A big warm in bocca al lupo! to young dashing Italian conductor, the exquisite maestro Francesco Maria Colombo (.pdf file), Mercadante ace, Trovatore lover, Gian Carlo Menotti alumnus & proud owner -- thanks to the late GCM -- of Thomas Schippers's baton, scholar, former music critic for Italy's Corriere della Sera, sometime-blogger, Opera Chic kind reader and commenter: il maestro Colombo will tonight take the Triangle by storm.
He is in fact conducting La Bohéme with the Opera Company of North Carolina in the memorial Auditorium, Raleigh, NC.
We so wish we were in NC now ("OC in NC" heh), and we also pray the gawds of Rapidshare that somebody, somewhere, can digitally share with the world the beautiful talent of FMC.
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Il Maestro Colombo himself comments:
Hi Opera Chic and everybody! OMG, I read this now and I'm overwhelmed by shame and responsibility (and mint juleps). Anyway, Bohème's première (yesterday) was a great fun for many (almost half of a 2200 seats opera house) operatic débutantes, who enjoyed the son-et-lumière and were (too) generous with poor conductor. Crepi il lupo for tomorrow's performance and, yes, as far as I know someone recorded the show and is blackmailing me with the menace of rapid-sharing it... :)
PS No pencil mustache, I'm sorry...
We can't wait!
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Our reader Sandy Swanson reports from the Triangle itself:
La Boheme was exciting (tante grazie, Maestro Colombo!) and uneven. Lisa Daltirus made a great role debut as Mimi--so much so that Rodolfo could hardly keep up. As one elegant lady (little black dress, big diamond brooch) remarked of their duet in O soave fanciulla, "As we say in West Texas, she ate his lunch."
What? Mimi EATING???? :) thanks Sandy!