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What an interestingly inviting read on this mind muddled morning. Thanks! Coffee, Please?

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Lev Bratishenko

MUSIC

Student Operas, Best Operas?

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Opera McGill & the McGill Symphony Orchestra presents Mozart's Don Giovanni

by Lev Bratishenko
29.01.2012

Butler and I were at stalemate over my pneumatic tube subscription. He thinks it’s a waste of money, but he doesn’t know opera companies. Yesterday I had my glorious revenge when the old tube rattled and spat out an invitation. There, I screamed from the lavatory, not everybody went over to email. I went, of course, and though the ticket lady found my canister suspicious she judged it unwise to argue. Four stars for the ticket lady at Pollack Hall.

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MUSIC

Oh Bother

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MSO conducted by Sir Roger Norrington with Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes.

by Lev Bratishenko
03.12.2011

The evening started with an explanation that the order of the pieces was changed so that the orchestra would only have to shuffle seats once. For Beethoven’s 1st Concerto, they were seated tightly around the piano, with its back to us, in the manner of an 18th century chamber concert, so that we might appreciate [...]

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MUSIC

Singers Save Retro-Rendered Show

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Staging mars perfectly decent performance of Dvořák opera, Rusalka

by Lev Bratishenko
15.11.2011

Some people talk about putting on a Czech opera like you wear a lead apron to do it, but that isn’t true. It’s perfectly legal. So don’t buy the argument that a production of Dvořák’s Rusalka (containing an aria you’ll find on every best-of opera disc) means the Opera de Montreal took any risks. Not [...]

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MUSIC

Brass Hysterics and Weeping Grandmothers

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Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra bring Tchaikovskii's first and sixth, along with inimitable Russian style, to La Maison Symphonique

by Lev Bratishenko
26.10.2011

Critical stares of Russian matrons sweep the Maison Symphonique lobby like Distant Early Warning radar stations, but their targets are their neighbours’ outfits and so I pass unharmed and invisible. I am not wearing any gold or miniskirt. Arriving at my seat, I discover the under-chair heaters have been replaced by samovars.

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MUSIC

Eat the Rich

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Le nozze di Figaro, Opéra de Montréal

by Lev Bratishenko
20.09.2011

It was crowded like any opening night, full to the rafters with an assortment of Montreal’s best and worst dressed elders, all of whom had to part for me and my wheelbarrow. Butler complained about “pushing me about in public,” but what was he going to do, find another job?

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MUSIC

Leftovers in Another Kitchen

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Review: Opera Piccola, Theatre Outremont

by Lev Bratishenko
05.09.2011

The gilt-edged envelope smelled of perfume and was obviously caviar-stained. A monumental footman waited for a reply with a silver tray in one hand and a gun in the other. More opera tickets, I thought. Hooray.

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MUSIC

Sweaty Russian Exercises

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Soirée Russe, Centre Pierre-Charbonneau

by Lev Bratishenko
07.07.2011

I went to a weird place recently. There were a couple of hundred others there, all with healthy annuity incomes, and we were inappropriately dressed in tailcoats and spats and things. The row ahead of me passed a pair of army field binoculars around. I heard the most serious-looking one, their leader I think, mutter [...]

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