At the risk of appearing to say something positive about Bellini. . . .

Written by earwormopera

Opera got there a looooong time ago, people.

12 thoughts on “At the risk of appearing to say something positive about Bellini. . . .”

  1. Well…sorta. Taken in the aggregate, this trend in Shakespeare performance, though late in coming, is way more interesting.

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    1. This is true – what people have been doing with cross-casting in Shakespeare is certainly more deliberate & self aware than the average 19thc pants role as originally conceived.

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      1. Especially when it’s a question of changing the gender of the character, not just the gender of the person playing the character.

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          1. No question, and that’s sort of where opera excels, because voice category plays into that ambiguity. I guess what interests me are these extreme cases in non-musical theater, like the recent Tempests, where it’s not ambiguous at all, but suddenly a completely different story.

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            1. I really wish I could see that Tempest I heard about a while back with Helen Mirren as Prospera – the critical reactions to it that I read were mixed enough that it sounds like it did some interesting things to the play.

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              1. That’s one your uni library should have, or how will survey class kids manage to avoid reading even the Cliff Notes? Plus, Russell Brand.

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                1. With our university library, “should have” is no guarantee of “does have” or “will have.” We have excellent coverage of the civil war and William Faulkner, but every thing else tends to be a little hit or miss.

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    2. You will see / have seen that all-female Julius Caesar, right? I don’t think I will be in town to make it to that, but I’m curious about how it’ll work out.

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          1. Cool.

            (I love the quote from the guy who’s like “SHAKESPEARE NEVER INTENDED HIS LINES TO BE SPOKEN BY WOMEN!” Because squeaky ladyvoices will break the words or something.)

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