Opera appreciations and discussion

[heman]

The ending of Gotterdamerung is indeed beautiful. The richness of Wagner's orchestration really stirs the heart. I always suggest my friends who wanted to know the Nibelung cycle  to pay special attention to the first act of Valkayrie and the ending of Twilights of the Gods after Hogen was drowned. 

[doncoin]

@InBangkok Thanks for the little nugget of info on WSS. I didn't know Bernstein "sampled" from Wagner. 

 

Anyway, here's the classic opera eye candy in the form of Nathan Gunn in his prime. 

 

 

 

and in light of the recent events happening in Ukraine. the Met Opera sang the Ukrainian national anthem before the performance of Don Carlos this past week. 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by doncoin

[InBangkok]

I wonder if anyone has heard the recording on Naxos of the concert performances of The Ring with the Hong Kong Philharmonic playing wonderfully under its Chief Conductor Jaap van Zweden. The four operas were performed and recorded between 2015 and 2018. This is the ending of Gotterdammerung with the Redemption theme first appearing around 3'30". I had not heard of the soprano before. While she sings with heart and passion, I feel she is just not right for Brunnhilde. For me it's not a true dramatic soprano voice. But the orchestral playing is superb. The Naxos engineers did a very fine job for the acoustic in that Concert Hall is far from ideal.

 

van Zweden has announced he will be leaving his posts with both the Hong Kong and New York Philharmonic Orchestras in the summer of 2024. During his 12 years with Hong Kong he has honed the orchestra into an extremely fine instrument. With all the recent political turmoil in the city, I wonder who might be interested in taking over from him.

 

 

[heman]

On 3/3/2022 at 1:04 AM, InBangkok said:

ot a true dramatic soprano voice

Frankly she reminded me of Hildegard Behren in the title role. Indeed most would expect the voice of Brigit Nelson but i find the above less dramatic voice pleasant. She did not ride the orchestral waves like a very dramatic Wagnerian soprano. She cuts through the orchestral waves beautifully. There is so much colour in her interpretation and honestly i love her style.

[dilbert0987]

Nathan Gunn is indeed hot!

[yuquidam]

On 3/4/2022 at 12:33 PM, dilbert0987 said:

Nathan Gunn is indeed hot!

I honestly find that you're more HOT (!) than Nathan Gunn any time. 

 

Pardon me if I sound rude.

[dilbert0987]

On 3/4/2022 at 12:44 PM, yuquidam said:

I honestly find that you're more HOT (!) than Nathan Gunn any time. 

 

Pardon me if I sound rude.

Not rude la. But thanks for the compliments! Lets not sidetrack from the topic.  

[InBangkok]

We are very gradually and very sadly losing a generation of truly great opera singers. News just in that the great Spanish coloratura mezzo soprano Teresa Berganza has died at the age of 89. She was unparalleled in the Rossini repertoire but equally at home in Mozart, Massenet, songs from her native Spain and many other composers.

 

I had the enormous pleasure in seeing her quite a few times. First in a superbly witty production of La Cenerentola from the Maggio Musicale in Florence by Jean Pierre Ponnelle. Claudio Abbado was the conductor. Then rather late in her career she was finally persuaded to make her debut in a role that could almost have been written for her, Carmen. Once again the Piero Faggioni production with Mirella Freni, Placido Domingo and Claudio Abbado conducting was utterly magnificent. The British author, critic and journalist for The Times of London, Bernard Levin, wrote that the production of Carmen was almost certainly the finest since its debut performance more than 100 years earlier. She was also Cherubino in the Joseph Losey film of Don Giovanni with Maazel conducting.

 

I also heard her in several concerts in Hong Kong and once at the Macao Festival. Extraordinary that that Macao Festival included so many wonderful singers including Berganza, Christa Ludwig, Lucia Valentini-Terrani, Peter Schreier, Alfredo Kraus and Ferrucio Furlanetto. Truly an embarrassment of riches.

 

Here she sings "Nacqui all'alfano" and a sparkling "Non piu mesta" from an early recording of Cenerentola with Sir Alexander Gibson conducting.

