torino in 2006, but when people are already calling you a legend when you're 18, that's "underwhelming"). he has a turandot program that he skates well but it's not really as powerful as he wants it to be - he pushes himself too hard for it, hence the injury. his short program is forgettable as well. his mental health is trash (he's a failure, no emotional connection to skating, art AND tech skills declining, etc). whole year is basically just meltdown central and no one sees or hears anything from him for months on end (refusing interviews, no social media, etc)

cut to him coming back the next year with two completely new programs and a Whole New Look. he's cut off his hair and ditched his frills. his short program is to a techno new wave cut of enjoy the silence by depeche mode (something like the ricki tik tik mix from 1990) because fuck you i want it to be and i think he'd kill it. Surprise The Audience. he's in metallics. it's ICONIC. his free skate is a commission (to be determined). he wins EVERYTHING that year, including his home worlds in moscow. his exhibition skate is his old turandot but reworked, and it includes aretha franklin's version of nessun dorma because, once again, Surprise The Audience.

other highlights: he has a kiss by prince exhibition program that is entirely him flirting with the audience and having fun - it's nothing and sorta cringe but the vicbots (his stans) think it's the hottest thing of all time. he also has a spanish guitar free skate in there somewhere (there's a version of suite espanola v: asturias i really want to see him do) because i think he has the delicacy to capture the intricate movements in the music. he also has a khachaturian waltz because The Drama. he's a gorgeous skater and receives accolades for all of these performances, but he's not honest emotionally during any of them - only like three people call him on that, and they get called "haters" by the vicbots, but they're right. also he totally reads his own youtube comments.