My life on line -IV- Strange Christmas coming!

Still the same under the rules dictated by the pandemic.

 Family gathering should not exceed six adults around the Christmas table (children can be joigning ), and for Christmas Eve there is Midnight leave! But not on Dec 31st... after Christmas we will have to be back at 8pm  and stay indoors until 6am each day... Vaccination will start soon in January first for the oldest population in Homes (I would have thought because  of the lower immune capacities of  the elderly population it would have been more efficient to vaccinate the younger population  from18years old to 59 who will not have immune deficiency like senior citizens....).

My day life is spent a lot indoors and in the courtyard (I can hardly call it"garden" though I grow roses chrysanthemum, hydrengeas laurel and all sorts of perennials I love ; I once had  blue tradescantia from Britain, and of course there are two  climbing wines which are as old as the house plus our beloved pomegranate tree... which I planted twenty years ago). All  pots and plants keep me busy as they say 'pottering' around!Maomao Mao had to leave end of Summer for Cat's paradise so there are only the two of us now.

But these days of strange atmosphere with no live performance whatsoever, shorter days, no easy transport, curfew at 8pm, I keep myself happy to communicate with my blog! (keeping always in touch with reading my Canadian blogfriend Willym, also, Thadieu  

Thadieu has become by now a true baroque expert and her blog is a vivid source of music on line! we once met because of the 'love'of the  Bulgarian mezzo whom I discovered in Paris singing along Anja Harteros : Vesselina Kasarova! for the love of her voice and mastering the art of singing I travelled to Cologne, Paris several times, Zurich and Munich where I had the pleasure of meeting Thadieu ! Smorg always keeps Vesselina's schedule  on time and knows her career well. The love of mezzo voce is really a "meeting platform".  Being on Karine Deshayes fans' group keeps me happy too: Karine Deshayes has never stopped doing concerts on line, new records issues  Radio and also participating to the defense of the careers of younger artists singers in this dreadful period for 'la culture lyrique'. She is also very present on  her facebook page, as we all have memories to share when we all were in her audience either in Paris, Toulon, Marseille, Montpellier,  Orange, Salon de Provence, and even the memorable on line Werther we shared from Moscow Tchaikovsky Concert hall where she made me cry when she sang 'Les lettres ... ' . We had it on line again on her fanpage and this is how time flies on line... music always here and there...

And of course the links I receive from the Halls I booked to, in the past years: Naples, Zurich, Paris, Dresde,  Marseille, Montpellier, Zurich, Munich, Berlin, they all keep in touch to send their online performances with no audience... unless they have briliant ideas like "l'orchestre de Montpellier"

Just to say that music is alive and keeps alive, even when depressed feelings arouse there is always music, orchestral, operas, pop, music is living and caring either for the artists or for yourself, and for the audience around even if it is your pet... they love music too !I "toured" youtube to find traces of that amazing Alcina from the TCE where both Anja Harteros and Vesselina Kasarova were sharing top roles : there used to be the entire Haendel's opera... now I  only found Vesselina'sRuggiero:(TCE 2011)

Happy memories of a splendid cast and orchestra !

And of course I still keep in touch with my youngest discovery: Composer, singer actor complete musician NO Min Woo now calling himself Minue: He offered his fans an intimate concert on line from his bedroom and gave a very heartfelt rendition of 'Smile' (the eternal moving CH. Chaplin 's tune ending Modern Times 1936....) then yesterday the same young artist did an official 'première' on line dedicating his interpretation of

'Smile' to all the hospital staff. They need to receive warm feelings from us all around the world because they are fighting for us and are at the first most exposed infectious positions in this 'war'.

Here's Minue -Santa-Claus smiling after a moving first   interpretation of "smile" ! (screenshot from the whole intimate concert where he also sang and played 'Imagine' with so many of his 'love ballads' some very sweet ones like 'first snow ' and 'Can I love you' I like so much,  he is such a good piano player too ).

Dear Santa-Claus tonight don't miss a chimney-stack ! let's hope for some warmth to all the children of this upset world, they all should smile as we did years ago when our parents were struggling with end of wold war II hardship, but we smiled I can remember those days full of Hope for the future! Let's find that kind of "Hope" now for all the children of the world!

My life on line :-III- Laugh and cry. 40th Anniversary of John Lennon's death.(08/12/20)

On His Own Write        by            John Lennon (1964)

P 57

"Puffing and globbering they drugged theyselves rampling

or dancing with wild abdomen, stubbing in wild postumes amongst themselves  "

He was like James Joyce: creating new words on old ones and letting us wonder imagine dream... 

With his sketchings this book is amazing, and it is on line. (perhaps not for long? at the moment it is, it can be shared,  it is an amzing treasure! )

 

 On this precise day,  forty years ago he was shot by a lunatic because he imagined 'no heaven' above us...

Today I do do not want to read the news!  I feel like shouting :

'Father you left me..'  like John did .

 How many people round the world  could join me in that cry? "99/100 of parents in the world alive or half dead...

" says John Lennon  in 1972 at the opening of "Mother" (live concert)

 It is fine now with me because I said 'good-bye ' to him on his last phone call in 1995.

After having ignored my existence for nearly fifty years I could tell him  on the phone that he did not  bring me  up, therefore I had no feelings to share with him, while my Mother he left in the fifties, was now  at  her last battle: she could no longer fight the horrible pancreatic cancer that was eating her away. My stepfather whom I cared for until he passed away was more to me than' a father'  and then  what is a 'real father'? I never had one but had this marvellous person who made my Mother smile again and was so close to me and my husband too as he spent the end of his life with us. When I was a child this person who came in my Mother's life gave me confidence, always quiet and caring, never scolding me, leaving my Mother deal with me,  but always encouraging me to be peaceful and understanding with my mother( and myself too).