 

 

 

[Steve5380]

The enjoyment of hearing Teresa Berganza's singing would have been completely lost without without the modern technology of sound recording.   Of course, live music must exist to be recorded,  since the techniques of synthesizing it are not being applied today because they are not necessary.  There are plenty of artists eager to perform.  

 

Recordings are the treasures of music today.  Live performances are interesting, they are essential for the career of the artists,  and as long as there are the recourses to sustain them they will continue to exist for a selected public.  The bulk of humanity is served the best by recordings. 

[InBangkok]

On 5/14/2022 at 8:36 AM, Steve5380 said:

Live performances are interesting, they are essential for the career of the artists,  and as long as there are the recourses to sustain them they will continue to exist for a selected public.  The bulk of humanity is served the best by recordings. 

Another piece of nonsense from @Steve5380 and his usual slap in the face for the millions around world who love attending live performances. But this is also a slap in the face for artists. As for Madame Berganza, he clearly has no sympathy regarding her passing compared to that he lavished on her friend and fellow mezzo Christa Ludwig.

 

As for recordings, here I agree. There are many out there on the internet and elsewhere. But there is no possibility that he or any others can view that Carmen with Berganza, Domingo, Freni and Abbado - the production that was regarded as arguably  the finest in more than a century - because it was never recorded on video. Similarly with many other great performances. And the glorious Berganza and Ludwig recitals in the intimate setting of the Pavilion in Macao's Lou Lim Ioc Chinese garden. These can never be experienced other than by those who were there. Not that those who were there need a video to remind them of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

[Steve5380]

On 5/14/2022 at 7:07 AM, InBangkok said:

Another piece of nonsense from @Steve5380 and his usual slap in the face for the millions around world who love attending live performances. But this is also a slap in the face for artists. As for Madame Berganza, he clearly has no sympathy regarding her passing compared to that he lavished on her friend and fellow mezzo Christa Ludwig.

 

As for recordings, here I agree. There are many out there on the internet and elsewhere. But there is no possibility that he or any others can view that Carmen with Berganza, Domingo, Freni and Abbado - the production that was regarded as arguably  the finest in more than a century - because it was never recorded on video. Similarly with many other great performances. And the glorious Berganza and Ludwig recitals in the intimate setting of the Pavilion in Macao's Lou Lim Ioc Chinese garden. These can never be experienced other than by those who were there. Not that those who were there need a video to remind them of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

I have the highest respect for some performers of the art of music.  It is not an easy life,  with not so much security in part due to the existence of recordings.

 

Fortunately, the memory of our bad experiences tend to vanish with time.  Unfortunately, this also happens with the good experiences.  I still remember many good experiences of live performances, instrumental and opera.  But to remember is a poor alternative to the experiences themselves,  who have vanished completely into thin air.

 

To watch on video a recorded concert is a full musical experience with all its excitement. Same with listening to recorded music on a simple MP3 player.  This we can do at any time from the pleasant comfort of our home.  I have now elaborated more on this in the thread "Instrumental Music".

 

What a recorded experience does not replace is any sex tourism visiting gay saunas in foreign cities full of individuals one is attracted to.  This HAS to be done LIVE, ha ha.

.

Edited May 14, 2022 by Steve5380

[InBangkok]

This morning I read a fascinating interview which Teresa Berganza gave in Chicago in December 1984. It is wide-ranging and covers her personal life as well as her life in concerts and on the opera stage. One lovely anecdote clearly illustrates the down-to-earth artiste she obviously was. She was singing Carmen at London's Royal Opera House. The tenor singing Don Jose arrived in "a magnificent gray and silver Rolls Royce and I arrived on the Metro." Looking at the Royal Opera Database it is clear that the tenor was Placido Domingo!

 

She also discussed the importance of the texts in opera. "There are no great operas without great texts, so when you're coming to interpret them, that is where the texts come into play.  If it were not for the importance of the texts, the composers would have simply written la-la-la."

