Blogging

I run around looking for something to interest me. I literally have nothing else to do. I hired someone to clean the house, so what else is there? As long as the stock market continues to go up I can do what ever I please. There's walking for health, but I can do that anywhere.

I missed Tosca from the Met, but enjoyed enormously Maria Guleghina's Turandot. The emphasis is always on the spectacle, and she managed to push through all that and give us the deeply personal. Aida did not impress me.

I'm not to get From the House of the Dead from New York, so I have watched the DVD and feel content. The New York version seems to have a gimmick--the words are projected on the walls. It wouldn't be worth it to go to New York just for that. Maybe I'll travel for The Nose, but we'll have to see.

I get only a half season in San Francisco, but keep going to everything. I got a senior rush ticket for Racette's Trittico, and it was incredible. I couldn't get excited over Abduction from the Seraglio--too much bad German. Sondra Radvanovsky made Trovatore a pleasure, and while I liked Diana Damrau in Daughter of the Regiment, she didn't make me forget Natalie Dessay.

I loved my sudden trip to Germany, and enjoyed seeing my two heart-throbs on back to back nights. But perhaps I will have a new heart-throb found closer to home: Joyce DiDonato. I'm always on the lookout for someone with talent in the song area.

Closest to home has been Dido in Davis, a constant flood of emotion in under an hour.

Such variety. Such fun.