All work and no play…

Back by popular demand

Don Giovanni curtain call, sometime last June at Covent Garden.
I’ve just noticed there both the men and the women are showing their tits smiles in this photo; Don Giovanni is also showing his tongue to the posh guys dressed up as Raouls in the first box and Donn’Anna is about to fall into the pit:

With Erwin Schrott [...]

Sumo players [sic] on roller skates

“Rugby football is a game I can’t claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line [...]

Top stories

Jonny Wilkinson has been spotted practising his kicking in Trafalgar Square; he was trying to hit the square’s pigeons with the ball.
“That is what it is all about now,” he said, “the execution of ruthlessness. Our survival depends on it.”
“I missed three from seven; one of those I knew immediately I’d executed wrong, but I was happy [...]

Stereotypes

A couple of days ago I read a wonderful post on a city that is much more than the stereotypes it is too often associated with. For me Rome is still the world’s most beautiful city, so I couldn’t agree more.
But it made me think about the city I grew up in, Naples. What are [...]

Götterdämmerung at Covent Garden

“Wer verschloss dich wieder in Schlaf?”

The start was interesting. Through a wall covered in random mathematical formulas came three women dressed up as Christmas trees the tree Norns (Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Marina Poplavskaya and Yvonne Howard). I thought their singing was very good, but halfway through the first scene – which is actually the prologue – [...]

One Ring to rule them all – Die Walküre at Covent Garden

Since tonight I went to see Götterdämmerung at the Royal Opera House, here are some random comments on…Die Walküre first. Well, I didn’t go to either Das Rheingold or Siegfried, so I’m not going to write anything about those.
I’d like to see a Ring with Walkyries dressed as…Walkyries etc, but I do realize it would not be [...]

Of Mice and Men

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy…”
…wait, I can’t post the rest of the quote, otherwise I will spoil the ending…and if there’s something I really hate it’s spoilers!
I wasn’t sure of the possibilities of a movie where the main character is a rat who wants to become a chef. I was wrong, terribly [...]

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
I’m going to keep the “Hello world” though, it’s not a bad title for the first post and I can’t be bothered to find a better one.