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Sonia Rykiel, the grande dame of Left Bank fashion, laid out a typical day for Harper's Bazaar April. She loves Mariage Frères, opera and dark chocolate as much as we do, and she works out every morning with a personal trainer who used to be a soloist at the Opéra de Paris.
Sign of the times? Sweatin' to Verdi.
From here:
About an hour ago, Andrea Bocelli tripped the matrimonial light fantastic with his longtime girlfriend-slash-manager Veronica Berti.
An intimate, religious affair at the Sanctuary of Montenero in Livorno, its date was chosen to coincide with the birthday of their daughter Virginia who turned two today. Also: Spring. Post-wedding festivities will be held in Versilia, on the Tuscan coast.
Bocelli has two sons, Amos and Matteo, from an annulled first marriage.
The bride's dress was designed by Italian fashion house Ermanno Scervino -- double ivory satin detailed in georgette crêpe and lace patchwork, topped with a georgette and china crêpe jacket -- sketch below.
UPDATE 22 MARCH 2014, photos of the actual dress:
(Photo: Decca/Josef Gallauer)
Bel canto bon-ton Juan Diego Flórez is about to roll-out his first album in four years. We're not mad -- he's been raising two precious babies in the interim.
The all-French tracklist of L’Amour is a romantic mix of rare and well-known arias penned by Donizetti, Gounod, Boiëldieu and Massenet, among others, under Roberto Abbado and the orchestra/chorus of Bologna's Teatro Comunale.
Forget his epic 'mes amis' high Cs from La fille du régiment -- here the Peruvian tenor flips-off high Ds in 'Mes amis, écoutez l’histoire' from Adolphe Adam’s Le Postillon de Lonjumeau.
You know you want the D.
By the way, we can't mention Flórez without mentioning Philip Gossett, who recently dropped knowledge at The New York Review of Books with a review of Evan Baker's new book on dramaturge and stage direction, which traces stagecraft from the seventeenth century to the present.
Now here's a teaser of Flórez's Massenet & Offenbach L'Amour bijoux.
Werther: Toute mon âme est là! Pourquoi me réveiller, ô soufflé de printemps
La belle Hélène: Au Mont Ida, trois déesses
The 49-year-old San Diego Opera will permanently curtain-down on April 13, following the final performance of Massenet’s Don Quichotte.
Yesterday, its board of directors voted 33:1 to cease operations at the end of the current season, citing 'increasingly higher ticket sale and fund-raising hurdles' along with dwindling patrons and donors as insurmountable hurdles. Hefty administrative costs include/d the annual compensation of General & Artistic Director and ceo Ian D. Campbell (who's been at the helm since 1983) listed on the theater's 990s, figures found here.
Campbell said in a press release circulated by the opera house:
“After nearly 50 years as a San Diego cultural cornerstone providing world-class performances, we saw we faced an insurmountable financial hurdle going forward. We had a choice of winding down with dignity and grace, making every effort to fulfill our financial obligations, or inevitably entering bankruptcy, as have several other opera companies."
San Diego Opera -- which runs on a $15 million annual operating budget with ticket sales covering one-third of costs -- is ranked as the 10th largest American opera company and the third largest cultural institution in San Diego.
San Diego’s not alone. Opera misery loves opera company. Since the 2008 financial crisis, American opera houses risk collapse like the toppled New York City Opera, the Cleveland Opera and the Baltimore Opera, among others. Who's next? We’re watching through our fingers like Hitchcock flicks.
Despite solid artistic programming and singer star wattage -- Feruccio Furlanetto, Patricia Racette, Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Ailyn Perez, Nino Surgurladze -- all we're saying is that a March 15th article on the San Diego Union Tribune about banning/breeding orcas from SeaWorld San Diego has twice as many comments as the closing of the city’s 49-year-old opera house. But we're not blaming the consumer -- Shamu's irresistible and opera's the dark horse. But throw that horse into an aquarium, paint his chin panda white and we're not convinced that he'd know how to turn tricks even for the tastiest anchovies or Fish McBites or penguins or whatever. That said -- Shamu's kind of an a$$hole.
Mix master, cut faster. In a scissors dual between Edward Scissorhands (OG Johnny Depp above in all of his whippet thin, achingly young, pouting glory) and Australian artist Stuart McLachlan, we'd put our euros on the latter. (Don't tell Johnny.)
The illustrator/paper styler scissor-handed five posters for the 2014 State Opera of South Australia season, simple and bold, for three Philip Glass works -- Akhnaten, Einstein On The Beach and Satyagraha (to be performed in three complete cycles over three weeks) -- and two Verdi -- Otello and Traviata.
Ahem. Excuse me. Can I have the attention of the class for one second?
Love is never having to say your sorry, so we're totally not sorry for the recent Opera Chic sabbatical. With Fashion Week and Carnivale at our backs, Milan spring means peeling back the cashmere scarves and swapping Hermès riding boots for Fratelli Rossetti loafers, shaking out wardrobes (in a country where closets are a premium) and giving a final hurrah before late spring opera houses curtain-down and Alto Adige treeline lodges shutter.
OC's been backstage the whole time, watching through the curtains (~creepy pasta~), and she's followed the most heartbreaking and illuminating stories of the last month. She's contributed to a bunch of industry and non-industry magazines and tripped over a few cobblestones, real and imaginary. Bruises yellowed, let the reboot commence with a shot of Lenny and family recently uncovered on the 'tubz, captured by Ken Regan in 1965 at a Beatles concert. Throw yo' fingers in yo' ears and hold 'em like you just don't care!
“When The Beatles returned to America in August, 1965, for their second tour and played the Sullivan show again, I got one of my favorites. Walking the aisles, one audience member caught my eye: an older man sitting with his fingers plugged in his ears to mute the high-pitched squeals. As I moved in for this terrific shot, I got a closer look and realized I was photographing the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein.”
Because this is how we do it.