I think I'm in Love

I think I fell in love today at the Live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD presentation of The Enchanted Island.  Maybe I fell in love with the ever more fascinating and spectacular Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax.  I was pleased to see she got top billing.

Or perhaps I fell in love with Danielle de Niese as the spectacular spirit Ariel. She got all the best arias and looked adorable in her costume.

It is even possible that I fell in love with David Daniels.  He is very serious in the role of Prospero, and perhaps that is what I needed.

I know I love madly Luca Pisaroni as Caliban.  He complained about having to shave his hair for the role, but he was successfully lovable and hideous all at the same time.

Perhaps I fell in love with Placido Domingo in his first role as a god.  How is that possible?  Hasn't he always been a god?  Today is his birthday. 

Probably I already loved the conductor William Christie, who did not conduct from the harpsichord.  I didn't love anything more than he did.

The pastiche was a success.  I enjoyed the English text enormously.  If English translations were always this good, we would argue for singing more operas in English.  Everyone sang it well.  The oddest selection for retexting was "Endless Pleasure, Endless Love" from Semele made into an ensemble.

The thing that was least like a real Baroque opera was the frequent use of ensemble numbers.  Real Baroque opera is just one da capo aria after another.  In this they represented I would say about half of the opera instead of the usual 80 percent.

I found it amusing that Ariel messes up and shipwrecks the wrong boat.  The odd plot was very well handled.  If you've seen The Fairy Queen, you know that this makes way more sense.

It was enchanting.
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