Hide under your bed.....

[knight66]

I vividly recall watching this live and howling with laughter. You hear the first note and you know just what you are going to get. That last note is a peach. The composer's body language looks like he wants to keep his distance. She takes the bow as though she had achieved high art, rather than laying an egg.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d8bF9JMznk

Mike

[DarkAngel]

Opera singers style usually does not work well for pop or broadway tunes........oh the horror

[knight66]

Perhaps even; "The horror......the horror."

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

So wrong from first note to last. We wouldn't expect Elaine Page or Streisand to sing Brunnhilde or Isolde, so why should the reverse be any better?

[matti]

Ahh, the gorgeous performance is discussed also here. Mike sent this to me privately, and I was reluctant to watch it because I hate the song and my youtube connection was sticky.

I finally watched it and I do feel lucky: I think I have finally heard Bianca Castafiore live and not only in my imagination.

[The new erato]

Sentimental and vulgar as most of Lloyd Webber's work since his first couple of musicals. Read the discussion under the youtube post and be equally stunned as by the misguided performance.

[knight66]

Yes, I was taken aback by the praise in those posts; though I don't tend to scour Youtube for discerning critiques. I also listened to Renata Scotto, reminded me of a piece by Tan Dun. Her last note was very special. I think she was channelling 'The Dame' in best Senta mode for that final hellish wobble.

I don't know why these old dears are allowed to go about in public, scaring the horses and causing people to stain their bedsheets with night terrors.

Mike

PS. I just opened up that Youtube clip for my wife...she heard the very first note and put on her shoes, she has gone to get some unspecified must-have from the supermarket. Probably tranquilisers. She looked to be in pain and muttered in distress over her shoulder, "That!"

You see once heard, never forgotten.

[DavidW]

Wow I think that I doubly hate that song now!

But...

That is still better than American Idol.

[knight66]

I hope you are joking.

Mike

[DavidW]

Check it out, you will cringe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_01WbShQHs

[knight66]

Yes, it did. Though I have seen that kind of stuff on the UK one. Can't think how or why it was somehow blotted from my mind.

Mike

[DavidW]

Can't think how or why it was somehow blotted from my mind.

It's a special talent that you have.

[greg]

Yes, it did. Though I have seen that kind of stuff on the UK one. Can't think how or why it was somehow blotted from my mind.

Mike

ehhh... maybe Freud would say it was a repressed memory? 

[zamyrabyrd]

Scooping up or down to notes is perfectly OK in a popular style, in fact would seem strange without it. But mixing operatic and popular in this way, in other words, not dispensing with an operatic sound but scooping all the same is a mismatch.

ZB

[Josquin des Prez]

So you are in a room with Hitler, Stalin and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and you have a gun with only two bullets. What do you do...

[The new erato]

Shoot myself?

[Wendell_E]

Except in self-defense, I don't think I could never shoot a living creature.  Hitler and Stalin are already dead, so I'd empty the bullets into them, then pistol-whip Andy give Andy a severe scolding.

[sospiro]

So you are in a room with Hitler, Stalin and Andrew Lloyd Webber, and you have a gun with only two bullets. What do you do...

Don't know anything about guns but I'm sure there are some which can go through two bodies. So line them up with the thinnest front & back then shoot from in front & behind & the middle one should cop two bullets at admittedly slower speed but enough to achieve the desired result.

[Xenophanes]

Well, the audience could hear her without a mic.

[knight66]

Not an advantage, though they were either easily pleased, or had a good sense of irony.

Mike