Tuesday, July 13, 2010

'Summer's here and the time is right..'


..For opera overload.

After a great time on Saturday night up at Caramoor, we went along to the Met Opera recital at SummerStage in Central Park last night and it was just brilliant. A great show, with singers Nathan Gunn, Michael Fabiano and Susanna Phillips, and pianists Jonathan Kelly and Julie Gunn.

Here's the New York Times' review of the show.

We met some nice people in the line, and when we got in to the performance area, there was plenty of seating with good views and people had picnics on the fake lawn area - although I gotta tell you, one thing New Yorkers seem to hate? Sitting next to other New Yorkers. It was a very well-run production, the sound was perfect and the audience was mostly respectful of the performers. Overall, its just great to have access to free events like this in the middle of the city.

Here's a couple of extracts from duets by Michael Fabiano and Susanna Phillips:





And here's Nathan Gunn finishing the main program with "Brother Can You Spare A Dime"



Sorry the video quality's not great because I was so far back, but the decent sound system means the audio's pretty clear. Here are a couple of great photographs of the principals taken by one of those nice people we met in the line, Mark Abramowitz from Pittsburgh:




The next Met outdoor recital is at Crotona Park in the Bronx on Thursday night. Details of that and the other borough summer shows are here.

On the way home we caught NPR's Soundcheck show, which is consistently good but last night had Angela Meade in the studio performing the amazing Casta Diva from Norma that got such a great reception on Saturday night.

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My friend and fellow blogger Natalia Paruz, the Saw Lady, is organizing the 8th annual Musical Saw Festival next month in Queens. Here's what they got up to last year:

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