Feature: ONLINE VIRTUAL OPERA TOUR at Home Computer Screens

Raehann Bryce-Davis's Brown Sounds is a joyous celebration of Black art, Black bodies, and Black consciousness that we watch on our way to the Bay Area. Bryce-Davis is currently singing Verdi and Wagner at Glimmerglass.

LINK https://www.laopera.org/discover/featured-videos/

San Francisco Opera's Roberto Devereux will be streaming Aug. 14-15.

Love Turns to Treason in Donizetti's opera. Denounced as a traitor, the dashing Earl Roberto Devereux has been summoned to the court of Elizabeth I to answer for his crimes. His very life is at stake. And the only way for him to escape the executioner's axe is to appeal to the queen's love. Will his own heart betray him? An earl's secret romance becomes his undoing in the royal drama about Roberto Devereux, which is available for free in San Francisco Opera's latest streaming event.

Sondra Radvanovsky-a master of Donizetti's royal Tudor trilogy-sings one of her final performances as Queen Elizabeth I, a role she has come to define for the 21st century. Completing the royal love triangle are two more powerhouse stars: tenor Russell Thomas and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. Together, they deliver "valiant, expressive" performances in a production the Chronicle calls "a marvel of thoughtful precision." Master of Italian opera Riccardo Frizza takes the podium to conduct one of Donizetti's most emotionally incisive scores, brought to life with "thrilling" immediacy by director Stephen Lawless. See it for free this weekend, starting Saturday at 10 a.m. Pacific.

To access past San Francisco Opera streams:

Revisit titles you may have missed and re-watch your favorites. Unlock access to titles including Mephistopheles, Romeo & Juliet, The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto, Salome, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Tosca by donating $75 or more to support San Francisco Opera.

LINK. https://sfopera.com/online/streaming

After the opera, we virtually board the Magic Opera Flying Carpet and leave "Baghdad on the Bay" for Seville, refueling at Ronkonkoma on Long Island. After that, it's a night over the Atlantic. Gazing out into the deep black curtain of the galaxy. Where is the milk of the Milky Way? It's our only source of light? Do humans have a loss of perception in the air? I wonder what life is like bouncing in that airless depth as points of light come bounding in from the Perseid Meteor Shower. All else is blackness. Do we lose perception in space? What lives where there is no sound, no soil, no water, just a tiny bit of light? The Sun is king there! From the other side of the earth his message of hope! As I watch, he comes he comes in the redness of dawn and spews his blaze of yellow beams across all life.

Later, for breakfast, we can have pre-ordered, spicy Eggs Flamenco or Huevos-a-la-Flamenca, a vibrantly colored dish that brings out balanced flavors. There are chocolate churros for the feint of heart, however, and both go well with mocha lattes.

Even though paella we eat for dinner is actually a signature dish from Valencia, its origin goes back to Arabian cuisine, It is believed that the first Spanish paella was made by a Valencian farmer who used all available ingredients such as rice, water, tomatoes, snails, saffron. etc. Nowadays, however, the most popular paellas are made with seafood. We eat our paella at a beach restaurant. Manon-la-Chat says the sand is hard to walk on, so I pick her up. She loves paella! Now she wants a bikini, so I will crochet her one this afternoon.

When it comes to table drinks, sangria is the best-known liquid from Spain. Although many countries claim they somehow participated in creating this popular drink, the truth is that the word sangria, along with the drink itself, originates from both Portugal and Spain. Somewhere there must be a hot tub!

We change into open clothes to attend Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia Seville from 2016. Complete performance of Rossini's "Il barbiere di Siviglia" from Seville's Teatro de la Maestranza in the 2016 celebration of the 200th Anniversary of this masterpiece. Conductor, Giuseppe Finzi; Director, José Luis Castro. Conte Almaviva, Michele Angelini; Figaro, Davide Luciano; Rosina, Marina Comparato; Don Bartolo, Renato Girolami; Don Basilio, Dmitry Ulyanov.

LINK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMWFijOxn_w&t=93s

Seville is a town known for flamenco. And if there is a flamenco star among the typical food in Andalusia. Flamenquines are popular meaty, late night snacks at tapa bars in Seville. It is impossible to imagine a local cuisine in Sevilla without Sherry wine. The main reason is the fact that Sherry is that it can increase the sensitivity of your taste buds. Sherry is very often ordered as an aperitif and make sure you stick to one glass.

The next day, we fly to Aix-en-Provence for Mozart's Don Giovanni. We have a free day in town and meet for dinner at Mickaël Féval's restaurant. Our meal: Le Maquereau à la Flamme or Le Bonbon de Foie Gras;

Le Dos de Bar or Beef; and La Fraise et la Rhubarbe (tart), or variety of cheeses.

Jérémie Rhorer conducts the Cercle de l'Harmonie in Mozart's Don Giovanni in a staging by Jean-François Sivadier. Philippe Sly sings the main role of Don Giovanni, Nahuel di Pierro is Leproello, Eleonora Buratto is Donna Anna, Pavol Breslik in Don Ottavio, Isabel Leonard is Donna Elvira, Julie Fuchs is Zerlina, Krzysztof Baczyk is Masetto and David Leigh is the Commendatore. This is a 2017 live performance from the Festival international d'Art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence.

LINK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnd5ULYG2no&t=334s

Some of the items tour members ate for breakfast: croissants, baguettes, fromage (cheese), steak-frites, steak tartare, and macarons. For dinner, we all eat France's national dish, fot-au-Feu (fire pot). Manon has left us for a bit of rehearsal She will ride on stage via the arm of a young chorister, and will eat at the post-show dinner.

In the Carmen from Orange seen in 2004, Carmen is Beatrice Uria Monzon; Don Jose is Roberto Alagna, Escamillo is Ludovic Tesier; Micaela is Norah Amsellem. Myung Whun Chung leads the French National Radio Orchestra.

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDMvyj4TFg&t=124s

After the show, we eat dessert and drink locally in Orange while we wait for Manon. She is queen tonight and rides out to the Magic Opera Flying Carpet slurping crème fraîche in grande diva style. We fly back to sunny Los Angelus in the morning.

Photo of Raehann Brice-Davis courtesy of L A Opera.

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