Feature: ONLINE VIRTUAL OPERA TOUR at Home Computer Screens

Los Angeles Opera presents a digital recital exploring the invaluable contributions Latina composers have made to the world of classical music. LAO's much-beloved After Hours Recital Series is back, and this time it celebrates eleven Latina composers. Russell Thomas, the company's Artist in Residence-turned-host, curated this fabulous stream to transport viewers virtually to Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, and Peru. The recital features: Vanessa Becerra, soprano; Carlos Enrique Santelli, tenor; Luis Alejandro Orozco, baritone; Efraín Solís, baritone; César Cancino, piano; Bryndon Hassman, piano; Jose Chuy Hernandez, guitar.

LINK: https://www.laopera.org/performances/upcoming-digital-performances/latina-composers/

Shopping online, I find a catnip spray that can be put on homemade cat toys and it arrives just before the Magic Opera Flying Carpet leaves LA. Manon-la-Chat's favorite petit souris (mouse) is a bit frayed, but she doesn't mind at all if it smells like catnip. So I spray it and let it dry a bit before I let her at it. Now she's getting curious and meowing. She is rolling around the Magic Opera Flying carpet with it ...meowing loudly. My guests are looking at me strangely and Manon keeps on ... meowing. If I take petit souris away from her she'll meow and If I let her keep playing, she'll meow! Maybe the chef has a piece of liver? Yes, at last she buried her meows in the liver and I get the mouse back. When she finishes the liver, she curls up in my chair and goes to sleep. She was drunk on catnip!

The next morning, we arrive at our parking space in a San Jose private airport and our bus takes us to the nearby Roaring Camp Railroad. On the train, tour members travel over trestles, through towering redwood groves and up a winding narrow-gauge grade to the summit of California's Bear Mountain. Conductors narrate the history of Roaring Camp, the railroad and the forest. Train cars date back to the 1880s when narrow-gauge steam locomotives were used to haul giant redwood logs out of the mountains. Roaring Camp's steam engines date from 1890 and are among the oldest and most authentically preserved narrow-gauge steam engines providing regularly scheduled passenger service in America.

After the train trip, we pick up some restaurant take-out and return to the Magic Opera Flying Carpet for dinner. This evening, we will attend Opera San Jose's Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy. Opera San Jose's streamed Love & Secrets, explores, in ways comedic and dramatic, three tales of couples contending with the tumult, joys, and heartache of love. In Wolf-Ferrari's Il segreto di Susanna, an innocuous secret threatens a newly-wed couple's chances at happiness. The story takes place in a drawing room comedy in accordance with the nineteenth-century Italian opera buffa tradition. The opera features soprano Vanessa Becerra and baritone Efraín Solís with musicians from the Opera San José Orchestra conducted by Joseph Marcheso.

Ned Rorem's Four Dialogues is based on the poetry of Frank O'Hara. A classic "guy-meets-girl" tale notes one couple's journey from love's first blush to the pangs of its bitter end. Soprano Marnie Breckenridge and tenor Carlos Enrique Santelli portray the couple.

The achingly gorgeous harmonies of Tom Cipullo's The Husbands conclude our intimate triptych. The work stars mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon, and baritone Eugene Brancoveanu conducted by Christopher James Ray. This haunting meditation based on William Carpenter's prose poem, Rain, summons visions of seasons long past in a stunning rumination on widows who keep their departed spouses forever present in their hearts.

Directed by Tara Branham, Love & Secrets sets alight the artifices and trappings of romantic life, blurring past and present, as eternity beckons.

Il segreto di Susanna is sung in Italian. Four Dialogues and The Husbands are sung in English. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Pay-what-you-can tickets are now available and are now valid for 30 days of viewing access. LINK: https://www.operasj.org/love-and-secrets

After a nightcap of wine and cheese, we take off for Amarillo and land in the early hours of the morning when traffic is almost non-existent. In Amarillo, we start off with a Mexican buffet brunch on the vehicle. The bus takes those who want to go downtown for a day of shopping, but many of us remain on the Magic Opera Flying Carpet to rest.

Famous for its wine and delicious Italian food, Macaroni Joe's serves up great authentic dishes to a discerning clientele. The restaurant takes guests on a journey through its Tuscan roots, delighting them with tastes from this wonderful Italian region. We order lasagna al forno with salads of spring greens and fruit for dessert. After a short walk, we arrive a the smooth and sophisticated cafe called The 806. It is the perfect place to s enjoy coffee or tea with friends. There is an array of espressos, coffee creations, and other long drinks to choose from. We order lattes and the thick-iced espresso brownies called black mambas. Since they are guaranteed to put a spring in your step at any time of day or night, we are ready for the opera.

Amarillo Opera mounted this live performance of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 2013 at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts.

