Opera Chic

Opera Chic & Grazia.it: Mozart's Requiem at La Verdi

Tonight kicked-off the inaugural performance of La Verdi's latest concert series where Mozart's Requiem headlines the playlist under the baton of John Axelrod and four fab soloists. OC got the perspective on Mozart's mass-terpiece from one of the soloists, Rinat Shaham, against the backdrop of the maestro's perspective.

Read about it here, in Italian, natch.

Saturday Night Is Alright For Fighting: Rinat Shaham's "Carmen" @ Baden Baden

Rinat Shaham during the final rehearsal for Carmen at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, opening Saturday night, doing what she loves best: getting into catfights and smoking cigars with dudes in wife-beaters as Bizet's fiery man eater -- all with a shake of her hips and a toss of her hair. Nikolai Schukoff is Don Jose. Click the link below for a few more photos...

Liveblogging up in Your Operahouse: Vancouver Opera's New Foray

(Above: Rinat Shaham's gonna cut you! Carmen @ the Vancouver Opera never looked so good. Photo by Tim Matheson.)

Vancouver Opera has pretty much gotten it down by introducing smart initiatives that successfully culture-jam the operatic art form, and break it down for the masses. And O.C. is obviously all about applauding accessibility. We saw it with their manga, and now they've done it again.

Tonight, the Vancouver Opera will be hosting their very first "Blogger Night at The Opera". They've invited four local bloggers (and their laptops) to attend tonight's Carmen at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and simultaneous liveblog the experience. The majority of the bloggers (URLS found here) have never been to the opera before, and will share their newbie impressions during pre/post show & intermission.

The performance starts at 7:30 pm (Pacific Standard Time). This VO production of Bizet's classic opened on Saturday night and has been slaying the critics, featuring the bewbtastic Rinat Shaham with a kung-fu grip as our smoking temptress (we kinda wonder if this post was just a flimsy excuse to publish the picture of Shaham's magnifi-scent glory above), David Pomeroy as Don José, Mariateresa Magisano as Micaëla, and Daniel Okulitch as Escamillo.

Go get 'em, bloggers!