Opera Chic

Gossett's Critical Edition of Rossini's La Gazzetta Gets its American Premiere

This Spring, the New England Conservatory will host the American premiere of the Philip Gossett/Fabrizio Scipioni critical edition of Rossini's La Gazzetta.

Rossini's Gossettized© manuscript, published in 2002, includes the world premiere of a newly-discovered Act I quintet (classic Rossini!) exhumed in 2011 at Palermo's Conservatory Library.

The fully-staged production will be sung by the Conservatory's students from April 6-9 at Boston's Paramount Theater. Gossett will lead two panels at the Conservatory in anticipation and will be awareded with an honorary NEC doctorate on May 18.

Rossini's 1816 Neapolitan comic gem is based on Goldoni’s Il Matrimonio per concorso (“The Wedding Contest”), libretto by Giuseppe Palomba. The photo above is from Dario Fo's 2005 production with the Gran Teatre del Liceu, starring Cinzia Forte as Lisetta.

Goodall's Top Ten Classical Picks

Composer Howard Goodall started with a list of the fifty most important classical music pieces for the BBC Two's The Story of Music and for The Telegraph, he's whittled it down to an idiosyncratic ten.

His criteria was based on historical impact (“What I was looking for was music that changed the plot of classical music, and there’s an awful lot of classical music that didn’t change anything.”) You can pick your essentials and you can pick your friends but you cant pick your friend's essentials.

Barbra Streisand (Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo Woo)

The year was 1976. *Curtis Mayfield's 'Superfly' loops over Gerald Ford's 'There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe'* Swag was VHS and Betamax. The New York Yankees sucked. (The joke ends there, Massholes!) Barbra Streisand launched her classical crossover album, Classical Barbra.

We weren't around to witness it the first time, but we'll be here for Barbra's second coming when the Brooklyn-born bubbeleh gets a February 5 reissue, which boasts two previously unreleased tracks -- Schubert's 'An Sylvia' and 'Auf dem wasser zu singen'. Is it too much to ask for a hidden bonus track of Duck Sauce's Babs homage? If that wasn't your summer 2010 jam, ~it is now~

RIP Verdi/Pucci Biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz

Phillips-Matz died at 86 in her UWS Manhattan home, overlooking Verdi Square. Her monster Verdi biography has been one of our go-to references in this Verdi bicentennial year.

Veni[ce], Vidi, Vici: Going for Baroque in La Serenissima with Olivier Cavé

Swiss/Italian pianist Olivier Cavé, class of 1977, was in Venice last week to play J.S. Bach concerti/capricci under Teatro La Fenice's gilded Sale Apollinee, hosted by the Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca Venezia and the Goethe Institut.

A decade ago, Cavé's first DG CD dropped with Beethoven, Schubert, Scarlatti and Schumann and he's since flipped to Aeon with two CDs -- D. Scarlatti's Naples echoes and Clementi's footsteps across Rome. For his third, Cavé throws la Serenissma a curveball -- J.S. Bach's Italian moments musicaux called, “Nel gusto italiano – Concerti, Capriccio e Aria”.

After Tiepolo-&-Tintoretto-tinted dreams, we met Olivier Lexa, the young artistic director for the Venetian Centre for Baroque Music, who gave us a tour of the ornate Sala della Musica at the chiesa dell'Ospedaletto/Santa Maria dei Derelitti (above).

We visited Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore with its il Veronese masterpiece in the Cenacolo Palladiano (above) and its insane, new library (below), a former residence hall of Benedictine bros.

In retracing Wagner's footsteps across the city, we headed to Palazzo Fortuny for an exhibition on the German Romantic conductor's influence in visual art (like the Antoni Tapies oil on canvas below), which runs through April 8.

Lastly, we kicked our library fetish into high gear with a visit to the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venezia where Cavé navigated facsimile scores of D. Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea lovingly cradled in red grosgrain cushions.

 

*Pulls back hair, unzips Chanel, kicks off YSL Tributes* Now why don't you join us beneath the cut for more of OC's personal photos? 

Harding Brings Out the Dead [Composers]

Daniel Harding's been funking up Milan since the current run of Robert Carsen's Falstaff that opened mid-month at Teatro alla Scala, and on Monday night, he does double-duty with Filarmonica della Scala in a sold-out concert dedicated to Wagner.

