Feature: FREE ONLINE OPERA/SONG JULY 17-24 at Home Computer Screens

Los Angeles Opera's annual choral concert has gone "virtual." Great Opera Choruses moved from The Soraya to your home screen thanks to the support of County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and the LA County Board of Supervisors. On the LAO homepage and on Facebook, readers can sing along with 25 talented choristers performing the "Bell Chorus" from Pagliacci, "Va, pensiero" from Nabucco, and "The Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore. Resident Conductor Grant Gershon and Assistant Chorus Master Jeremy Frank, as accompanist, lead these extraordinary artists in an afternoon of family-friendly musical fun.

https://www.laopera.org/discover/laoathome/great-opera-choruses/

Don't miss LA Opera Music Director James Conlon's pre-performance talks on 19th and 20th century operas ranging from Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle and Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville to John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles.

https://www.laopera.org/discover/podcasts

On Thursday, July 23, at 5 PM Pacific time, Karen Slack's guest on her KikiKonversations show will be soprano Nicole Heaston. Praised by the New York Times for her "radiant" and "handsomely resonant voice," Heaston has appeared with opera companies including the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Dresden's Semperoper, and the Glyndebourne Festival.

https://www.facebook.com/SopranoKarenSlack/

While preparing the Magic Opera Flying Carpet's cabin for the next trip, we found a stowaway under a rear seat, a yellow, gray, black, and white cat of questionable parentage. In perfect French, Manon-la-Chat told us she only wanted to go home to Paris. It seems that a family brought her here to Los Angeles and then abandoned her when their apartment lease said "no pets." The French kitty was lost in L.A., so we agreed to take her onboard after buying emergency cat supplies. As a result, our first European stop would be Paris where Manon hoped to find a home.

Parking the Magic Opera Flying Carpet near a restaurant on the Champs Elysées, we enjoyed a three-course dinner that included duck terrine, cured ham with artichoke cream on waffles, and a choice of cheeses. After dinner we strolled to the Théatre des Champs Elysées for a production of Rossini's Le Comte Ory by Opéra Royal de Wallonie and Château de Versailles Spectacles. Conducted by Louis Langrée and directed by Denis Podalydès, the comic opera starred Philippe Talbot as the Comte and Jodie Devos as Alice. Devos was Rosina in The Barber of Seville we saw a few weeks ago.

https://www.operaliege.be/en/show/le-comte-ory-count-ory/Synopsis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_comte_Ory

When the opera was over and we returned to the Magic Opera Flying Carpet, a wet, bedraggled Manon awaited us. She said no one would take her in where she used to live. She promised to be the best cat in the world if we would shelter her for a while. Well ... we shall see. Tour executives did allow her to come with us for the rest of this trip.

After that decision, we were off to Bologna, a great city for food as well as opera. We indulged in tortellacci, one of the dishes for which the city is justly famous. It consists of large pasta shapes stuffed with spinach, meat, and onions sautéed in butter. With the pasta we drank an elegant local white wine and then headed for Verdi's Macbeth at Bologna's Teatro Comunale.

Because of problems at its premiere, some artists think Macbeth is a jinx opera and they prefer to call it the "Scottish Opera." No jinx affected this performance, however. Director Luca Ronconi's 1995 production of Verdi's early work, conducted by Gary Bertini, featured the strong-voiced Paolo Gavanelli in the title role and the inimitable Deborah Voigt at her vocal best as Lady Macbeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hN3I6QSszc&list=PL76dJku6jw7HtOPYM85YXvCSZ0kloVNMD&index=33&t=0s

From Bologna, the Magic Opera Flying Carpet, passengers, cat, and fond memories were off to England. A very tired Manon-la-Chat slept in my lap all the way. We arrived in London in time for a wonderful English breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, and toast accompanied by tea or coffee. Their coffee was quite good and some of us took it along on the bright red double decker bus that brought us to the Tower of London. After lunch, we took Manon to see the statue of Puss in Boots, the famous cat who lived with Dick Whittington, the Lord Mayor of London, at the turn of the 15th century.

Beginning July 17, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden's latest online presentation is David McVicar's Second Empire production of Gounod's Faust. Conductor Dan Ettinger leads Michael Fabiano as Faust, Irina Lungu as Marguerite and Erwin Schrott as Méphistophélès.

https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/faust-stream-details

We stayed an extra day in London to see sights such as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and to relive the glories of Sir George Solti's rendition of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden. The cast in the John Schlessenger 1984 film included: Kiri Te Kanawa, Anne Howells, Aauge Haugland, and Barbara Bonney. Manon, who is a bit of a gossip, added that Barbara Bonney is a distant relative of William Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D7abQTy71I&list=PLV_nrww2WObgVEcH0fSnIhDaofwQEbwfB&index=4&t=0s

Still in the mood for oldies-but-goodies, the next day we boarded the Carpet for Munich to see August Everding's 1983 production of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch, it starred Edita Gruberova, Kurt Moll, Lucia Popp, Francisco Araiza, and Wolfgang Brendel. Our Munich pension let Manon stay with us, so long as she didn't to harass any of the guests' dogs in the dining room.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVcwXmU3JFw

Having flown the "pond" via the polar route, we landed in San Francisco in time for a pre-ordered dinner of scrumptious Peking Duck with its delightfully crisp skin. At San Francisco Opera we enjoyed Verdi's Aida in a Sam Wanamaker production conducted by Luis Antonio Garcia-Navarro and sung by Luciano Pavarotti and Margaret Price. When we arrived back at the Carpet for the trip home to LA, Manon was fast asleep on an easy chair. She seemed to have slept all the way from Munich and its scary-looking dogs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8rsOzPzYr8

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