 

She was also an artiste rarely in favour of recordings over a live performance. Asked if she enjoyed making recordings, she firmly answered "No". She accepted that many people buy recordings and that "it's not bad for the public to listen to recordings." But she adds firmly, "It would be [bad] if they did that exclusively. They should eventually come and hear the artiste and the opera in person. Otherwise, you develop a deformation of the ear. . . I am never satisfied with the records. There is something spontaneous missing always on the records. A microphone in front of me when I am singing doesn't allow me to be free."

Edited May 15, 2022 by InBangkok

[InBangkok]

There has been a long discussion in this thread regarding the advantages of live performances over recordings. Reading Madame Berganza's interview I started thinking quite seriously about why I will always choose a live performance.

 

One reason is that a recording will always be like a mere snapshot in time. I compare many recordings to the petal from the most beautiful flower that is then plucked and heavily pressed between two sheets of tissue paper. From that point on, a recording will be there like the leaf, exactly the same every time I open the page to look at it. I will always seen the veins, the colour, the shape in precisely the same way.

 

Whether the recording is of a concert, a recital or an opera, the way the conductor takes the tempi of every second of the performance will never change. The way a pianist makes a certain modulation will never change. The way a singer sings the arias never changes. Once we have heard the recording perhaps 3 or 4 times, our brains tell us in advance exactly what they are going to hear and/or see.

 

As Berganza pointed out, there can be no spontaneity, no variation in recordings. And it is that spontaneity and variety that give live performance much of its joy. In opera no performance can ever be the same. Only three times in my life have I gone to two performances of exactly the same work with exactly the same cast in the same opera house. Both performances were different. Human beings are not programmed to repeat anything identically. The audience also has an effect on the performers who react to those watching them. 

 

Certainly some recordings can be very special and it is sometimes quite difficult to hear such works performed live. But that, too, is part of the joy. For years I used to believe that I would never hear a performance of Beethoven's 7th Symphony better than the marvellous recording by Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. And then i attended a performance by Ivan Fischer and his astonishing Budapest Festival Orchestra in Hong Kong. I was utterly transported - it was absolute joy from the first to last notes. Very different from Kleiber's interpretation but certainly as valid.

 

I used to love one particular recording of Brahms 4th Symphony. Then I heard the NHK Symphony in Tokyo with Wolfgang Sawallisch give a searing performance with no breaks between the movements. This was again utterly fascinating as it gave even greater prominence to the many thematic relationships that appear throughout the symphony.

 

Similarly with other concerts and operas. The again no-one will ever be able to see Berganza's Carmen because it was never recorded on video. I had the joy of seeing it twice.

 

And lastly to one of the greatest of all stage works. I have been fortunate to see 4 Ring cycles in different opera houses. All have been wonderfully different. To hear - and I do stress "hear" - that work at Bayreuth in the theatre Wagner designed for his work, that unique opera house where the orchestra and conductor are hidden from the audience by a canopy and the players stepped down and under the stage rather like a pyramid with the conductor at the top, is a totally different experience that can never be duplicated by any form of recording. When the double-basses commence Das Rheingold on the low E flat, the theatre is unusually totally dark (no spill of lighting from the orchestra pit!) and it seems impossible to locate where the sound is coming from. The Wolfgang Wagner staging I saw may not have been as good as two of the others, but those four evenings were in my experience unique and can never be duplicated.

 

Naturally, seating limitations put live performances at Bayreuth impossible for most Wagner lovers around the world. And with Ring cycles relatively rare, recordings are the only way the operas can be enjoyed for most. I fully accept that. One cycle I would love to have seen was that produced by the Catalonian street theatre performance company La Fura Dels Baus for Zubin Mehta's Ring in Valencia in the mid-2000s. It was billed as the  "Ring for the 21st Century". The Blu-Ray DVDs are fantastic! This is a sample of excerpts from Siegfried. (unfortunately with a very obvious modulation in the middle) showing the multi-media effects, especially in Wotan's wanderings in Act 3. The recording was made at a Dress Rehearsal which is why boom cameras are occasionally in view.