The director for this production of Lucia is Marc Astafan, and the conductor is Amarillo Opera's resident music director Michael Ching. Lord Enrico Ashton is David Pershall; Lucia, his sister is Hanan Alattar; Sir Edgardo of Ravenwood is Eric Barry; Lord Arturo Bucklaw is Nathan Granner; Raimondo Bidebent is Noel Bouley; Alisa, Lucia's companion isMary Taylor Ibarra; and Normanno is Jesse Melson. There are English subtitles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rjANCGyjTA

After this Scottish opera, we offer Scottish whiskey drinks including Irish coffee for nightcaps on the Magic Opera Flying Carpet (MOFC). Manon gets a bit of left over whiskey-flavored whipped cream. We take off for our flight northeast to Philadelphia around one A.M. We land outside the city after witnessing the glories of pink and orange clouds heralding the dawn over the East Coast.

After our usual buffet brunch on the MOFC, our bus takes tour members to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a few hours of free observation. Don't miss Winslow Homer's Lifeline. It made me shiver!

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/philadelphia-museum-of-art

Later, we meet for The ultimate iconic Philly food, the cheesesteak. Invented by Pat Olivieri of Pat's Steaks in 1930, a true Philly cheesesteak requires thinly sliced beef and a crusty roll. But the choice of cheese-provolone, American or Cheez Whiz-is a matter of great debate. Made with thick, focaccia-like dough, fresh tomato sauce infused with oregano, topped with grated Romano or Parmesan cheese, tomato pie is another staple at many Italian eateries in Philadelphia. Tour members sample some of each before the concert.

Sounds of Spring is now live on the Opera Philadelphia Channel. Readers with season passes may watch anytime until August 28, 2021. Opera Philadelphia presents a special streamed concert that was originally presented live at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. This program of operatic favorites features Music Director Corrado Rovaris leading the Opera Philadelphia Orchestra. Singers include: baritone Norman Garrett, soprano Ashley Marie Robillard, soprano Sarah Shafer, mezzo-soprano Anastasiia Sidorova, bass-baritone Michael Sumuel, tenor Daniel Taylor, and bass-baritone Ben Wager.

These artists sing music from: The Marriage of Figaro, The Elixir of Love, Simon Boccanegra, Romeo and Juliet, Carmen, The Most Happy Fella,Candide, South Pacific, and West Side Story. We are thrilled to share a recording of the one-hour concert with you on the Opera Philadelphia Channel. LINK: https://www.operaphila.tv/2020-2021

The New York City Opera Presents Massenet's Manon in a 1977 production starring Beverly Sills, Henry Price, Richard Fredricks, Samuel Ramey, Robert Hale, Nico Castel. Julius Rudel conducts. 1977 was the heyday of the NY City Opera. The staging is traditional, the sets and costumes opulent. Many of us remember these great singers.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ2VqJvprvA

Back at the Magic Opera Flying Carpet, after our takeoff for Europe, we enjoy a dessert of tiramisu and coffee, leaded or unleaded. Again the dawn greets us, but this time it is over the coast of Spain and it's gray with clouds. We land on a rain soaked field outside Barcelona. So much for "Sunny Spain."

The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (National Art Museum of Catalonia)

offers a virtual journey from the best Romanesque collection of mural paintings in the world, to Gothic, Modern and 20th-century Art. The collection includes works by El Greco, Velázquez, Gaudí, and Dalí. The Museum is housed in the Palau Nacional with spectacular views over Barcelona.

LINK: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/museu-nacional-dart-de-catalunya

In Barcelona, the Gran Teatre Del Liceu presents Mozart's Don Giovanni.

Helped by his shrewd servant, a serial seducer flaunts society's rules until he brings about his own downfall.Mozart's audacious opera combines enchanting music with a central character of fascinating psychological complexity. This archetypal figure of the Don continues to provide food for thought 230 years after his creation.

Christof Loy's 2020 production stars Christopher Maltman as Don Giovanni, now a desperate and lonely anti-hero, always eluded by success.

Subtitles are available in English, Spanish and Catalan.

The stream is available until June 4, 2021.

LINK: https://operavision.eu/en/library/performances/. Click on Performances and Operas.

From Barcelona, it's off to London where someday we'd like to see the queen but it hasn't happened yet. We stop at a private airport outside London to refuel the Magic Opera Flying Carpet and spend the morning at the National Gallery. The Gallery's Collection contains over 2,300 works, including van Eyck's 'Arnolfini Portrait', Velázquez's 'Rokeby Venus', Turner's 'Fighting Temeraire' and Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers'. Major traditions of Western European painting are represented from the artists of late medieval and Renaissance Italy to the French Impressionists. LINK: https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/the-national-gallery-london

After a light lunch in London, we fly to Birmingham for dinner and a performance of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Birmingham Opera. We dine at a pub called The Old Contemptibles. Servers bring our party ocean fish and chips as well as smoked applewood macaroni and cheese. Dessert is Belgian chocolate brownies with coffee. Manon is not allowed in the restaurant, but she eats some of my fish on the bus and will see the opera from a lighting niche above the stage.

Birmingham Opera is a company whose productions are always a viscerally immersive experience. Graham Vick's staging of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Shostakovich's bleak 1934 tragedy of adultery and double murder is no exception.

LINK https://operavision.eu/en/library/performances/operas. Click on Performances and Operas

After this opera we all need a glass of wine before retiring on the flight back to Los Angeles. By mid-morning, we find ourselves back in what is sometimes called The City of Angels.

Photo of Vanessa Becerra courtesy of Opera San Jose.

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