Two weeks ago the Met simulcasted a new English-language production of Franz Lehár’s charming operetta set among the Parisian upper crust. Renée Fleming, America's reigning soprano diva, sang the title role of Hanna Glawari, the wealthy young widow of the title. Baritone Nathan Gunn was Count Danilo Danilovitsch, the man from Hanna's past. Opera legend Sir Thomas Allen was Baron Mirko Zeta, ambassador from the fictional Balkan country of Pontevedro. And Broadway star Kelli O'Hara was Valencienne, Zeta's careless young wife whose coquettish affair with a young French nobleman almost ruins her.
In this farce about Parisian passions and Pontevedrian patriotism, Hanna is the most eligible young woman in Paris. All the men around are after her bank account, especially the Pontevedrian nobles who wish to keep the money in their country. They believe that their only hope is Danilo, a playboy who loved Hanna a long time ago when she was a young farm girl and he a young officer. While things may have changed, it's clear that the two are still in love; he, however, cannot seem to spit it out and naturally that results in some hilarious confusion. Meanwhile, Baron Zeta's young Parisian wife Valencienne is having a fling with the young Count Camille de Rosillon. He writes "I love you" on her fan (she later writes "I'm a respectable wife" on the other side so as to avoid complete scandal, but her little affair is still found out). Suffice it to say hilarity ensues, indiscretions are forgiven, Danilo is finally able to spit it out, and everyone dances the can-can.
I have never seen two singers perform with such chemistry together as Renée Fleming and Nathan Gunn. I'm actually wondering how much of their interaction was rehearsed and how much of it was spontaneous. And their voices blend together so well and they have such perfect comic timing. And I loved Renée's performance of Hanna's Act 2 aria!
I had heard Sir Thomas Allen before, but this was my first time seeing him live. And I must say, I was most impressed. He is one of the operatic giants from the past couple of decades, and he rightfully deserves to be called such.
Kelli O'Hara was something entirely new. She is a Broadway soprano who started off in opera, so for her this was a "return to her roots" so to speak. She brought a lot of energy to the role of the coquettish young wife who knows what she's doing is wrong and almost loses everything. Of course since this is a farce, everything sorts itself out.
And the sets--Whoa Nelly! The creative outdid themselves with the sets and costumes. Elaborate is the word I'm looking for. From the Embassy's ball in Act 1 to Hanna's garden in Act 2 and then to Chez Maxime's in Act 3; everything was just elegant.
Such a splendid production; they should do it again next season.
Why must it take me months to write a review of an opera I go to see?
Beethoven wrote only one opera, Fidelio, or the Triumph of Married Love. This opera was in Development Hell and gave Beethoven the most grief.
Fidelio is tough to stage because the exact time is not given (this one set it in the late 18th Century). It has been described as more of a secular oratorio with its themes of freedom and liberation. Some productions have set it in the 20th Century (one of them being set in South Africa).
I will only give a brief summary of the plot. Leanore has disguised herself as young man, taking the name Fidelio. She recently got herself a job a at the prison where her husband Florestan has been wrongfully incarcerated. With the help of the jailer Rocco, Leanore infiltrates the prison and finds her husband in the lowest dungeon. Pizarro, the man who had Florestan captured in the first place tires to kill him, but Leanore reveals her identity and brandishes her pistol. In the end, Leanore and Florestan reunite, she cuts the chains from his hands, and Pizarro is arrested by the king's men.
I loved soprano Alexandra LoBianco as Leanore. She wowed us two seasons ago with her portrayal of Mrs. Renato Anckarström in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. And she brought down the house again this yearas Leanore. I love the fact that she kept her long hair under her hat in order to really fool those around her, and it made revealing her true identity all the more thrilling. Tenor Clay Hilly was rather stout for Florestan (the character being on starvation rations), but then again, you need all that extra support for bravura singing. There were two more familiar faces: Baritone Kelly Markgraf (who was our Don Giovanni in '13), was a menacing Don Pizarro. And bass-baritone Matt Boehler (who was Giovanni's servant Leprello), also was splendid as the jailer Rocco.
Highlights of the opera include the Prisoners Chorus, Florestan's lament, and the Act 2 love duet.
If this is being performed again, it is a must see.
We've all heard the popular theory regarding the extinction of the Woolly Mammoth at the end of the last Ice Age; namely, early humans hunted it to extinction. But there is no real smoking gun that points in that direction.
There have been fossil skeletons of mammoths found with arrow or spear marks on the bones. That tells that us humans hunted these creatures. But humans at that time also hunted things like deer.
The time of year played a role in what people hunted. If the weather was warm and not conducive to food preservation, hunters were lore likely to go after smaller animals such as deer. In cold weather when the freezing temperatures keep food from spoiling, then yes, mammoths would be hunted.
But there's one other thing at play here. Suppose some early hunters successfully brought down a mammoth. These animals weighed between four to six tons on average. That means that once you exclude the hides and bones and whatnot, the edible parts come to half the animal. That would be enough to feed a village of 112 people for several months.
Most likely, the mammoths went extinct due to a loss of habitat. These creatures needed huge grasslands in order to survive. These vanished at the end of the last Ice Age, leaving the mammoths without food.
So it's highly unlikely that early humans drove the mammoth to extinction.
I'm usually adverse to doing political pieces, but as this is somewhat relevant to my line of work, I should say a few things.
Two years ago, there was some shouting going on over a bill that would make illegal for people to use food stamp to buy junk food. A few weeks ago, it was brought back up for discussion.
Yes, obesity is a problem, yes there are people who abuse the system (such a lazy customer perfectly capable of walking using one of the scooters meant for elderly people who really needed it), and yes people do eat too much junk food in this country. But this bill is as stupid as the utterly ridiculous law in either Connecticut or Massachusetts (I forget which) that banned school bake sales; both of them are unworkable cure-alls for a problem that has more than one contributing factor.
When this issue first came up in the spring of 2013, I remember Chef speaking about it. One of my classmates then said, "Good, people shouldn't be allowed to use their food stamps to buy junk food." I just couldn't believe that someone would be that judgmental.
My mother told me two stories on this topic. The first one was from a column that Ann Landers did many years ago. Someone wrote to her expressing his annoyance at two women; one used food stamps to buy a cake, the other used them to buy a bag of shrimp. Landers decided to let her readers handle that issue. And it was a good thing she did that because this turned out to be a classic case of Things-Aren't-Always-What-They-Look-Like. As it happened both women read Landers' column. It turned out that the women buying the cake had a twelve-year-old daughter who was dying of cancer, this particular birthday may as well be her last. And the women wanted to get something nice that she knew the girl would enjoy. The second woman said that she usually bought cheap food with her food stamps, but for this one particular special occasion had decided to bring a treat.
The other story involves a woman whom my family used to go to church with when I was a little girl. She helped poor women buy teaching them how to use their food stamps to buy good food. She taught them how to read labels, understand the nutritional value of food, etc., and she did so in a very kind and loving way.
What the people pushing for the Food Stamp Bill are saying is, "We're smarter than you, you should listen to us." And no one is doing anything like what the woman from church did all those years ago. I agree that obesity is a serious problem, but there are so many factors contributing to the high rates of obesity in this country that introducing a bill that is meant to be a cure-all is inevitably going to backfire one way or another. And it is also simply adding to the problems the poor already face instead of fixing them.
