Feature: Virtual Opera Streaming This Week 3/9

We begin our tour with a Los Angeles Opera recital by American mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce Davis, whom many tour members have seen perform in Belgium.

Program:

Amy Beach: The Year's at The Spring, Ah, Love, but a Day, I Send my Heart up to You

Hall Johnson: His Name So Sweet
Harry T. Burleigh: There is A Balm in Gilead
Adolphus Hailstork: My Heart to Thy Heart

Margaret Bonds: Dream Variation

Florence Beatrice Price: The Crescent Moon
H. Leslie Adams: Nightsongs, Since You Went Away
Melissa Dunphy: Come My Tan Faced Children
Ayanna Witter-Johnson: Brown Sounds
Andrew Marshall: This is my Word
Peter Ashbourne: Evening Time, Nobody's Business

LINK https://www.laopera.org/discover/la-opera-on-now/la-opera-on-now-all-events/living-room-recital-raehann-bryce-davis/

After a pleasant evening in Los Angeles, we board the Magic Opera Flying Carpet for late night ice cream sundaes and pleasant dreams. We will leave for Northern California in the morning after Julia's crew serves breakfast burritos and coffee.

The sun comes up early and we take off for San Francisco. Arriving at our usual space north of the city, a bus awaits to take us to town. Tour members have free time until we assemble for dinner at Waterbar. One of San Francisco's foremost seafood restaurants, Waterbar is situated on San Francisco's Embarcadero. The restaurant features panoramic views of San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, and the city's skyline. Tour members enjoy lobster bisque with crème fraîche, followed by whole Maine lobster with risotto. We will eat dessert on the Magic Opera Flying Carpet after the opera.

Mar 13 and 14, San Francisco Opera presents Wagner's Die Walküre. Chief god Wotan fathers the hero Siegmund to regain control of the ring. But, when confronted with the futility of his dream, Wotan is forced to forsake not only his son but also his beloved daughter, the warrior-maiden Brünnhilde. Wagner's opera is sung in German with English supertitles.

As Wotan, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley leads a powerhouse cast under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles, former San Francisco Opera music director. One ring will rule them all. One ring will doom them all. Discover its origins as Wagner's celebrated tetralogy directed by Francesca Zambello continues this weekend, starting Saturday at 10am PST. Directed for the screen by Frank Zamacona, the Ring is a co-production of San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera.

LINK https://sfopera.com/streaming?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=M2021RingFestivalPassPurchaseConfSUBDON&utm_content=version_A&uid=7462186&sourceNumber=53660

LINK sfopera.com

After the opera we stow our luggage for the sixteen hour trip across the United States and the Atlantic Ocean to Palermo, Sicily. We leave at midnight and we arrive in time to go to bed over there. When morning in Palermo finally comes, it is sunny and warm with a yellow light that embodies the joy of the Italian Mezzogiorno.

We phoned ahead so that for breakfast we have pezzi di rosticceria or baked brioches stuffed with ham, wurst, or minced meat and sauce or cheese. There's also lots coffee, hot or cold chocolate, and tea. Tour members spend the afternoon strolling around the coast of the Mediterranean. We all meet for dinner on the island of Salina where we eat a spaghetti dish made with locally grown capers. We eat them in a pesto with mint, parsley, pecorino cheese, and tomato sauce. Everyone except Manon-la-Chat is happy with the meal. She says grumpily "Where's the MEAT." We bring her some fish instead and she is last seen purring on a sunny windowsill.

The Palermo Ernani was recorded at Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Italy with Omer Meir Wellber conducting and Ludovico Rajata directing. The cast includes Eleonora Buratto and Elvira, Giorgio Berrugi as Ernani, Simone Piazzola as Don Carlo, Michele Pertusi as Silva, and Andrea Pellegrini, the winner of the Teatro Massimo award at the Vinas Competition, as Iago.

https://www.teatromassimo.it/eng/teatro-massimo-tv-495/ernani.html

Tour members fly to Milan in the early morning. We bus to the Duomo and the center of town for sightseeing and reassemble at Il Giardino dei Segreti (Secret Garden). We book tables in the garden where there is patio seating under live trees and we order the mixed grill. Even Manon won't complain this time. Reclining in her Cat-illac, she is allowed to dine with us.

For Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, in 1995, the conductor is Riccardo Muti and the stage director is Roberto de Simone. The cast includes Paul Groves as Tamino, Andrea Rost as Pamina, Victoria Loukianetz as The Queen of the Night, Matthias Hölle as Sarastro, Simon Keenlyside as Papageno, and Adina Nitescu, Petra Lang, and Lioba Braun as The Three Ladies.

LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDDDQ20aBEs

LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfPIwqsH5xA

After the opera, we find plates of tiramisu and glasses of local Italian wine waiting for us at the Flying Opera Magic Carpet. Our night-time trip to England takes us deep into the black fog of the North Atlantic and even after daybreak we see nothing but clouds until we land outside London.

After stretching our legs on a short promenade, Manon and I get out our rain gear. London is doing its thing...again, and it does make good background for tonight's opera, The Flying Dutchman. We ordering meat pies for an early dinner and bus to the theater afterwards.

Andris Nelsons conducts the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in this 2015 performance of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. Chris Shipman directs the production. Performers include Bryn Terfel, Adrianne Pieczonka, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Michael König, and Peter Rose.

How we love to be in London for a fantastic British breakfast! Today's consists of fried eggs, buttered toast, pork sausage, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried bread, and a slice of a black pudding similar to blood sausage. Although it is more traditional to drink tea, I down a large mocha latte with my meal. After breakfast we leave for Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm and Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's oratorio, La Passion de Simone.

La Passion de Simone features mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter in a captivating work about Simone Weil. How many lives can a person live in just 34 years? Before her early death, the French-Jewish philosopher and mystic Simone Weil took part in the Spanish Civil War, worked in a refugee camp, in a factory and as a teacher. She was forever on the move in search of new truths.

The oratorio La Passion de Simone is the third of four collaborations between the Finnish composer and Polar Prize laureate Kaija Saariaho with the French-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, starting with the highly acclaimed L'amour de loin. On the structure of Bach's Passions, Saariaho's unique and suspenseful score, performed by court singer Anne Sofie Von Otter as a soloist and conductor Christian Karlsen immerses the listener in the life and thoughts of Simone Weil. This concert was recorded on October 17, 2020, in association with the Jewish Cultural Association of Sweden.

It is sung in French with subtitles are available in English and French. The video is available until July 2021

LINK: https://operavision.eu/en/library/

Click on Performances and then Operas.

After the show, we pack some of our clothes and get ready for the night flight to Philadelphia. We have scrapple for breakfast. Scrapple is a weird but beloved beloved Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast staple. Julia, our chef, combines pieces of pork, cornmeal mush, and pungent seasonings into a loaf which she refrigerates until needed. Today, our crew serves her fried scrapple slices with bacon and eggs while we are still aloft.

After landing outside Philadelphia, we stretch our legs, walk around our airport parking place, and board our bus for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Artistic creations inspire curiosity, provoke emotions, and stir the senses. Explore this sampling of artists and makers whose work has beckoned visitors from all around the world to Philadelphia. Manon-la-Chat wants to see Thomas Eakins' cat paintings.

LINK: https://philamuseum.org/explore/?page=2

Opera Philadelphia is celebrating U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 88th Birthday with online performances of some of her favorite opera arias in "For the Love of Opera." The program is available on Facebook Live, and on-demand on the Opera Philadelphia Channel until May 31.

LINK: https://www.operaphila.tv

After the opera, we fly Philadelphia to Houston where we land in time for a delightful Mexican breakfast.

Houston Grand Opera presents "Live from The Cullen" with sensational tenor Jack Swanson. Swanson is best known for his interpretations of Rossini and Donizetti. A finalist in HGO's 2016 Concert of Arias, Swanson performed on HGO's 60th-anniversary gala in 2015 and had been set to appear in HGO's now-canceled La Cenerentola in January 2021. Instead, he is the star of this digital recital of works that showcase his incredible range. Swanson will be accompanied by Richard Bado, director of artistic operations and chorus master at HGO. This online concert is available FREE on-demand through April 11.

LINK. https://www.houstongrandopera.org/events-tickets/hgo-digital/live-from-the-cullen-recitals/

After the concert, we fly to San Francisco for Wagner's Siegfried. Again, it's cool in the city by the bay and there are occasional showers. Tired from the international travel, most tour members choose to remain in the Magic Opera Flying Carpet until opera time. The waterside restaurant sends us lobster thermador and we still have ice cream balls in crisp chocolate shells from Sicily.

A generation has passed as the Ring Cycle's third opera opens on a despoiled world. Raised by the deceitful dwarf Mime, Siegfried-the mortal son of Siegmund and Sieglinde-rebuffs authority as he wins the ring and forges his own path to the extraordinary woman who awaits him. Siegfried is sung in German with English supertitles.

This has been a delightful trip around the United States and across the pond to Europe, but it's also good to fly back to warm and comfortable Los Angeles.

Photo of Die Walkuere by Cory Weaver courtesy of San Francisco Opera.

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