Just back from krazy nite at la Scala where the 2007-08 voice recital season has ended on a deliciously wacky tone, with Anne Sofie Von Otter who thanks to a weirdikinz program dressed up as -- in this order -- scholar of Scandinavian music (not ABBA, mercifully but the slightly more obscure Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, Ture Rangström and Lars-Erik Larsson), Fauré and Schubert ragazza romantica, Richard Strauss fangirl, Reynaldo Hahn chanteuse (oh how we love Reynaldo, also thanks to OC point man, dashing young conductor Francesco Maria Colombo), Joseph Canteloube aka Joe Cantaloupe; and then she went all Cabaret on la Scala's collectively grey mousie conservative's consciousness: Kurt Weill and Ralph Benatzky, by0tches, then Ennio Morricone's heartbreaking "The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti", lyrics by Joan Baez, and we suspect this was the first time anything written by Joan Baez was ever played at la Scala; then George Gershwin -- Slap That Bass! -- and Richard Rodgers's "Bewitched" -- where we hoped against all hope that la Otter would wiggle her nose like Elizabeth Montgomery used to, but she didn't.
This, by the way, was the conservative part of the night.
Then came the encores. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear all about that.
