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Opus Opera: May 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Friday, May 11, 2012. Butterfly's tragic tale of trust and betrayal. Seattle Opera photo by Elise Bakketun. The story is straightforward, as grand opera plots go: a naval officer deceives a poor young girl and pretend-marries her, gets her pregnant and leaves town. When she learns, three years later, that he has for-real married someone else, she turns the child over to his new wife and kills herself. Currently playing at Seattle Opera. Midpoint, comes "Un Bel Di," the ...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: Free the prisoners!
http://opusopera.blogspot.com/2012/10/free-prisoners_14.html
Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Sunday, October 14, 2012. Seattle Opera photo by Elise Bakketun. Beethoven's lone opera, Fidelio. Returns to the Seattle Opera. Stage just in time for election season. The contemporary staging emphasizes the modern-day relevance of this two-century-old story. After all, what could be more touching than the heroic story of a political prisoner and the loyal wife who comes to his rescue? It was guest conductor who made the call to begin with the so-called Leonora III over...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: More Cafe Nordo? Yes, Please!
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Wednesday, June 13, 2012. Cafe Nordo, the imaginative, even zany pop-up restaurant and dinner theater. Has extended its current run of "Cabinet of Curiosities" through June 23rd. It's a look at the history of food, with an emphasis on poisonous mushrooms, immortal vegetables, and mysterious soups. Under the aegis of the imaginary "Chef Nordo Lefesczki" patrons are served three appetizer courses in lavishly decorated rooms of Capitol Hill's venerable Washington Hall.
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Opus Opera: Seattle's Cinderella season lives on
http://opusopera.blogspot.com/2013/01/seattles-cinderella-season-lives-on.html
Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Monday, January 14, 2013. Seattle's Cinderella season lives on. You won't see this Cinderella story at the Clink (you wouldn't have, even if the Hawks had made it past the Falcons), but Seattle Opera is staging. Gioacchino Rossinni's delightful retelling of the Cinderella story, this month at McCaw, complete with wacky costumes, wicked stepsisters and half a dozen supportive rats. A young Italian maestro, Giacomo Sagripanti, was responsible for the music's sprightly pac...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: This old coat
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Monday, February 25, 2013. Mimi languishes with Rodolfo at her bedside; Musetta waltzes; Colline bids his coat goodbye. Photos: Elise Bakketun. The music and plot of Puccini's La Bohème. Are so familiar that it's a little like going to Disneyland with your friends from summer camp. You practically want to hum "It's a Sad World After All.". Which also provided the tune for Della Reese's biggest hit, "Don't You Know," in 1959). Seattle Opera's General Director, Speight Je...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: October 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Sunday, October 14, 2012. Seattle Opera photo by Elise Bakketun. Beethoven's lone opera, Fidelio. Returns to the Seattle Opera. Stage just in time for election season. The contemporary staging emphasizes the modern-day relevance of this two-century-old story. After all, what could be more touching than the heroic story of a political prisoner and the loyal wife who comes to his rescue? It was guest conductor who made the call to begin with the so-called Leonora III over...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: April 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Tuesday, April 3, 2012. River Lost, River Found. By coincidence, an earlier book of Harden's has just been re-released in time for a documentary in the PBS "American Experience" series. The TV show is called "Grand Coulee Dam," to be broadcast tonight, April 3rd, at 8 PM; it's based on Harden's book, "A River Lost: the Life and Death of the Columbia.". Piffle. With casual racism, the manager of one of the irrigation districts blames the river's condition on the impo...
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: June 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Wednesday, June 13, 2012. Cafe Nordo, the imaginative, even zany pop-up restaurant and dinner theater. Has extended its current run of "Cabinet of Curiosities" through June 23rd. It's a look at the history of food, with an emphasis on poisonous mushrooms, immortal vegetables, and mysterious soups. Under the aegis of the imaginary "Chef Nordo Lefesczki" patrons are served three appetizer courses in lavishly decorated rooms of Capitol Hill's venerable Washington Hall.
opusopera.blogspot.com
Opus Opera: February 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Tuesday, February 21, 2012. Paul Havas, Poet Laureate of Northwest Landscapes. Paul Havas, the landscape painter who died of pancreatic cancer last week at the age of 71, was a prolific, gifted, and enthusiastic ambassador for the serenity of his adopted Northwest, moving easily from the quiet, confident vibrancy of Seattle at night to the wistful, fog-shrouded expanses of Western Washington's valleys and waterways. Glenda McPherson, a Madrona neighbor of Havas and the ...
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Opus Opera: July 2012
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Arts and Entertainment Dispatches. Tuesday, July 31, 2012. Silent but Mighty: Movies at Paramount. Sitting at the organ console below the screen at the Paramount Theater is Jim Riggs, a mild-mannered Midwestern music teacher whose calling is to accompany silent film screenings across the country. His favorite instruments are the enormous organs built by Wurlitzer in the heyday of silent movies, 80-plus years ago, invariably referred to as "Mighty Wurlitzers." (There's a local non-profit. Dispatches from ...
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