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First I should start by saying I know next to nothing about opera apart from one trip to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden when a friend gave me a free ticket.

I'd guess many of you would rather have your teeth pulled than watch opera. In the past, I would have agreed. However I watched the first part of a live broadcast in the early evening on Beeb2 of Verdi's Rigoletto.

The scenes are set in many of the beatiful buildings in which Verdi originally set the opera. The orchestra, again playing live, was in a completely different building. The actors/singers can obviously hear the orchestra so for a start it is a bit of a technical tour-de-force.

However the main thing is that the singing is jaw-dropping, the buildings fantastic and the whole set-up works. In short, it is amazing.

Part 2 is on at lunchtime today and the final part this evening. It's available on the iplayer.

Go on, give it a go! There's always the off button.

Cheers
D

I tried to get to an opera earlier this year over in Russia but things didn't pan out as planned. I went to see Swan Lake last year and I never thought I'd like ballet but I sat riveted for the whole show. On that basis I was willing (and still am) to give it a go.

The female lead, Rigoletto's daughter is a Russian. Stunning voice. Placido Domingo is playing Rigoletto. The Director of Photography for the production is the guy who did the lighting for Apocolypse Now and the Last Emperor.

It has a crew of 300 and Berlusconi apparently introduced it on tele in Italy last night. It is fantastic! Just as well the female lead is Russian, because she is a bit of a looker and would have probably ended up as Berlusconi's Minister of Culture if she had been Italian !happy!

CHeers
D

Billy Connoly once described opera as loud uninteligible music with a drunken fat hairy bastard shouting at some fat ugly tart, "I'm going to fuck you"! and she screaming back "Oh no you're not"!
As for myself, I must say that I do like Verdi's Aida and Bizet's Carmen. Another one I like is the Soldiers Chorus in Gounods Faust.
Opera is, I would say, for the discerning. Any moron who is happy to listen to some of the modern drivel chucked out on Radio fucking one deserves to get their fucking ears bashed, especialy from that moronic gobshyte fucking Moyles. Gimme the ginger one any day, though I would prefer the fragrant Fran Godfrey reading the news rather than the old bint sacked from her job as a newsreader.

I love it !

I worked with John Graham who was an opera singer of some note himself when he lived in South Africa. One of my greatest memories with John was when we went into a karaoke opera resturant in L.A once (yes only in America, eh ) and people got up and sang....opera, it was just magic. John himself got up and sang 'old man river' brilliantly !

You're just pissed off because Jimmy Nail isn't in it. !happy!

My esteemed colleague, Dave Wells, may also recall that we shot for
Private once at a castle in Spain and were asked to teach the ropes
of porn to Berth Milton`s father-in-law, whom the boss was grooming
as a possible director. Trouble was he had only ever directed opera !
It was just a bit comical, whenever Milton`s dad-in-law was happy, to
have him burst into "La Donna Mobile" from Rigoletto at full blast ! Its
not exactly what you expect on a porn shoot and it certainly gave some
girls a start just before the DP sc !!

I've always had an ambition to write a porn opera involving a lot of peeing - but I've never really got past writing the title..... "Il Lavatori"

Indeed, a complete novice allowed to make porn. Now that's amazing isn't it ? Today no it's not !