 

My life on line -II- Simon Boccanegra -Verdi from Zurich on Arte At 5PM

Simon boccanegra Arte  on Saint Nicholas day.

 This rendition was an amazing 'tour de force' on the sound effects as orchestra chorus and conductor were in the rehearsal hall a kilometer away from Zurich opera house. Sound ingeneers, ( mixing tables and all the heavy sound techniques) worked since last September to keep the artists and stage going . 

Tonight there was a marvellous sound effect in my room around the  television screen almost as good as what I like (and I miss so often when I watch a live opera on television),   the 'depth' effect.  I always say that the sound is 'flat' in front of TV,  compared to the sound in the opera house or any concert hall.

What I hear in a concert hall or in an opera house has always an effect of echoing through my body, invading me to the extreme level of vibrating in me when it is very good!

So, I really enjoyed  watching this  live rendition from Zurich Opera house. 

I remembered tonight  the unforgettable  Simon Boccanegra  from the Royal Opera House in July 2010. My  passion made me abandon grandchildren and  husband in our London  hotel to catch  the underground direct to Covent Graden in haste ... It was two days before flying back to France so I still have the feeling it was selfish  on my side to do so, but I really wanted to catch both Placodo Domingo in this baryton role and Joseph Calleja - Adorno, I had never seen live....

Tonight it was like being there with a close approach to the singers in a sober staging. There was an assumed time swicth in modern times (1900) but with no extravagant staging  or costumes.

The sea was there too : materialised when needed in the lyrics by a  small whitish light boat like a shipwrecked on the shore when Simon was having a flashback, his young daughter was also there , and later even Maria, her mother he loved so much. His personal drama is always illustrated : it is a process I often resent but because of the bare staging it was fine.

 The last image when dead Simon walks out with angel Amelia and angel Maria by his sides in plain white long dresses, it is rather tear-jerking, with the last notes. I am  looking forward to watching it again on line tomorrow night if it is on. 

I want to listen to the beautiful singing at the end of act one and to the entire act three. Both Christian Gehaher and Christof Fischesser were singing  Simon and Fiesco  for the first time and they were both moving, impressive, and so good musically together.

Tomorrow, there will not be the  opening  sAeason of La scala so here is  a masterpiece  2 (from youtube with an immortal cast! 1( owing to the generosity of the uploader)

Always in Simon's heart: the sea.

from ARTE: Available from 06/12/2020 to 05/01/2021

Intrigue, family tragedy, power struggles.Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra has recently had a renaissance and turns out to be surprisingly topical.For this new production staged by Zurich's general director Andreas Homoki – in full compliance with corona safety regulations – internationally acclaimed baritone Christian Gerhaher makes another debut in the title role, while Fabio Luisi conducts his last Verdi production as General Music Director at Opernhaus Zurich.

Intrigue, family tragedy, power struggles – that’s Verdi’s opera Simon Boccanegra in a nutshell. Verdi himself once said: “The piece is gloomy, because it has to be gloomy, but it’s gripping!” The opera has recently had a renaissance at all the world’s major opera houses and turns out to be surprisingly topical: a thriller in which men make history and women often fall victim to their machinations. The premiere was a flop, though when the work was revived at La Scala Milan nearly twenty-five years later it met with thunderous applause. This revised version is the one that Andreas Homoki has staged at Opernhaus Zurich. Internationally acclaimed baritone Christian Gerhaher as Boccanegra makes another thrilling debut at Opernhaus Zurich, having previously shone as Alban Berg’s Wozzeck and Heinz Holliger's Lenau. For conductor Fabio Luisi, however, this will be his last new production of a Verdi opera as General Music Director. The inspiration for Verdi’s stirring drama set against a political backdrop was a play by Antonio García Gutiérrez based on an episode from medieval history. The composer was struck by the peace overtures of Boccanegra, a fourteenth-century Doge of Genoa, and saw parallels between them and the nineteenth-century struggle for Italian unity. Where Verdi most excels, however, is in his musical characterization of powerful and power-hungry men.  The melodrama Simon Boccanegra was composed for Venice in 1857and was thoroughly reworked by the composer himself in collaboration with Arrigo Boito in 1881.

• With :
  Christian Gerhaher (Simon Boccanegra)
  Jennifer Rowley (Maria Boccanegra)
  Christof Fischesser (Jacopo Fiesco)
  Otar Jorjikia (Gabriele Adorno)
  Savelii Andreev (Captain of the Crossbowmen)
  Siena Licht Miller (Amelia's maid)
  Nicholas Brownlee (Paolo Albiani)
  Brent Michael Smith (Pietro)
• Composer :
  Giuseppe Verdi
• Director :
  Andreas Homoki
• TV production :
  Michael Beyer
• Music director :
  Fabio Luisi
• Orchestra :
  Philharmonia Zürich
• Choir director :
  Janko Kastelic
• Choir :
  Chor der Oper Zürich
• Libretto :
  Arrigo Boito, Francesco Maria Piave
• Sets :
  Christian Schmidt
• Lighting :
  Franck Evin
• Dramaturge :
  Fabio Dietsche
• Country :
  Switzerland
• Year :
  2020