 

 

[Asian4white]

Martin Ng anyone? Was enthralled by his performance of Schubert’s Winterreise at VCH

 

https://youtube.com/c/MartinNg

[Steve5380]

On 5/15/2022 at 7:23 PM, Asian4white said:

Martin Ng anyone? Was enthralled by his performance of Schubert’s Winterreise at VCH

 

https://youtube.com/c/MartinNg

 

I have listened to his singing and he is very good.  I wish I could hear him sing the Schubert lieder.

[Steve5380]

On 5/15/2022 at 1:21 AM, InBangkok said:

There has been a long discussion in this thread regarding the advantages of live performances over recordings. Reading Madame Berganza's interview I started thinking quite seriously about why I will always choose a live performance.

 

One reason is that a recording will always be like a mere snapshot in time. I compare many recordings to the petal from the most beautiful flower that is then plucked and heavily pressed between two sheets of tissue paper. From that point on, a recording will be there like the leaf, exactly the same every time I open the page to look at it. I will always seen the veins, the colour, the shape in precisely the same way.

 

Whether the recording is of a concert, a recital or an opera, the way the conductor takes the tempi of every second of the performance will never change. The way a pianist makes a certain modulation will never change. The way a singer sings the arias never changes. Once we have heard the recording perhaps 3 or 4 times, our brains tell us in advance exactly what they are going to hear and/or see.

 

As Berganza pointed out, there can be no spontaneity, no variation in recordings. And it is that spontaneity and variety that give live performance much of its joy. In opera no performance can ever be the same. Only three times in my life have I gone to two performances of exactly the same work with exactly the same cast in the same opera house. Both performances were different. Human beings are not programmed to repeat anything identically. The audience also has an effect on the performers who react to those watching them. 

 

Certainly some recordings can be very special and it is sometimes quite difficult to hear such works performed live. But that, too, is part of the joy. For years I used to believe that I would never hear a performance of Beethoven's 7th Symphony better than the marvellous recording by Carlos Kleiber and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. And then i attended a performance by Ivan Fischer and his astonishing Budapest Festival Orchestra in Hong Kong. I was utterly transported - it was absolute joy from the first to last notes. Very different from Kleiber's interpretation but certainly as valid.

 

I used to love one particular recording of Brahms 4th Symphony. Then I heard the NHK Symphony in Tokyo with Wolfgang Sawallisch give a searing performance with no breaks between the movements. This was again utterly fascinating as it gave even greater prominence to the many thematic relationships that appear throughout the symphony.

 

Similarly with other concerts and operas. The again no-one will ever be able to see Berganza's Carmen because it was never recorded on video. I had the joy of seeing it twice.

 

And lastly to one of the greatest of all stage works. I have been fortunate to see 4 Ring cycles in different opera houses. All have been wonderfully different. To hear - and I do stress "hear" - that work at Bayreuth in the theatre Wagner designed for his work, that unique opera house where the orchestra and conductor are hidden from the audience by a canopy and the players stepped down and under the stage rather like a pyramid with the conductor at the top, is a totally different experience that can never be duplicated by any form of recording. When the double-basses commence Das Rheingold on the low E flat, the theatre is unusually totally dark (no spill of lighting from the orchestra pit!) and it seems impossible to locate where the sound is coming from. The Wolfgang Wagner staging I saw may not have been as good as two of the others, but those four evenings were in my experience unique and can never be duplicated.

 

Naturally, seating limitations put live performances at Bayreuth impossible for most Wagner lovers around the world. And with Ring cycles relatively rare, recordings are the only way the operas can be enjoyed for most. I fully accept that. One cycle I would love to have seen was that produced by the Catalonian street theatre performance company La Fura Dels Baus for Zubin Mehta's Ring in Valencia in the mid-2000s. It was billed as the  "Ring for the 21st Century". The Blu-Ray DVDs are fantastic! This is a sample of excerpts from Siegfried. (unfortunately with a very obvious modulation in the middle) showing the multi-media effects, especially in Wotan's wanderings in Act 3. The recording was made at a Dress Rehearsal which is why boom cameras are occasionally in view.

 

 

You don't need to defend your likeness for live concerts.  I understand it perfectly well and I also like most of them.  What I have been doing is simply DEFENDING my preference for recorded music,  and by the way making some fun with my wish to eat pizza during a staging of Wagner,  and my equating a live opera with the experience of a gay sauna, which makes sense because no "recorded" sauna replaces a "live" sauna.