You can hear it all go down live on Radio3 -- Mozart's Masonic Maurerische Trauermusik, the Vorspiel & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and Strauss' Ein Heldenleben -- which launches the philharmonic org's new cycle "La Filarmonica della Scala incontra la città".

Nerdy fact: Scala's concertmaster Francesco de Angelis plays a 1716 Stradivari Maréchal Berthier ex Napoleone on loan from the Peterlongo Foundation.  *turns into a Cremonese luthier, winks and struts out of the room*

NYCO Goes to Auction [<-- Not the Title of a New Opera]

One part tragic, one part wonder. The New York City Opera prepares to auction 90 percent of its inventory -- props, staging, machinery and costumes -- from more than 80 of its past productions kept in a warehouse in North Bergan, NJ.

Video here, bidding here. It all goes down on January 30. Dibs on the [wonderful costume] that [famous singer] wore in [that opera].

Graham Vick's Ring Cycle Darkly Premieres at Palermo's Teatro Massimo

To launch the first complete Ring Cycle in its history, Teatro Massimo last night bowed the prologue/chapter one, Das Rheingold, to open its 2012-13 season in a new production signed by Graham Vick. (The last time Teatro Massimo organized a Ring Cycle, it was split between the 1970 and 1971 seasons, conducted by Lovro von Matacic in the Grand Théâtre de Genève production.)

Under Italy's devastated arts funding circus, it's an outrageously-bold gesture. Nine months earlier, during a springtime press conference in Milan, then-intendant of Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Antonio Cognata, reiterated that the theater's 2013 budget was the slimmest in its history. Slap that challenge against fund-hemorrhaging, stage-crippling, Ivory Tower Ring Cycle budgets of American opera companies, and it's practically a dare.

For Palermo, Vick brings prior lessons gleaned from successful Ring Cycles in Lisbon and Birmingham. Gods rise to Valhalla in an elevator and minimal stage clutter clears the way for theatrical impact. Massimo dropped some photos in its twitter last night and there are sunflowers, which we've seen from Vick's pockets before -- but it's all good because Graham Vick is a Genius©.

The media-shy British opera director gave an interview with Corriere della Sera's Manin (not online) about his first installation. 

"The opera house is a place of myth and wonder, a luxurious stage for privileged people that canvases and shelters itself behind an ideal world, immobile, faced to the past, far from reality. What better landscape is there for this cutthroat "fable" about money and power?"

Vick continues that the protagonist of the Ring Cycle is us, the audience, victims of capitalism, the recipients of Alberich's curse,  aimed at all of those who give up love in the name of greed and gold. And there's no Siegfried to save us. Human nature is amoral and selfish. What we're witnessing is an "endgame" finale. It's a parable of Teatro Massimo's soaring (but crumbling) marble columns, propped up by scaffolding.

He goes on to lambast one-eyed Wotan, King of the Gods, as a representative of those who only see their own version of reality and don't want to know about anything that happens outside of Olympus. He compares the dwarfs in the mine, digging for gold and creating capital for others with, "those damned ones in suits and ties who pass their days and nights at the computer and do lots of coke to keep themselves awake for the opening of the Tokyo Stock Exchange." Ha!

He also references the economic crisis -- he turns 40 chairs into the flowing Rhine, places 40 sunflowers in the garden where Fricka and Wotan sleep and uses 40 umbrellas to evoke the rainbow bridge that ushers the gods into Valhalla. La Repubblica has photos here.

Das Rheingold runs from January 22 - 31; Die Walküre is February 21 - March 3; Siegfried is October 19 - 30; and Götterdämmerung is November 23 - December 4, each in five replications.

Benjamming with Britten at the Aldeburgh Festival

 

Wanna tell the whole Wagner/Verdi 2013 bicentennial onslaught to suck it? Then head to the Suffolk Coast this summer for the 66th edition of Benjamin Britten's Aldeburgh Festival.

On June 7, Britten's centenary will commence with sixteen days of concerts and performances, like Peter Grimes and the complete Church Parables across Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh beach. Over 20 new works by composers such as Harrison Birtwistle and Magnus Lindberg, which have been commissioned by the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Royal Philharmonic Society, will premiere.

The festival will also celebrate works by Jonathan Harvey and Elliott Carter and includes performances by Ian Bostridge, Mark Padmore and Christian Zacharias. You can also get Britten swank like an iPhone cover.

Tease yourself with the awesome "A Time There Was...A Profile of Benjamin Britten" documentary (above) that includes rehearsals with the Maestro ("Don't let it flower into a Tosca-like sound"), interviews with Britten's siblings, the opening of the hall in 1967 by the Queen and vignettes from his personal life, like the photo below.

Opera Now Magazine & OC: Carmen Giannattasio February Cover Feature

Last month in the garrulous kingdom of Naples, Neapolitan bel canto superstar Carmen Giannattasio chatted with OC on behalf of Opera Now magazine (in perfect, British-inflected English), between grueling La Traviata replications that had unfolded since Teatro San Carlo's big-bang December 5 season opener a week earlier. 

Onstage, Giannattasio projected a towering, slash & burn Violetta who smashed protons like that car-destroying bonus stage in Street Fighter II. Offstage, still under the shadow of a diva, she's adorably petite.

She's currently at Milan's Teatro alla Scala as Alice in the Robert Carsen production of Verdi's Falstaff, taking over all replications from her split-role counterpart Barbara Frittoli, who withdrew from illness. Giannattasio jives with Ambrogio Maestri and Bryn Terfel who split the Shakespearean title role. After the January 15 premiere, Corriere della Sera's notoriously cranky critic Isotta gave Giannattasio glowing reviews, calling her "la deliziosa", which earns her the OC moniker "Gianna-tasty-o".

You can read the cover feature, penned by OC, in this month's Opera Now. The Neapolitan diva shares a heartbreaking story of an almost-career-destroying eating disorder, pens an inspiring message to young singers, divulges her most coveted (future) roles and recounts days and nights with London glitterati where she currently resides. In the same issue, you can also read OC's official Lohengrin review of the Teatro alla Scala season opener from December 7, 2012.

Vittorio Grigolo: From La Scala's Stage to Armani's Front Row

Vittorio Grigolo and Roberta Armani

Earlier this week while OC was in Venice for Olivier Cavé & Bach, Vittorio Grigolo swung his swanky opera weight around Milan and was granted front row access at Giorgio Armani Men's Fall/Winter 2013-14 collections.

Grigolo and Armani have been buddies for a while -- in 2011, OC spotted the casually-dressed, glowing Italian fashion legend behind the curtains at Teatro alla Scala as he congratulated a sweaty Grigolo for a successful Roméo et Juliette.

Grigolo had arrived in Milan a couple days earlier for his Teatro alla Scala recital of bel canto and verismo tracks, apparently followed by a 45 minute bis (OC sadly wasn't there).

Armani throws his new collection runway shows at his massive, hybrid via Bergognone space in Milan's Tortona neighborhood, just across the street from Teatro alla Scala's Ansaldo complex.

Grigolo sat between witchy-haired Franca Sozzani, editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia (below in brown) and Ray Chen, the young American Taiwanese-Australian violinist.

Steamy Siem in L'Uomo Vogue

Siem and his F-Holes* smoulder the pages of L'Uomo Vogue in Valentino-red. 

*OC likes her F-Holes like she likes her men -- stiff enough to raise the Helmholtz Resonance by five semitones.

Muti Drops Out of CSO Asia Tour

Last year, the Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra robustly chaperoned his musicians through two international tours, one California tour and sixteen weeks of concerts.

But 2013 begins on a downtick for Riccardo Muti, who just withdrew from a two-week CSO Asia tour, weakened by flu. While seeking treatment, Muti's doctors additionally discovered a hernia that requires immediate intervention. 

The tour, which kicks off on January 25 in Taiwan, consists of nine concerts across six cities. Lorin Maazel slips into Muti's frac. We wish the Maestro a quick recovery and look forward to seeing him in April for his next CSO appointments.

Dresden to Venice: Bach to Bach with Olivier Cavé

 

OC returned from Dresden to Milan just long enough to repack her LV duffle and polish her Hermes riding boots for Venice (indispensable under Dresden’s pure snow and now under Venice’s grey rain). After a week of Wagner’s rich Romanticism (and his sparkling Donizetti-lite/bel canto splendor of Palermo-set Das Liebesverbot), we craved a dose of Baroque and found ourselves last night at Teatro la Fenice’s Sale Apollinee for a warm, intimate piano recital – Olivier Cavé in a well-rounded program of J.S. Bach (and a Scarlatti bis) in the Vivaldi and Marcello brothers transcriptions.

The Italian-Swiss pianist, in a well-cut Dolce & Gabbana dark grey suit (we plied him about Scarlatti with a side of Italian men’s fashion, post-recital), narrated an evening of Bach’s life (in fluent Italian) and half a dozen concerti, a soloist-as-tour guide.

Under such an opulent setting of pistachio, gold-leaf and twinkling chandeliers, it’s difficult not to fall in love with such polished fingerwork and warm, round, sonorous phrases. Bach’s precision has a great underbelly of romanticism and needs an interpreter who doesn’t exploit the sentimentalism.

Cavé’s Bach moved along at sparkling paces, driven and elastic through arching legato, but was never muscular. Bis, x3, was Cavé’s old friend Scarlatti – a modified tempi turned the Neapolitan composer’s sonata into a lullaby, which recycled through our head as we drifted over Venice’s canals and bridges in a post-recital haze. Cavé’s been dedicated to Scarlatti for more than a decade after launching a 2004 DG disc Reflexions with Scarlatti (and Beethoven, Schubert & Schumann) and the Scarlatti lullaby was all heart & homage.

Today we’re off to explore more of this magical, marshy city’s Baroque treasures – Vivaldi and Mozart with a side of Bach.

French Operetta & Sacred Bach in One Quick Breath

A man walks into a bar. But that bar is the Staatsoperette Dresden and the man is actually La Grande Duchesse de Gerlostein. You’ll have to wait for the punch line because it’s operetta and you know it’s coming anyway. Th king of operetta Offenbach’s La Grand Duchesse in a German translation, Die Grossherzogin von Gerolstein, played last night to a young Dresden crowd.

This was Terry Gilliam lite, although the grotesque was shelved for absurdity as layers of military aggression/progression collected like a demented World War fetishist’s feverish dreams -- a military bomber, a rocket launcher, a jeep -- all inept and inert. A lively cast and spirited chorus moved along three hours in a heartbeat, and what struck OC was the irreverence, which has dwindled from the Italian opera scene over the last 3-4 years of economic crisis, which has stunted cultural and artistic outlets. Aside from the obvious ramifications of culling seasons, downgrading star power and
borrowing old productions, it's simply not prudent to take big risks and gambles and opera theaters have generally been declawed. The ballsy young Dresden Staatsoperette was pure, fresh opera-for-the people -- not opera for the backers, donors and sponsors.

Before the operetta nightcap, OC spent the day in Leipzig preparing for its early summer Bachfest by taking in a performance of Bach and Penderecki at Thomana Leipzig for its last Festmusiken performance.

More on that later as OC prepares for another full day of cobblestones, Elbe winds, light snow and, of course, unbashful Riesling-soaked meals before we run off to the Semperoper for the opening night of Lohengrin with Robert Dean Smith as the swan knight, Soile Isokoski as Elsa and Thielemann on the podium.

Photos again on OC's Twitter.

Special Preview – Richard-Wagner-Stätten

A fat swan, head nestled in feathers, greets you at Dresden’s latest cultural landmark on the Wagner pilgrimage, the city’s newest museum dedicated to its hometown hero’s legacy – the Richard-Wagner-Stätten. The paint’s barely dry and the website’s been live for less than 24 hours but its doors open today to worldwide Wagner fetishists.

Swan lovers, welcome. The RW Stätten is a fresh interpretation of a 250-year-old man’s legacy for a 21st century audience. No musty cobwebs here. It's Wagner as a complete artist and, well, dog lover -- there's even mention of his two best pups, Peps and Papo.

The site, a little bit outside of Dresden in Graupa, is in the intimate, pristine Jagdschloss Pirna-Graupa, a stately manor that served as a hunting lodge and buttresses a bucolic pond where ducks battle swans for territory.

Entrance is through a modest bookshop, which rotates a playlist from 24 of Wagner’s operas. Welcome to Valhalla. Choose your adventure, literally – one of five universal leitmotifs (such as “love & hate” and “fear & courage”) can be programmed into a personal keycard that activates interactive,
cutting-edge exhibitions, such as a mesmorizing, kinetic hologram set to Wagner’s operas (we saw a clip from Der Fliegende Hollaender), where ghostly images are projected onto a rotating stage of cardboard cut-outs, behind thick glass.

Across the street is the spartan Lohengrinhaus where Wagner made his first compositional sketches
for Lohengrin oversummering in1946. The former farm leads to an upstairs apartment where Wagner lived with his wife, which has been recreated with period furniture.

We'll continue the circuit today in Wagner’s Leipziger path, wrapped in down and cashmere.

OC’s webprovider’s being cranky, so for now, photos will be uploaded to the Opera Chic twitter.

Obviously, As You Know, Wagner + Dresden

 

Over the past years of OC’s Milan residency, she’s blazed Halley’s Comet-sized trails across the Lambrusco-soaked, spalla cotta-splattered Verdi country – Parma, Roncole Verdi, Busseto – and all the precious Emilia-Romagna farmlands obscured in fog, set to a soundtrack of Bergonzi and Nucci. We’ve mangled our most precious Chloe Susanna boots over the unforgiving (but gorgeous) 18^th century Busseto cobblestones of childhood Verdi and we’ve aperitivo’d at Milan’s Grand Hotel et de Milan where the Italian composer took his last breath from his modest suite before his body was laid over a horse-drawn carriage and carried down a hay-strewn Via Manzoni.

So In this Verdi/Wagner bicentennial birth year, with Verdi’s ghost thoroughly body checked, we’re taunting Wagner with the “I’m watching you” finger-to-eyeball gesture like those mustachioed cops did to teenage ruffians in those awesome 80s movies.

Simply put, it’s 2013 and it’s time to face our fears – Welcome to the Wagner Thunderdome.

Tracing Wagner’s footsteps could have started, sure, at Bayreuth, but time’s burning. Which is why OC finds herself, over the next few days, under the Baroque splendor of wintery, snowy Dresden – the city that Wagner called home until 1827 when he moved to Leipzig with his mother and his sisters and returned many times to work and compose.  

The capital of Saxony breathes the neck bearded emo ascetic, whose aspect is proudly stamped on signs and will star in dozens of exhibitions throughout the year. His Dresden legacy intertwines with great music revolutionaries – Weber, Rachmaninoff, Schiller, Schumann – among just a few.

We’ll be posting in the next few days as much as we can – between delicious Wagner-sourceded meals at Hotel Bulow Palais in the charming Neustadt neighborhood, the Lohengrin premiere at the Semperoper and a visit to the newly-minted Richard Wagner Staetten museum and its adjacent Lohengrinhaus where Wagner made his first compositional sketches for Lohengrin. The one thing
we won’t be doing is taking a dip in the icy Elbe, Wagner-style. Or growing a neck beard.    

So put on your favorite pair of finest silk underwear, Wagnerstyle, and let’s blow out these 200 year old candles together.

L.A. Opera's New New

The L.A. Opera rocks the new new with its 2013/14 season of seven productions that includes Carmen (opens the season on September 21 with Domingo on the podium), Falstaff, Zauberfloete, Billy Budd, Lucia, Thaïs (Domingo as Athanaël) and Einstein on the Beach.

Hvorostovsky swings by for a recital and there's a special tribute to Britten's centenary. 

 

Attention Home Shoppers -------> Bocelli

E-commerce be damned. Bocelli's peddling his wares on QVC. The Italian singer will debut his newest CD "Passione" *said seductively with a flash of chest hair, an arch of eyebrow and a lick of the teeth* on January 27 at 5pm (ET) with sidekick & pianist David Foster.

They'll be offering a special pre-launch version with six bonus tracks. The CD features duets with jLo, Nelly Furtado and the late Edith Piaf (<-- yes, that's as awkward to type as it sounds in your head when you're reading it.)

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:

Josh Groban, All That Echoes
Sarah Brightman, Dreamchaser
The Canadian Tenors, Lead With Your Heart
Katherin Jenkins, Music from the Movies

QVC-YA L8R!

