Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday 15 February 2014

Missing Her...

It has not been a good week, or rather, it has been a good week, a great week for remembering R, and not just for the anniversaries that fall at this time of year, (retrospectives that mention the Holy Fathe- um.... the Pope Emeritus, have me welling up, too.)
(I almost bought three books of his on Abebooks the other night that I already have.)

The pleasure I take in something R. and I would have enjoyed together is like a dagger in the heart.

(Though, as I said, it is pleasure. I want to remember, I like remembering, even if it wracks me with sobs.)

How she would have thrilled to Piotr Bezcala's voice!
I don't think she ever had the opportunity to hear him. (And he a Pole!)
And an embarrassment of riches,  not just Rusalka in the theater, but Onegin on tv. I'd forgotten how glorious that full-throated opera sound can be, too much going for baroque in the past few years. :oP

And R was as much of a tenor groupie as I.
(Speaking of Rusalka, shouldn't she be played/directed as more of... well, say a zombie? instead of a Little Mermaid [in the Disney version] gushily romantic heroine? it made the Prince seem like not just a cad, but an idiot to complain of her lack of passion and strangeness. I digress.)

"The Met Live in HD" experience came far too close to the end of life, she should have been able to immerse herself in years of it.
I imagined last week she would have sat up and taken notice when that picture of Jonas Kaufmann advertising the new Werther appeared on the big screen, (she admired his Siegmund on television, although her contempt at the teeter-tottering Valkyries in the staging almost put an end to our viewing that afternoon.)

Isn't this a phrase? from a NYTimes article, Kaufmann's vocal effort:
comes across as rivetingly muscled rather than irritatingly strained.

"Rivetingly muscled."

Mmmmm....
Isn't that kinda what you want sometimes? Especially from a tenor.
Jonas Kaufmann should have played Valjean in the movie.

Instead of raising a glass to her memory, I think I'll go watch some Youtube of Bezcala in R.'s honor.

No comments: