Speight Jenkins steps out from the wings just before the opening curtain on La Traviata to announce that the star of the show, soprano Eglise Gutiérrez, is suffering from a cold...but will perform regardless. Knowing murmurs (and not a few coughs) rustle through the audience: in the opera, the soprano's character has consumption and expires. Was this a pre-excuse for a sub-par performance?
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![We Review: Pagliacci @ Seattle Opera]()
Picture a small town in the south (southern Italy in the 1950s, as it happens) where people talk slow and not much happens until the sun goes down and the church bells ring. (Think Faulkner, Song of the South, Porgy and Bess.) Then a travelling circus comes to town, a whole troupe of clowns (those irrespressible pagliacci), squeezed into a real clown car, a tiny black Fiat 500. You can guess what happens next: sex, jealousy, violence and death.more ›
![Pagliacci Comes to Dinner]()
Results tagged “nucciafocile”
The Soprano Who Came In From Her Cold
La Traviata: Torment [cough-cough] & Delight [kiss-kiss]
It's the original Anna Nicole story: first you party, then you die. Yes, there's torment, but pleasure comes first. A familiar operatic plot (Moulin Rouge, La Bohème), telegraphed by the heroine's consumptive hack as the curtain rises: she's a-gonna croak before the night's out.
We Review: Pagliacci @ Seattle Opera
Picture a small town in the south (southern Italy in the 1950s, as it happens) where people talk slow and not much happens until the sun goes down and the church bells ring. (Think Faulkner, Song of the South, Porgy and Bess.) Then a travelling circus comes to town, a whole troupe of clowns (those irrespressible pagliacci), squeezed into a real clown car, a tiny black Fiat 500. You can guess what happens next: sex, jealousy, violence and death.
Pagliacci Comes to Dinner
When we're not blogging about food, wine and opera, Seattlest works as the sommelier at Sorrentino atop Queen Anne. (Keeps us out of the bars, don't you know.)
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