Glimmerglass miscellaneous

The Glimmerglass Opera is in the country near Cooperstown, New York. It is a landscape that reminds me very much of southern Indiana with the same rolling hills, farm houses and barns. There were no chain stores at all. Even Bloomington has a mall. On the morning I was driving back to the Albany airport I saw a flock of turkeys grazing in a field.

Three of the four operas included characters smoking cigarettes. Only the princess from the Glass opera actually lit up.

They bring bunches of flowers to the performances, separate them and pass them out to the members of the orchestra. Then at the end during the bows they throw them up onto the stage in a shower of flowers.

Three of the four operas--same three as the smoking as it turns out--were matinees. The house is open and screened on the sides with giant doors that close for the opera to make it dark enough and to keep out the traffic sounds.

I skipped the concert version of Haydn's L'Anima del Filosofo. I didn't want anything to gray my memory of seeing a staged version in Zurich with Cecilia Bartoli.

I read that the two latest operas, Offenbach and Glass, both contain thematic references to Gluck's Lament. I heard the one in Offenbach.