 

I would damage my hand seriously if I would slap in the face all those who cherish live performances, so I don't do this.  And I have the highest respect for Madame Berganza.   Where I had to laugh is at your writing that according to her, if you don't come out and hear your artist in person you develop a "deformation of the ear".  I now understand why Barack Obama's ears are standing out so much:  he never listened to his beloved artists in person,  ha ha.

 

You are right that a recording is a snapshot of a performance frozen in time.  The spontaneity of it will never change with time.  But THIS IS THE SAME with ANY live performance.   Once you heard it,  it will NEVER have been different but, unfortunately, you can NEVER hear it again.  So much for your hearings of Wagner's "Ring" that were not recorded, they vanished in thin air and now you have them only in your memory neurons.  The advantage of occasionally hearing live different performances of a music in a variety of spontaneous interpretations has its perfect equivalent in the large collection of recorded performances on YouTube and Spotify.

 

You also write that it is practically impossible for the common man to hear the Ring cycle performed live in Bayreuth. I am a common man, and proud of it, and I am empowered to hear and see the Ring a hundred times, whenever I want, from excellent recordings on YouTube.  And it is not one single performance but several good ones. Or, for an insignificant cost compared to a trip to Bayreuth  I can buy with several clicks of the mouse all the many DVDs at Amazon with a variety of excellent performances,  and watch these DVDs daily.  ( Oh my God, imagine the deformation of my ears and eyes...)

 

I posted recently in the Instrumental Music thread three excellent versions of Chopin's Ballade No. 4.  They are all slightly different,  and one can see the artist playing in a way that is impossible if sitting in the audience.  Three versions, but I can probably post A DOZEN,  all different.  Remember the many good performance of this Ballade we could see recorded at the latest Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw?  We also could see them as if we were standing besides the pianist.  I also posted a compilation of old tangos sung by Carlos Gardel.  Oh, is this such a testimonial of the greatness of recorded music!  Nearly a century after he died, we can hear him,  and see him singing in other videos.

.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2022 by Steve5380

[InBangkok]

On 5/16/2022 at 8:38 PM, Steve5380 said:

Or, for an insignificant cost compared to a trip to Bayreuth  I can buy with several clicks of the mouse all the many DVDs at Amazon with a variety of excellent performances,  and watch these DVDs daily.

But you can never compare them with a live experience at Bayreuth. Yes, Bayreuth is expensive. I, though, was actually paid to attend The Ring there! In my summers I sometimes acted as a tour guide. A friend who owned a travel agency once engaged me to lead a tour of 40 of his clients to Bayreuth. Although i had only seen The Ring once at the age of 19, none of the regular guides had a clue even who Wagner was. So I had the extraordinary pleasure of a week in Bayreuth seeing and hearing The Ring at that extraordinary theatre totally free!

[Steve5380]

On 5/16/2022 at 10:29 PM, InBangkok said:

But you can never compare them with a live experience at Bayreuth. Yes, Bayreuth is expensive. I, though, was actually paid to attend The Ring there! In my summers I sometimes acted as a tour guide. A friend who owned a travel agency once engaged me to lead a tour of 40 of his clients to Bayreuth. Although i had only seen The Ring once at the age of 19, none of the regular guides had a clue even who Wagner was. So I had the extraordinary pleasure of a week in Bayreuth seeing and hearing The Ring at that extraordinary theatre totally free!

 

Lucky you!  But since I probably have little chance to get a seat to watch the Ring at Bayreuth, I don't need to compare this experience with anything.  Like I don't compare my normal life with the experience of being stoned with an hallucinogenic drug or opium, no matter how exquisite this might be.  I rather don't know it.

[InBangkok]

On 5/16/2022 at 8:38 PM, Steve5380 said:

What I have been doing is simply DEFENDING my preference for recorded music,  and by the way making some fun with my wish to eat pizza during a staging of Wagner,  and my equating a live opera with the experience of a gay sauna, which makes sense because no "recorded" sauna replaces a "live" sauna.

So now you attempt unsuccessfully to rewrite history. Your idiotic comments were made in all seriousness in an extended discussion about live performance vs. recorded music. As you always do, you continued to make your point but do not like being constantly contradicted. So you descended to make ridiculous comments that were in no way "fun" at the time in your posts. After all, you doubled down, doubled down again and then yet again - your usual tactic - on your stupid comments before you started in on another of your tactics - bashing posters who oppose you and then lying about their habits. Lying because you admitted you merely "assumed" from one post that what had happened 15 or more years earlier was still the case, without checking if what you said was true or a lie.

 

Your tactic on visiting the Sydney Opera House and your comments about its acoustics were similar. Finally, as in the earlier case, you had to admit you had never been inside the Joan Sutherland Opera Theatre and so your comments on its acoustics were rubbish!

 

As I have consistently stated, if you make fun of other's comments or write in jest, make it clear. An emoji or LOL as used by other posters - or even the wahahaha you copied from another poster in another thread - makes a comment perfectly clear. The fact is that most of your posts are not made in fun. You merely use that as an excuse when other posers start to tackle you on them. It's all so childish - and, yes, as you have told us endless boring times, there is still a child in you.

[Steve5380]

On 5/17/2022 at 9:11 PM, InBangkok said:

So now you attempt unsuccessfully to rewrite history. Your idiotic comments were made in all seriousness in an extended discussion about live performance vs. recorded music. As you always do, you continued to make your point but do not like being constantly contradicted. So you descended to make ridiculous comments that were in no way "fun" at the time in your posts. After all, you doubled down, doubled down again and then yet again - your usual tactic - on your stupid comments before you started in on another of your tactics - bashing posters who oppose you and then lying about their habits. Lying because you admitted you merely "assumed" from one post that what had happened 15 or more years earlier was still the case, without checking if what you said was true or a lie.

 

Your tactic on visiting the Sydney Opera House and your comments about its acoustics were similar. Finally, as in the earlier case, you had to admit you had never been inside the Joan Sutherland Opera Theatre and so your comments on its acoustics were rubbish!

 

As I have consistently stated, if you make fun of other's comments or write in jest, make it clear. An emoji or LOL as used by other posters - or even the wahahaha you copied from another poster in another thread - makes a comment perfectly clear. The fact is that most of your posts are not made in fun. You merely use that as an excuse when other posers start to tackle you on them. It's all so childish - and, yes, as you have told us endless boring times, there is still a child in you.

 

Your whole post is an idiotic example of futility.  

 

Because YOU CANNOT KNOW if I have fun or not.  There is no law in the books that I have to use an emoji  whenever I make fun.  OF COURSE it gave me a lot of fun to write about eating pizza while attending an opera performance,  and even more comparing live opera with "live gay sauna".  The same fun I experience now reading your angry reactions.  😀 (are these enough emojis?) 

 

I don't remember much what I wrote about the Sidney Opera House,  but this surely does not make my knowledge about acoustics wrong because...   because this place is not the only one that has acoustics. 

 

I completely understand that my comments may often not give you any fun.  So it is YOUR FUN what you are qualified of writing about,  not my fun,  ha ha.

[InBangkok]

On 5/18/2022 at 9:34 AM, Steve5380 said:

 

Your whole post is an idiotic example of futility.  

 

Because YOU CANNOT KNOW if I have fun or not.  There is no law in the books that I have to use an emoji  whenever I make fun.  OF COURSE it gave me a lot of fun to write about eating pizza while attending an opera performance,  and even more comparing live opera with "live gay sauna".  The same fun I experience now reading your angry reactions.  😀 (are these enough emojis?) 

 

I don't remember much what I wrote about the Sidney Opera House,  but this surely does not make my knowledge about acoustics wrong because...   because this place is not the only one that has acoustics. 

 

I completely understand that my comments may often not give you any fun.  So it is YOUR FUN what you are qualified of writing about,  not my fun,  ha ha.

You lie! Unequivocally! Anyone reading that series of posts will be well aware that what I wrote above is the truth. I do not care what action if any the moderators take. It does not alter the fact that your post is not just a lie but utterly silly and childish.

