Trip South: Second Batch of Pictures

Still in Christchurch. See if you can spot the rose amid the thorns.

Trip Down South...

... and it was ALL ABOUT the flowers. The weather cooperated and the hot early summer sun was, well, awesome! There will be two more rafts of pictures doled out over the next week. See ya later, then.

Found her by chance on YouTube...

... but, you know, she is pretty good. This, of course, is one of the party-arias of all time.

Here is Miklósa Erika in "Mercè, dilette amiche" from Verdi's I vespri Siciliani:



See what you think.

Minuses (first)... The low sort of vanishes and slight out-of-kilter moment at the end (but, like, who cares? I don't... these things happen; it was the conductor's fault anyway)

(considerable) Pluses... sweet portamenti and a nice trill; a bright sound that has nice warmth; she's a pro.

PS The manuscript is sent off now. Let's see what this round of readers thinks. Cross your fingers. Some vacation pictures to come in time and it really does seem that I may be blogging more.

Well I am back for a moment...

...but only for a moment. We are going on a two-week vacation to the South Island on Tuesday. The manuscript is mostly done now--- my editor is going to take a look at it and there are only like another 100 more hoops to jump through--- which does not seem like much after I feel like I have jumped through 20000 hoops of various degrees of bothersomeness already. Anyway, here are some roses we saw at the gardens here (the name of the rose in question appears below each):

This... is still delighting me... and it....

...showed up on a mixed CD I was listening to. So I ran to Youtube and there it was. It is "Music of Life" by Cerrone. Late 70's-- disco but with some cool jazz overtones-- and a general sweet sad niceness to it. Very very pretty and optimistic. Chill at 114 BPM!



I have to buy this record. Gemm has it for $172.00. I think I will wait for the moment.