17 February 2007

I think I'm gonna be sick

No, I didn't go. I didn't even tune in to the Sirius broadcast. I tuned in to channel 13 for a few minutes, saw things, then allowed myself to drift into sleep. I needed the rest, it's too damn cold, where is global warming, I finally started a lit survey for a new project for work (snoozer), there's Jenufa and Onegin and Simon Boccanegra (next week, Angela OMFG I'm there for you!) to savor, ingest, and digest. But sh*t I think I missed a definite keeper. Steven Smith writes of Elizabeth Futral's Elvira in his blog called Marginalia:

This is how bel canto should sound: the voice light but not without substance, agile but not trivial. It was surefire singing. Futral gave the impression of a musico-dramatic artist who is in complete control of her bejeweled instrument. While the coloratura runs didn’t have the stupendous exactitude of, say, Sutherland (!), they still hit their mark. And Futral can trill with the best of them; I mean it: it seems effortless. The high notes? Let’s just say that my mind was set at ease from the beginning: none of the sitting-on-the-edge-of-my-seat, can-she-pull-it-off angst induced by another singer in the same role. This is the way it’s supposed to be.
I knew it. I knew she was capable of all these wretched things, but I allowed my loser (ageing not gracefully these days) self to dictate the sched. I so knew it. (Probably why I didn't even tune in to the Sirius.) OK, so here's a new axiom for you: Futral on stage, Sieglinde in box, f*ck be the rest of the universe.