Edited May 18, 2022 by InBangkok
y

[Steve5380]

On 5/17/2022 at 10:07 PM, InBangkok said:

You lie! Unequivocally! Anyone reading that series of posts will be well aware that what I wrote above is the truth. I do not care what action if any the moderators take. It does not alter the fact that your post is not just a lie but utterly silly and childish.

 

From a somewhat detached position,  I find that what is silly and childish is your contempt.  

 

Why cannot a member here be a little silly and childish?   There is no evil in it.  Even an 80 y.o. man can be silly and childish.  It is the human nature,  the good one.   I just watched again this ballet "The 9th Symphony" with its Ode to Joy.  Even the worm feels joy,  and I think I am more than a worm, ha ha.

 

Maybe what you wrote is YOUR truth, which you have all the right to consider "THE" truth.  But it is not unique.  I have "MY" truth too.

[InBangkok]

On 5/18/2022 at 10:56 AM, Steve5380 said:

From a somewhat detached position,  I find that what is silly and childish is your contempt.  

The truth you quoted in an earlier post is anything but. You posted LIES! Attempts to rewrite history do not work when the originals are up in this thread for all to see. I suppose it is time to consider reposting all the LIES.

Edited May 18, 2022 by InBangkok

[Steve5380]

On 5/18/2022 at 2:04 AM, InBangkok said:

The truth you quoted in an earlier post is anything but. You posted LIES! Attempts to rewrite history do not work when the originals are up in this thread for all to see. I suppose it is time to consider reposting all the LIES.

 

What does it say about the character of a person when he likes to repost LIES?  Or rather... what he twists into LIES?

[InBangkok]

On 5/18/2022 at 8:01 PM, Steve5380 said:

 

What does it say about the character of a person when he likes to repost LIES?  Or rather... what he twists into LIES?

No twisting. Actual LIES. And you will recall you agreed and said you would apologise. But you added a condition that I would first have to apologise for calling you a Liar. I never place a condition on an apology. You LIED!

[Steve5380]

On 5/18/2022 at 8:14 AM, InBangkok said:

No twisting. Actual LIES. And you will recall you agreed and said you would apologise. But you added a condition that I would first have to apologise for calling you a Liar. I never place a condition on an apology. You LIED!

 

I did not just said I would apologize, I actually did.  And I have to recognize that it was not completely sincere, since I never found that I had done any wrong to you nor lied.  I apologized because I felt SORRY for you after you had your huge tantrum of being "mortally offended" by me assuming that you like to go to gay saunas,  and then running away.  I felt sorry that you had been hurt so badly... by your own strange hypersensitivity.

 

A gay who gets so upset when someone assumes that he likes gay saunas???   This is a really strange kind of bird!  And then allegedly having such a knowledge of gay saunas!   He even challenged me about the name of the owner of the sauna Equus in Seoul!,  saying that the name I gave was wrong!  Does he have a secret personality where he is an expert in Seoul gay saunas?   I doubt it.   He just challenges anything I say,  so cheap!

[Steve5380]

I just received notice by the Houston Grand Opera about their 2022-2023 season.  Now I have to debate if to subscribe for 6 or 7 future performances.  I wish I had a crystal ball...

 

Also with the invitation came a suggestion for a gift to the Grand Opera. 

 

Should I contribute $50, $100, $250 or... Other?   

[InBangkok]

On 5/20/2022 at 2:53 AM, Steve5380 said:

I did not just said I would apologize, I actually did. 

A lie1 You did not unreservedly apologise without first seeking an apology from me for calling you what you had shown in that forum - that you were a liar! You saw a post in another thread, you made an assumption and from that assumption you made a ridiculous assertion which you then wrote as fact. Doubling down you then added my long-term partner into that lie. You just cannot let anything think you are ever wrong!

[Steve5380]

On 5/19/2022 at 11:14 PM, InBangkok said:

A lie1 You did not unreservedly apologise without first seeking an apology from me for calling you what you had shown in that forum - that you were a liar! You saw a post in another thread, you made an assumption and from that assumption you made a ridiculous assertion which you then wrote as fact. Doubling down you then added my long-term partner into that lie. You just cannot let anything think you are ever wrong!

