I am still hummming "una furtive lagrima"...and last night caught the final scene of last season's Siegfried...that Jay Morris is something else (a really sexy looking Wagnerian tenor!)

And, Barbara, I think we are in for a few "strange" settings down the line, based on the previews...

So who saw Otello?

And I am curious...those of you to the west how early do they start these performances (Mine started at 1 p.m., same as in the Opera House)

Otello talk is in Opera 4, which is now closed. We'll continue here.

The operas here start at 10 a.m., which means for the longer ones, we finish at 2 p.m. or later. BYO lunch, or buy popcorn.

We have it better on the east coast....ours are usually at 1 p.m. (0ccasionally at noon...whenever they start at the Met)...

There was a free lunch offered by Opera Roanoke for the first production...for the others you can order a box lunch ahead (and pay for it) and I noticed the caterer had extra food for sale at intermission last Saturday. This is the advantage of being at the local college instead of in a movie theater. There is also a snack bar of sorts.

And, of course, ours finish when the Met does as well. Usually around 4 p.m. except for the longer Wagnerian works....

Getting ready to head for the simulcast of The Tempest, with some trepidation after reading reviews online. Which I had thought to ask Andrew if he had seen the original production in London a few years ago...

I didn't see it in London, but I did see it in Frankfurt (sung in English with German supertitles). It started well, but turned out to be a bit of a mish-mash - Shakespeare's text was extensively re-worded, to my annoyance (it's my favourite WS play), and quite a few of the characters didn't have a lot to do. Beta minus.

Pretty much my reaction, Andrew...at times I really hated the libretto. I agree that it is one of the Bard's best, and a few years back (probably the same trip that Liz and I joined you for dinner before Falstaff) we saw Derek Jacobi as Prospero at (I think) Royal Shakespeare...the opera was a real let down. Effective staging and well sung, but...

Oh, and Ariel doesn't get to sing Where the Bee Sucks...why on earth not?

Yes, a song of liberation was definitely called for. Ariel pretty much stole the show anyway, with that impossibly high, jagged vocal line. I heard/watched part of that on YouTube months ago; it's what made me want to see the opera in the first place. I didn't like the libretto either, with its half-rhymes and slangy expressions.

Why is there a chorus in this opera? It adds nothing.

I wondered about that chorus too...it really did not do as much for me as last season's pistache of some of the same material and Midsummer Night's Dream...forget what it was called, but that Ariel made a bigger impression on me.