My first Blog Post!

Well, I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now...and since I'm spending the weekend at home trying to get over the flu, this seemed like a good opportunity. Boy...now I don't even know where to begin.

Currently I'm listening to Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (Ricciarelli, Obraztsova, Gruberova; Domingo, Bruson; Abbado -- I think this is out of print now). Not my favorite opera, but there are some nice tunes. I have a special weakness for the Act I ensemble that begins with Oscar's "Volta la terrea." I want some Eurotrash director to stage it as a kickline number.

Sorry if this post is poorly organized...I'm sick, okay? At least the achiness has gone away...now I just have a bad runny nose. I got next to no sleep last night because there was a party going on in an apartment on the other side of the alley and they had their windows open. I don't know what they were doing over there, but they were absolutely screaming. It sounded like a bunch of die-hard fans watching their favorite sports team battle their biggest rival and winning...they were literally screaming! But, what kind of sport runs until 3:30 in the morning??? Every time I would finally drift off, I would be awakened by another round of screaming. Fortunately this doesn't happen too often, only a couple of times a year.

I was supposed to go hiking in New Jersey today, but alas, I'm not well enough for that. It would have been a great day for it! Yesterday we got the remnants of hurricane Ivan...it was pretty wet and windy. And of course, yours truly left his umbrella in the footwell of a cab on Friday night, and then woke up Saturday morning only to discover that there was NOTHING in the kitchen for breakfast, so I had to venture out. Frankly, I'm not sure an umbrella would have been of much use. And no, mom, this is not why I got sick. I was already sick.

Tomorrow is the autumnal equinox, I guess. Sigh. Fall can be very beautiful in New York, but I am really someone who needs as much bright sunshine as possible and preferably warm weather. I am not looking forward to winter...last year was bitter.

I promise in the future I will be more coherent. I will probably talk a lot about politics in my blog. I never used to care a whit, but then September 11 happened, and as I live in New York City, I became interested in knowing what my president was going to do about it. For the record, I am a liberal. I am voting for John Kerry, even though I'm not impressed with him. I think Bush is either unbelievably stupid or truly evil...and I'm not sure which is scarier.

So anyway, the headline that caught my attention yesterday was from CNN.com, Bush 'pleased with the progress' in Iraq. You have to be kidding me, right? Is there anything going on over there other than us trying desperately to maintain the chaotic status quo? What planet is he on?

Evidence for the "dumb as a box of hair" theory as opposed to the "evil" theory can be found here.

Keeping with today's theme of jumping around from topic to topic, the reason that I popped in Ballo today was pure nostalgia: back in 1998 as a first year master's student at Manhattan School of Music, I sang Renato in a staged excerpt (the Ulrica scene) with my pal Simon O'Neill. Simon's current assignment is understudying Placido Domingo in the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Met. For those of you who are not really into the world of opera, that is what is known as a BFD. You may think, "Understudy? pfff, big deal." But this is an extremely high profile performance. Wagner performances are always sold out, and it's an extremely sophisticated audience. Plus, Siegmund has become one of D's signature roles (I've heard him do it 4 times), so if he were to cancel, expectations of the replacement would be very high. Also I hear through the grapevine that the 63 year old tenor is husbanding his resources, so that Simon is doing most of the rehearsals and will be singing the sitzprobe (musical rehearsal for the singers with orchestra, no staging). The conductor is Valery Gergiev, whom I worked with in Zürich in Salome. So this is a very nice thing for Simon to be doing. Someday perhaps I can write a Kitty Kelley-style bio of Simon. There aren't any tales of coke at Camp David (as far as I know...or at least, not yet), but I do have first hand knowledge of some beer backstage at a performance in Irvington, NY.

Okay, that's enough randomness for now. I did want to add one final thing: the title of my blog, The Last Debate, is a chapter in The Return of the King. I am a big LOTR fan, I'll probably be writing about that at some point, too. Now if I can just get my nose to stop running, everything will be great.