March 1st: A Play-by-Play

Since you can't buy 3 Standing Room tickets at once one of the places was far away from the other two. None of us wanted to be by ourselves, so we squeezed into two places. That was uncomfortable. Plus, we had 3 very tall people in front of us. Still, I moved all around to see everything that happened on stage.
The minute Renee walked on I started shaking. Just shaking, nothing else. My friends grabbed my hands and said, "Oh my god, it's really really her!" They were just as amazed. Of course, the second she started singing I was almost on the floor in tears. I'm pretty over dramatic. Still... I mean think about when you first saw your favorite singer ever in the whole world. Wasn't it pretty intense? We had some classic Renee moments in there, where you just go "of that's SO Renee! The "quella parole orrEEEEENDA" for instance. There's one where i fell onto the floor (figuratively, of course). The "Ah, Emilia addio!" after the "buona notte" as another one. Her final goodbye to her friend was so touching and that note was, oh, flawless. Her acting really led the opera, if it wasn't for her half the people in the house would have been snoring. She led the cast vocally and dramatically. The Willow Song and Ave Maria brought me to tears. I'm pretty sure most other people were teary-eyed by the end also. The last scene was so intense, she was screaming when he was strangling her and everyone was on edge. And she fell off the bed and down the stairs. Ouch. It looked like it hurt and, despite her awkward position, she didn't move a muscle the whole rest of the opera. Renee Fleming is/was (yes, me and my friends have officially made it a compliment) BEASTLY.
I enjoyed John Botha. I wasn't thrilled by his singing, since I was brought up on Domingo's Otello, and his acting was just blah. Desdemona asks "You are crying?" ... I didn't see any crying, moaning, or whatever else she says he did. He just put his head against the wall. And him thrashing on the ground was nothing short of awkward. Whatever, I still enjoyed it. When he smacked Renee across the face I wanted to yell "Excuse me, no one slaps Renee around!" But I remembered "Oh duh, it's just a performance." Silly me.
I'm not sure what people's problem is with Carlo Guelfi. He sounded and looked fine in the house. He wasn't AMAZING, but I don't think he deserved some of the harsh criticism he got. It's probably one of those "sounds great in the house, but not on recording/broadcasts" situations.

Post on Carmen later...


Happy Listening!!! =)