Celebrating Kathleen Battle's 72nd Birthday With MET Streams

Kathleen Battle (center) is featured in the 1982 Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart's Così fan tutte with Maria Ewing (left) as Dorabella and Kiri Te Kanawa (right) as Fiordiligi (Photo: Winnie Klotz).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Metropolitan Opera has been deep-diving into its video broadcast troves to stream the content out to users in hopes of fundraising and continued engagement. In honor of Kathleen Battle's birthday today (see our previous tribute here), we highlight the recently aired performance of L'Elisir d'Amore featuring her performance alongside Luciano Pavarotti (view here) and on August 22 they will present Il Barbiere di Siviglia with fellow artists Rockwell Blake and Leo Nucci (view here). Read the company's feature "Practically Perfect," written by photo editor Jonathan Tichler, on Ms. Battle here. More of the soprano's MET production photos after the jump.

Kathleen Battle with Luciano Pavarotti in L'Elisir d'Amore (Photo: Robert Cahen).

Rossini Helps Launch "Muppets Now" Streaming On Disney +

Everyone Is a Critic: Show favorites Statler and Waldorf perched in their favorite box

It's time to play the music, It's time to light the lights. It's time to raise the curtain on the Muppet Show tonight! "Muppets Now is The Muppets Studio’s first unscripted series and first original series for Disney+. In the six-episode season, Scooter rushes to make his delivery deadlines and upload the brand-new Muppet series for streaming. They are due now, and he’ll need to navigate whatever obstacles, distractions, and complications the rest of the Muppet gang throws at him. Overflowing with spontaneous lunacy, surprising guest stars and more frogs, pigs, bears (and whatevers) than legally allowed, the Muppets cut loose in Muppets Now with the kind of startling silliness and chaotic fun that made them famous. From zany experiments with Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker to lifestyle tips from the fabulous Miss Piggy, each episode is packed with hilarious segments, hosted by the Muppets showcasing what the Muppets do best. Produced by The Muppets Studio and Soapbox Films, Muppets Now premieres Friday, July 31, streaming only on Disney+." The video trailer advertising the series makes use of music from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia with music from Figaro's aria "Largo al factotum della città." Watch the trailer for the new series and a video of Dmitri Hvorostovsky singing the whole aria after the jump. Be sure to check out this feature that documents opera singers that appeared on the original series The Muppet Show by clicking here.

Get more information on Muppets Now by clicking here.

  

[Source]

Olga Peretyatko Joins Forces With Alberto Zedda For Sony Rossini Disc

The young soprano is channeling Graziella Sciutti and Sophia Loren on the cover of Rossini!

For her third album on the label Sony Classical, Olga Peretyatko returns to her first love: Rossini. Her collaborator on the disc is conductor Alberto Zedda with whom she began a working relationship at Pesaro in 2006. The new CD will feature arias from Il viaggio a Reims, Matilde di Shabran, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Tancredi, Il turco in Italia, and Semiramide. More details of the forthcoming disc can be found after the jump. [Source]

Pool Time Is For the Birds In Promotional Featuring Aquatic Youth

A group of young people assemble at a swimming pool to create a Bellagio-style water show using water guns. Under the show plays the overture from Rossini's La gazza ladra. "La gazza ladra (Italian pronunciation: [la ˈɡaddza ˈlaːdra], The Thieving Magpie) is a melodramma or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Jean-Marie-Theodor Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The composer Giaochino Rossini wrote quickly, and La gazza ladra was no exception. According to legend, before the first performance of the opera, the producer assured the composition of the overture by locking Rossini in a room, from the window of which the composer threw out the sheets of music to the copyists who then wrote the orchestral parts, to complete the composition of the opera. As such, The Thieving Magpie is best known for the overture, which is musically notable for its use of snare drums." [Source] Watch the video after the jump.

Chris Pine Meets The Barber During Armani Code Commercial

Actor Chris Pine seen here in the elusive cologne commercial for Armani Code. An electronic version of the overture from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia plays under the ad. Watch the clip after the jump.

Rossini Has As Much "Go Power" As Cheerios Oats From GM

"Many television commercials for Cheerios have targeted children featuring animated characters (such as an animated Honeybee). Bullwinkle was featured in early 1960s commercials; being his usual likably klutzy self; the tag line at the end of the ad being 'Go with Cheerios!' followed by Bullwinkle, usually worse for wear due to his Cheerios-inspired bravery somewhat backfiring, saying '...but watch where you're going!' Also, Hoppity Hooper was featured in ads in the mid-1960s, as General Mills was the primary sponsor of his animated program. Beginning in the mid-1950s and continuing through the early 1960s, 'The Cheerios Kid' was a mainstay in Cheerios commercials. The Kid, after eating Cheerios, quickly dealt with whatever problem presented in the commercial, using oat-produced 'Big-G, little-o' 'Go-power.' The character was revived briefly in the late 1980s in similar commercials. In 2012, The Cheerios Kid and sidekick Sue were revived in an online internet video that showed how Cheerios 'can lower cholesterol.' [Source] The new commercial from General Mills features the Guglielmo Tell (or William Tell) overture as the soundtrack, probably because the music was used for the American television show The Lone Ranger (note the correlation of the cowboy at the beginning of the ad). Watch Riccardo Muti conduct the full Guglielmo Tell overture after the jump.

