Richard Wagner's Das Rheingold - Animated

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My "Good Life" by Heidi

My "Good Life" is going to see Verdi's "Aida" in the courtyard of the Thurn and Taxis Castle. It was beautiful, both the music and the settings.
~Heidi from Germany



Couryard at Thurn and Taxis (from the Historic Germany website)

Learn more about the Thurn and Taxis castle by visiting the Historic Germany website. http://www.historicgermany.com/3282.html

Music on a Monday - The Magic Flute by Mozart

Barbara Kilduff as Papagena
Manfred Hemm as Papageno
Kurt Moll as Sarastro

James Levine and the Met Orch (1991)

Wagner on a Wednesday- Götterdämmerung (Opus Arte)

Massenet on a Monday - Thais

Janine Jansen at the Queens Jubilee


Jules Massenet 1842-1912

Jules Massenet is famous for his operas Manon, Thaïs and others.

Daniel Auber - La muette de Portici - "Amis, le soleil va paraitre" (Alfredo Kraus)

Daniel François Auber 1782-1871

Wagner on a Wednesday- Das Rheingold

Das Rheingold

Traetta Tommaso on a Tuesday- Antigone

Wagner on a Wednesday

Die Walküre: "The Ride of the Valkyries" (Boulez)

Noah Liff Opera Center is the new home for the Nashville Opera

Picture is from the Nashville Post

The story in the local papers:

In this case, the figurative fat lady sang not to signify the ending but the beginning.

The Nashville Opera today unveiled the design plans for its new home in Sylvan Park, a year later than initially planned so the organization made sure it had more than enough money to start construction.

D.F. Chase Construction is scheduled to begin work on the $6-million Noah Liff Opera Center, named for the late Nashville businessman, on Monday. The goal is to be in the 26,000-square-foot center new next fall and become a new neighbor to Nashville Ballet and Climb Nashville on Redmon Street

Read this entire story in the Nashville Post.
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The new Noah Liff Opera Center, 26,000 square feet of office, rehearsal and studio space that will serve as the nonprofit's new headquarters. Designed by Earl Swensson Associates of Nashville, the $6 million facility gives Tennessee's largest professional opera company something it has never had: a home of its own. Named for the late Noah Liff, one of the company's most steadfast and generous benefactors, the new center is at the rear of a converted warehouse, adjacent to Nashville Ballet, in a quiet corner of Sylvan Park.

"We needed a permanent headquarters," said Carol Penterman, executive director of Nashville Opera. "Our new space legitimizes us. We were the only arts organization in town that didn't have a permanent place. As long as you're renting, people think you are temporary."

Read the entire story in the Tennessean newspaper.

Inside the Opera House in Bayreuth, Germany

Watch "The MasterSingers of Nuremburg" live online from Bayreuth, Germany

Germany's annual opera festival devoted to the works of Richard Wagner has set a price and it's a high one — $77.

The festival will show opera live online for the first time during the performance of Die Meistersinger (The MasterSingers of Nuremberg) that opens the event July 27.

Only 10,000 will be able to sign up for the online video. There will also be a free viewing in the Bayreuth public square.

The concept is a new twist for the opera world, where companies are looking for ways to develop young audiences.

Read the entire story at CBCnews.

Walking around the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, Germany

Visit Festspielhaus to learn more about this wonderful place.

Pavarotti is Dead...Long Live Pavarotti!!!

We have lost one of the most well-known and beloved voices ever known. The great Pavarotti has succumbed to pancreatic cancer and has passed on. It is a sad day for music.

~C.S. Webbspun


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This is from the New York Times.

Luciano Pavarotti, the Italian singer whose ringing, pristine sound set a standard for operatic tenors of the postwar era, has died. He was 71.

His death was announced by his manager. The cause was pancreatic cancer. In July 2006 he underwent surgery for the cancer in New York and had made no public appearances since then. He was hospitalized again this summer and released on Aug. 25.

Like Enrico Caruso and Jenny Lind before him, Mr. Pavarotti extended his presence far beyond the limits of Italian opera. He became a titan of pop culture. Millions saw him on television and found in his expansive personality, childlike charm and generous figure a link to an art form with which many had only a glancing familiarity.

Early in his career and into the 1970s he devoted himself with single-mindedness to his serious opera and recital career, quickly establishing his rich sound as the great male operatic voice of his generation — the “King of the High Cs,” as his popular nickname had it.

By the 1980s he expanded his franchise exponentially with the Three Tenors projects, in which he shared the stage with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, first in concerts associated with the World Cup and later in world tours. Most critics agreed that it was Mr. Pavarotti’s charisma that made the collaboration such a success. The Three Tenors phenomenon only broadened his already huge audience and sold millions of recordings and videos.