 

Why is all this so important?  You cannot let go of a grudge,  especially when your grudge is not justified at all?

.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Steve5380

[InBangkok]

On 5/20/2022 at 7:53 PM, Steve5380 said:

Why is all this so important?  You cannot let go of a grudge,  especially when your grudge is not justified at all?

Who brought it up again? Look at your own posting activity across this forum. You LIED! You did not apologise!

 

Better be careful of what you write of you might end up being banned again. How many times would that be? 6 times? 8 times? 10 times?

Edited May 20, 2022 by InBangkok

[Steve5380]

On 5/20/2022 at 10:02 AM, InBangkok said:

Who brought it up again? Look at your own posting activity across this forum. You LIED! You did not apologise!

 

Better be careful of what you write of you might end up being banned again. How many times would that be? 6 times? 8 times? 10 times?

 

Any suggestion on how to help this poor man who is so obsessed with his grudge because he was allegedly LIED to, and therefore he is driven to write malignant posts into so many threads, which of course give him no help at all.  Nothing seems to make him recover some peace, out of his altered state. 

.

 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Steve5380

[InBangkok]

On 5/21/2022 at 7:07 AM, Steve5380 said:

Any suggestion on how to help this poor man who is so obsessed with his grudge because he was allegedly LIED to, and therefore he is driven to write malignant posts into so many threads, which of course give him no help at all.  Nothing seems to make him recover some peace, out of his altered state.

Your constant attempts to alter the truth are so patently ridiculous when any poster can look up the original posts and make up their own minds. I am totally at peace with myself and the enjoyable life I lead.  I know quite clearly what happened and what you are now attempting to do. You can never allow yourself to be wrong even though you so frequently are, as virtually every poster here is aware.

[Steve5380]

On 5/21/2022 at 1:18 AM, InBangkok said:

Your constant attempts to alter the truth are so patently ridiculous when any poster can look up the original posts and make up their own minds. I am totally at peace with myself and the enjoyable life I lead.  I know quite clearly what happened and what you are now attempting to do. You can never allow yourself to be wrong even though you so frequently are, as virtually every poster here is aware.

 

If you are totally at peace enjoying your life,  what is your need to always coming after me with malevolent posts?   I cannot imagine any other poster at BW digging into my soon to be 15,000 posts to find something to blame me for.

[Steve5380]

On 3/3/2022 at 10:33 PM, dilbert0987 said:

Nathan Gunn is indeed hot!

 

Not really my type.  But he would be hotter if he would be able to sing The Magic Flute in German.

 

 

 

[Steve5380]

The Lieder of Schubert are not precisely "opera",  and one former member was so picky about this... 

 

But I found a version of a Lied sung by famous opera singer Jussi Bjoerling accompanied by orchestra:

 

 

 

This is Schubert's glorious Lied "An Sylvia".   And here is the original version for piano and voice,  a combination of a beautiful lied with accompaniment of simple chords on the piano that make such a masterpiece!

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Steve5380

[Steve5380]

Recently I listened to an excellent performance of Bizet's Carmen.  What impressed me was the mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca,  a recent star in the opera firmament.  I listened to her in some other music, including the following video where her voice shines so well singing Mozart's Laudate Dominum:

 

 

 

[doncoin]

I loved her in the Met Opera's production of Carmen. i thought she captured perfectly how Carmen should be. 

 

 

[doncoin]

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of experiencing a rarely performed opera by the Met, Fedora, starring Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczala. I've always felt Amor ti Vieta is somewhat short, it is more like a motif in the context of the typical aria. 

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by doncoin

[Steve5380]

 

 

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of experiencing a rarely performed opera by the Met, Fedora, starring Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczala. I've always felt Amor ti Vieta is somewhat short, it is more like a motif in the context of the typical aria. 

 

 

It seems that the Met had success recasting this obscure opera by Giordano.  I liked watching the rehearsal:

 

 

A good aria for tenors to blast out their voice...