Leandra Ramm Reveals Dangerous Obsessive Stalker On TV

The real Leandra Ramm (pictured above)
suffered intense mental anguish.

"A man masquerading as a musical sponsor turns opera singer Leandra Ramm's life into a nightmare." [Source] Originally airing in October 2013, the Investigation Discovery channel featured the intense stalking situation of up-and-coming soprano Leandra Ramm (played by Alison Arnopp in the re-enactment). After a promotional stint on Anderson Cooper, Ms. Ramm started receiving telephone calls from an Asian man named "Carl" who promised a contract for performing at the Singapore Opera Festival. It didn't take long for the 20-year old starlet to realize that he was a fraud and was not going to help her at all. That is where her personal nightmare began. Soon thereafter he started stalking her by phone and email, to the point of destroying her personal and professional relationships. After approaching the police and the FBI, she was left on her own to watch the destruction of her career.  See more about her imprisoned stalker here. Music featured in the episode and a video of the real-life Leandra Ramm performing, after the jump.

Purina Dog Dreams Of Swimming To Rossini's "Largo al Factotum"

In the commercial sequence for Purina's Pro Plan dog food, we see a Cardigan Welsh Corgi deep in sleep dreaming of a swimming race with another dog to fetch a ball. The music playing under the advertisement is the aria "Largo al Factotum" from Rossini's opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. To learn more about the dog food, click here.

Joyce DiDonato Shares Touching Story In 2014 Juilliard Speech

"I want to share with you a quick email from a soldier on the front lines of our Arts: an elementary/middle school teacher from Salt Lake City, Ms. Audrey Hill, who is fighting the great fight! She brought her students to the recent HD telecast of La Cenerentola, and wrote the following note to me: 'One of my boys...a 5th grader...wrote in his review this morning that one of his favorite parts (besides the spaghetti food-fight scene) was where at the end you were singing about getting revenge, and how he really liked that your revenge was going to be forgiveness. This boy was new to our school this year, has a beautiful singing voice, and has been teased a lot. I have seen him getting more and more angry as the year was coming to a close and today it seemed like all that had disappeared. It was very moving for me to experience.'" [Source] The Juilliard School’s 109th Commencement Speech by Joyce DiDonato can be read here in its entirety or watch the video after the jump.

2014 Honorees: front row - Lar Lubovitch, Viola Davis, Frank Owen Gehry, Philip Glass; back row: Marcus Roberts, Bruce Kovner, Suzanne F. Kovner, Joyce DiDonato, Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi
(Photo: Nan Melville/Facebook)

Rossini Inspires Chaotic Drama Among Adults With Phones

Super Bowl XLVI Commercials Offer Up Some Verdi and Rossini

Farrelly's "Three Stooges" Mimes Rossini's "Futile Precaution"

"Left on a nun's doorstep, Larry, Curly and Moe grow up finger-poking, nyuk-nyuking and woo-woo-wooing their way to uncharted levels of knuckleheaded misadventure. Out to save their childhood home, only The Three Stooges could become embroiled in an oddball murder plot...while also stumbling into starring in a phenomenally successful TV reality show." One prank even leaves Sean Hayes (as Larry) even hits a high operatic note when a lobster is dropped down his pants!
Hard not to see some of the farcical similarities to the opera from which this clip takes its music: "The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution (Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775), which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music. The première (under the title Almaviva, or The Futile Precaution) took place on 20 February 1816, at the Teatro Argentina, Rome. It was one of the earliest Italian operas to be performed in America and premiered at the Park Theater in New York City on 29 November 1825. Rossini's Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all opere buffe; even after two hundred years, its popularity on the modern opera stage attests to that greatness." [Source]

Agnes Baltsa Commandeers the Fioratura of Gioachino Rossini

Largo al Factotum: Jersey Shore Season 4 Goes to Italy

Get More: Jersey Shore, MTV Shows

Get More: Jersey Shore, MTV Shows

This isn't the first time that MTV has dipped its toe in the opera pond. Remember when they held the Video Music Awards show at the Metropolitan Opera in 1999? Well, the advertisements for the show were pretty operatically entertaining. Check out the images after the jump.

EMI Records Rossini's "Guillaume Tell" Under Pappano

Video introduction by the Maestro after the jump.

When Rossini Recycled Arias From His Late Operas

Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del Giglio d'Oro

Premiere: June 19, 1825 - Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique

"En proie à la tristesse" sung by Mariella Devia

Le comte Ory

Premiere: August 20, 1828 - Salle Le Peletier

"Partir, o ciel, desio" sung by Kathleen Battle