Der Moafänger bin ich ja!

[muckefuck]

monshu indirectly asked me last night why I didn't post about the opera and the reason was that there was nothing really to complain about, so I didn't have much to say. I've seen this production of Zauberflöte before and it's a good one. The music kicks ass, so all you really need are (1) competent singers (in particular a coloratura who won't massacre the Queen of the Night's big aria) and (2) a reasonably charismatic baritone to play Papageno, since he's the most entertaining character in the whole piece.

Since it's the Lyric, fulfilling those conditions isn't really an issue. The others carped a bit about Kiwi Samoan Lemalu's German, but honestly it didn't bother me. I could understand everything he said and it's kind of appropriate for our free-spirited forest-dwelling nature boy to have some kind of freaky accent. (He had a habit of raising his mid close vowels, so for instance Ohnmacht sounded like Unmacht.)

Oh, and you South Siders might be amused to find out that the moment of Shameless Pandering to the Home Crowd consisted of putting the three little genii (German imports, all) into White Sox uniforms at the end of of the "Pa-Pa-Pa" ensemble--and that it garnered a thundering round of applause.

Comments

[sfopanda.livejournal.com]

Good idea - SF Opera is doing Figaro in June... We love Chicago even in winter, but the question is our schedule and flight availability. If it comes together we'll let ya know!