Love Handel

Rodelinda was awesome. Two counter-tenors, one of whom was Daniel Taylor. One of the attractions of Heaven might be a great big hammock, with just enough room to lie down and snuggle comfortably with Daniel Taylor on one side of me and Paolo Szot on the other. Under a gentle midsummer sky we would lazily swing in a warm breeze coming off a clean, clear river, carrying the scent of pine needles. I could file my nails and hum. When I felt like hearing something sexy and deep, I'd point at Mr. Szot, and he'd start and I'd listen for a little while, and then when I felt like hearing an angel sing I'd turn over, point at Mr. Taylor, and listen to him for awhile. And pretty little birds would flit through the forest and across the azure sky, and they'd be made out of fine Finnish milk chocolate, and I'd eat them and say 'oooh! I'm so glad God was a good sport about all those things'. And then I'd make love to Laurence Olivier, who would be straight and adoring.

The soprano was also very good, the title chick. Danielle de Niese. The programme (which the COC really needs to get a proofreader for, especially since they use the same one with different pictures on the cover for half their series) made the point that Handel went for this unbelievable story because he had a soprano who was very good at pathetic scenes; the maximum amount of them had to be contrived in the context of a basically happy storyline. The soprano last night did such a nice job with that. Her last pathetic scene, when she is erroneously convinced her husband has been killed for, I believe, the third time - well, the dumbfuck audience laughed at it, because it was so very, very contrived. But then when she got singing - oh, her clear but tremulous voice on the long notes in that last song - the dumbfuck audience shut the fuck up.