Kaufmann & The Slowest Airbrush in the West

See, this is why we love opera. If Jonas Kaufmann was a Top 40 popstar (despite the harsh reality that in his 40s, he would have already been a washed-up, bloated ghost of his former glory), his CD cover would have been airbrushed to hell and back -- eye whites dodged, skin equalized, lips blurred & flare-filtered, waterlines burned-in, wrinkles and undereyes cloned & Gaussian blurred) -- instead of the rugged portrait of an artist, above. Bless Kaufmann and bless opera for keeping it real. Or old school. Or whatever.

Next month, Kaufmann drops his fifth solo "album" ("I just bought an album," - nobody. Nobody has said that since 1985), tracks laid with Donald Runnicles & the Deutschen Oper Berlin. In addition to the Wesendonck Lieder, the German tenor sings arias from Die Walküre, Siegfried, Rienzi, Die Meistersinger, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.

For Kaufmann überfans, here's a friendly reminder that you're supposed to actually listen to the CD, not just hold it against your cheek as you dance alone in the dark or cook it omlettes the morning after.

Alagna Roughs Up Chénier

 

Tucked, plucked & manicured Roberto Alagna started 2013 in an Empire State of Mind.

Between fallout from Angela announcing the on-off couple's official divorce and an awesome NYC sightseeing '80s film montage that thought bubbles from our head (like the one from Karate Kid set to Joe Esposito's "You're the Best" where Daniel-san & Mr. Miyagi fight the Cobra Kai dojo -- only our version has Alagna eating pushcart hotdogs Lady-and-the-Tramp style and peacocking on models at The Jane with vodka cocktails in both hands) he sang in Giordano's Andrea Chénier with the Opera Orchestra of New York.

Led by OONY's MD Alberto Veronesi on Sunday afternoon at Lincoln Center, Alagna gave a "distracted performance" (Zach Woolfe's NYTimes review here) crowned with flubbed lines and cracked notes. Via Lebrecht, here's a detailed recap.

Alagna's response? He twerks, says YOLO and swaggers off into the golden sunset. (We're trying, honestly, but we haven't yet bought our 2013 season pass to H8r Mountain).

Are We Humans Or Are We Dancers: Rudolf Nureyev

(Le corsaire, 1966, archivio del Teatro alla Scala)

With slick aerials that killed the stage and jumps that would make the most agile Parkour traceur blush, Rudolf Nureyev made you believe that the body was capable of flight, unburdened by its humbly-human, stiff-jointed limitations. Yesterday marked the 20th annivesary of the death of the legendary dancer. In homage to his Milan-side legacy, Teatro alla Scala curated posters, costumes and photographs of the Soviet dancer as he assemblé'd and pas de deux'd his way across Piermarini's stage, starting with his La Scala premiere in October 1965 (with Margot Fonteyn in Romeo and Juliet) through the 80s. The exhibition opened in December and runs until the end of the month at La Scala's in-house museum.

Handelian Heroine: Julia Lezhneva

 

She's got fresh mezzo shades of Baroque coloratura that rival la Ceci's and she performs like her ex is watching. Russian import Julia Lezhneva was deigned in 2010 by Kiri Te Kanawa as guest artist at the Classical Brits where she slayed Rossini's Fra il padre from La donna del Lago, clip above.

While most 23-year-olds are snapchatting and sexting to a Skrillex soundtrack, she prefers 18th century rockstars like Bach and thinks that mixing populist tracks with opera is just a fad.

Next month bows her first solo release on Decca, tracks by Vivaldi, Handel and Porpora with a Mozart Exsultate, jubilate to the H.I.P. strains of Il Giardino Armonico.

We discovered her this past fall as a glistening Rossane in Händel's Alessandro with star counertenor Max Emanuel Cenčić, formerly of the popular Austrian boyband, The Vienna Boys' Choir.

New Year's Day Concerts, Hipstamatically

But only with the right iPhone apps, of course, which is the only way to make Europe's super-cheesy, traditional (New Year's Day) concerts palatable.

We chased away our raunchiest Bollinger La Grande Année hangover with a leisurely-paced morning-after set to a soundtrack of Teatro La Fenice's Concerto di Capodanno and Wiener Philharmoniker's Das Neujahrskonzert.

In Venice, Sir John Eliot Gardiner beat off to Tchaikovsky, Rossini and Verdi performed by Roberto Bolle, Desirée Rancatore and Saimir Pirgu. In Vienna, it was a sausage-fest with Franz Welser-Möst's Strauss.

Happy New Year!