Schmopera
Category
Humour
Hilarity: Someone Like Me (L'opera di Facebook)
The folks behind Something Blue: The Bachelor Opera and Connection Lost: The Tinder Opera are back! This time, it's Someone Like Me (L'opera di Facebook), a harrowing tale of likes, validation, and rye toast. Adam Taylor writes and directs, with music by Nathan Fletcher. Baritone Jonathan Hare and soprano Amelia Berry star in the fab, sassy cast of this must-see:
Watch VideoThe Met's 2018/19 seas...zzzzzzzzz
But, compared with the offerings at places like Opera Philadelphia, Minnesota Opera, The Atlanta Opera, and a fast-growing proportion of other regional opera houses in the United States and Canada, the Metropolitan Opera is proving its status as an honest-to-God opera museum.
Read MoreAn encore to remember: high notes & marriage proposals
Tenor Clay Hilley knows how to pair business with pleasure: in his recital for the Wagner Society of New York on January 6, the tenor took an encore - and an opportunity to publicly propose to his girlfriend, Sara (of the very fab Shoperatic, in fact!).
Watch Video4 things you're probably thankful for if you're an opera fan
For our Canadian readers, we head into Thanksgiving weekend (it's true, Americans!), and the deal is we have to say out loud the things for which we're thankful. We're a bunch of thankful opera lovers over here, so here's our list of gratitude, tailor-made for our fellow fans of big, loud singing.
Read MoreRobert Picardo, giving Cassini the farewell it deserves
Cassini's research is catalogued by NASA with some pretty stunning images. Giving a different kind of tribute - one that's a bit more operatic - is the one and only Robert Picard, whom you may know The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager. It's not his first time straddling the worlds of space exploration and opera; we recounted a few gems a few years back.
Read MoreSawney Bean & his cannibal clan would make a great opera
Whether you turn Sawney Bean himself into a booming basso profundo with a mean snarl and a taste for human flesh, or you tell the story of an anti-social family living among a mob-like community with a tendency toward exaggeration and gossip, the story is full of operatic qualities.
Read MoreTragedies: Toronto's summer opera shortage
Perhaps they're trying to tell us something, these vacationing opera-and-music-makers. Maybe they're saying, Get out of the city, you crazy opera-house addicts, they're saying. Go sit by a lake somewhere, and build up your vitamin D for the season to come.
Read MoreWhat are your irrational stage fears?
One singer admitted an irrational fear of finding himself standing downstage centre, unable to do anything but open and close his mouth silently and dumbly, like a carp. A conductor told me that he rarely uses a baton, for fear of letting it slip out of his hands and fly into the eyeball of his concertmaster. A certain director is afraid of accidentally preparing the wrong opera.
Read More5 opera mothers from hell
They're mean, mad, and even murderous: call it sexism, or call it a series of very loud Freudian slips, but the creators of opera have never been too kind to mothers. Still, Mother's Day is fast approaching; despite the generally poor representation they have in our favourite operas, these crazy mamas sure do get some great music.
Read MoreVittorio Grigòlo, impromptu voice teacher
Is it just us, or do strapping tenors always seem to waver on the line between charming enthusiasm and invasion of personal space? Now, this woman is being a great sport as a stranger (for all intents and purposes) touches her face. She's likely one of the many women and men who would indulge Mr. Grigòlo in an impromptu - and tactile - voice lesson.
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