Once again ...

I saw "The Rape of Lucretia"!
Could it have been done any better I cannot fathom that ?
It was as stunning, if not more so, than earlier.
See blog on it of 2/2/12 below.
But you HAVE to go yourselves!
Music truly sublime and the message touchingly thought provoking.
And somehow so apropos in this time!
A rather elite kinda selection of words in the libretto did NOT detract from it at all. Especially as sung and enunciated so beautifully by the cast!
Yes, it is sung in English!!
But I have been to several sung in English and felt they were sung in some unidentifiable language ;-)!
So this was a real Ohrenschmaus of music and words! 
A snippet from the opera.... for your listening pleasure!

And a few others by Britten:

"The Rape of Lucretia",

Botticelli-Death of Lucretia

Chamber Opera by Benjamin Britten as performed by the singers of Houston Grand Opera under the Direction of Arin Arbus" (freely after Peter Weiss) and the Conductor Rory MacDonald with Sets by Jean-Guy Lecat, costumes Anita Yavich and lightening by Michael James Clark. I just felt the plain The Rape Of Lucretia was not title enough :-) for such BIG :-) yet intimate, though moralizing opera, albeit set to often beautiful lyrical music with the occasional thundering passages played by just 14 musicians who are getting star status on the program, and well earned IMO!

HGO has outdone itself with this relatively unknown Britten piece.  With just 8 singers, everyone needs to be outstanding, there is no hiding among a crowd. And indeed they are. Very good! Certainly a piece that will catch your imagination, engage your ears, and leave you wanting to hear more of the rather sublime music.

Casting the male chorus with tenor Antony Dean Griffey
(as Peter Grimes, Lenny) was a stroke of genius. Griffey,well known for his deeply felt characters, was superb. Ably matched by the female chorus soprano Leah Crocetto.

The 6 protagonists were sung and acted by Ryan McKinny, warm bass bariton=Collatinus,

Joshua Hopkins, fullvoiced bariton=Junius,

Jacques Imbrailo, bariton=Tarquinius, and
Michelle DeYoung, dramatic mezzosoprano=Lucretia.
A well matched set of voices, with the ability of expressing the pains and joys imagined by the composer.
Judith Forst, mezzosoprano=Bianca and
Lauren Snouffer, lyrical soprano=Lucia and the only high voice in the opera, completed the small cast.

For me it was gratifying to see 2 Studio alumni (McKinny and Hopkins) and 1 current member (Snouffer) shine on stage. Holding their own against the more veteran singers.
And as it is often with Britten, we come away from it with our imagination fired up, and questions. Perhaps more so with Turn of the Screw, Peter Grimes than with The Rape of Lucretia.
But one thing, to me essential to better understand and enjoy his works, is the need to revisit his operas another time, maybe even several times!

New Real Estate Wars?

You are tired of the ups and, especially, the downs of conventional real estate.

You ought  to try something "new"! If you live in a high density (condos, apartments) inner city in the USA, or for that matter everywhere in the world, consider buying parking spaces instead!

Parking space is just as physical a property as a plot for any building that can be bought, rented or sold. Some spaces sell for $100,000 to $250,000+ per spot in densely populated cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Toronto, dealing in parking spaces seems to be booming!

The old cities of Europe, core size proscribed by city walls torn down in the 1800's as they no longer provided adequate protection, had the problem to find adequate space for anything for quite some time - one built UP not OUT.

Especially BC (before cars) the closeness of thoroughfares with trams, horse drawn, later electric, was a most decisive factor where to rent/buy/live for easy access to work. Of course, old and older tunnels and settlements lie beneath  today's cities and are constantly being unearthed as we dig deeper into the ground to make room for parking garages,
foundation of a museum in Frankfurt, underground railroads, highway tunnels, etc.

And in the case of cemetery plots, some are rented out for 10 years. Did one default on the rent,  it went to the next renter until the lot was filled with the specified number of caskets and urns permitted! And the 'dearly departed' ended up in ossuaries, some beautifully decorated.
So you see, chers readers, the battle for space for the living and the dead has been going on for quite some time.

Old Marx cemetery ( in use 1784-1874) 3rd District of Vienna contains initial grave of Mozart whose actual spot is no longer known.

Leaving you with this to muse on for the day: