Being photographed by Peter Beard in Montauk (note to self: never let Peter dunk another bucket of cow blood on my Miu Mius before the shoot); playing Quarters with Bret Easton Ellis in a Chelsea dive bar (we won; he passed out); housesitting Esa Pekka Salonen's house in the Hollywood Hills while E-Pek and family are back to Finland or somewhere for the summer (note to self: try to cover that huge scratch on the family Infiniti with some black nail polish, get some Urban Decay 'Perversion' at Sephora in Beverly Center like NOW).
Stuff has happened in the meantime, of course. From the predictable -- as we had told you already, before the fact, Angela Gheorghiu left Milan before her disastrous Traviata engagement was over, even if you wouldn't know it by surfing the Scala official website that chose neither to report the news nor to change the Traviata schedule and cast listing on their website, but that's why you read us and not them lol -- to the even more predictable -- Alan Gilbert getting his dream job at the NY Phil, in bocca al lupo, while our beloved Maestro Muti will appear for six weeks a year with the Phil in what amounts to an unofficial Principal Guest Conductor spot, that leaves him thankfully free of administrative duties and finally gives New York audiences the chance to hear on a regular basis some bada$$ music that is not conducted by Jimmy Levine for a change -- to the crushingly sad -- Jerry Hadley's passing.
All in all our Montauk - NYC - Los Angeles bicoastal vacation was pretty good and even if Opera Chic still has some business to attend (meetings with our agent, our editors, auditioning for interns) and will also take some additional time off later on this summer, she is now back to her reportorial duties.
Tonight, for example, Opera Chic has made her Santa Fe Opera debut, ignoring the Monsoon desert weather that turned the Santa Fe desert night into a much gloomier, chillier event that she expected, and had to dress accordingly.
La Boheme had moments of brilliance, esp. thanks to a very engaging young Rodolfo, a Mimi that did not try to convince us she was dying by loudly coughing up massive amounts of imaginary phlegm (say, like Gheorghiu did in her unfortunate nights as another terminally ill opera heroine a couple weeks ago at la Scala), and a conductor that wisely avoided the schmaltzy sentimental manipulation that really kills so many Puccini productions worldwide (and kudos to the director who managed not to milk the slapstick of the beginning of acts I and IV). And extra bonus points to a cast of furriners that had very, very good Italian diction -- better than most non-Italians one hears nowadays and better even than some native Italian speaking singers.
Full review (with pictures, thanks to the awesome staff at Santa Fe Opera press office) later tonight or tomorrow -- Opera Chic spake and she is now tired.
Tomorrow night, on to Tan Dun's American premiere of Tea.
We're so back.