I Caved

Currently listening to Sirius online. Need superglue to repair my one decent pair of headphones.

Very curious to hear how this Faust was from folks who were there. On air, it's 90% superb, though I came in very late. Swenson's weak on top (who could have foretold?) but so much more enjoyable in this rep than her old one; Abdrazakov: maybe weak on bottom? But to my delight, more willing/able to camp it up than the stately Pape, a vocal genius but a boring Mephistopheles.

Though the raging debates about Met announcers give me a headache--they're not conducting the damn thing--I will say I find Ms. Juntwait an agreeable companion at the opera.

I'm recalling, as the soldiers sing, how last time around we watched the parade of coffins onstage and could not help but think about how our government had forbidden us to see the coffins that would make the war a tragedy rather than a football rally. I think that was this scene.

And here's the serenade...sorry to liveblog...so far, so good, but will he fumble on the awkward har-har-har? Not in the least. This is so much more charming and involving than his mirthless duet with his wife at the Volpe Gala. Somewhere out there, a very young opera fan just asked, "Who's Volpe?" Well, probably not yet. Aright--by making the laugh really raucous, Abracadabrov avoided the issue of the last few yuks being probably unsingably low for him. That works for me, actually.

Someone sounds unpleasant right now but Faust is one of those operas I never make it to the end of, so I'm not entirely sure who it is.

Is Sirius going to transport us all back to 1980, crouching by the speaker of the radio with a tape recorder?

Well, this likely less than riveting play-by-play has just run up against my need to turn off the sonar and hang from the ceiling for a while. An earlier text message indicates to me that JSU will be blogging this fer real, so tune in. Meanwhile, Chalkenteros has tossed his tiara in the ring!

p.s. Goddammit. I stayed up to hear the trio.