I have a lump in my throat, in between opera and hospital visits

This time my lump in my throat has nothing to do with my love of opera except they both belong to me for the time being. Only 3 percent risk that it is malignant but every year the the lump will become bigger and 1 percent more likely to be malignant.

In between many operas this year was also many small visits to doctors and hospitals. Crohn's disease, migraine, seeing and hearing not ok. So MR, CT, operations on both eyes to get better eyesight (first right eye and then left with weeks in between, hearing equipment for my hearing ear that does not hear too well either. MR to my brain showed nothing dangerous in my brain but something in throat/neck was there and suddenly a normal doctor's appointment meant quickly to the another hospital for more checks. I had to stay there some days just to get some tests. Later another hospital again for a better test with better equipment. Staying overnight to get my test. Then weeks later, on October 20th to talk to a doctor about what they had found. He smiled and was ever so nice so I almost did not hear the word "tumor". I kept my cool, the doctor was smiling so how bad could it be. Most likely, 97%, it is benign, but the placement is not good and it will become bigger year for year and the probability of it becoming malignant will increase (just 1 percent yearly). So an operation in 3 months time, yes, I agreed to that.

Well, I have a lump in my throat but it doesn't hurt and I am optimistic. I LOVE OPERA!! I will make sure that the operation will not hinder me overly in seeing the operas I have planned. I am not an opera singer so if the operation touching my vocals cords I will be Ok, and even if it gets too close to nerves for half my face I will still be OK. I have decided to be cool now and OK after the operation. Nothing will hinder my love for opera!! And pizza!

And almost 9 years since the premiere I see again Werther in Munich (2015-10-25)

I believed as I was sitting in Nationaltheater, Munich, that at home I have a DVD with this same production but from Vienna. The reality was that I was in Munich for premiere in 2006 with Sophie Koch and Marcelo Alvarez and that Vienna and the DVD is another production. Stranger still that even with booklet showing Koch and Alvarez I did not remember that I was there for the premiere in Munich.

Werther in Vienna had really set its mark on me and the Munich production had vanished. Marcelo Alvarez was amazing and so was Sophie Koch. But that was 2006 and now it is 2015 and it is Rolando Villazon and Angela Brower. Earlier this year I saw them as Hoffmann and Nicklausse in Les Contes d'Hoffmann and they were absolutely marvelous. 

Rolando Villazon is an amazing actor and has a wonderful tenor voice but this day (2015-10-25) his voice would not always come out the right way especially in the higher notes. It was painful to hear his voice "glitch" but always he was Werther. Angela Brower was Charlotte, a woman who is full of life but unfortunately she has promised to marry dull Albert. Her sister is also in love with Werther but she also seem to genuinely like Albert where Charlotte has to struggle to be accept being near him and dislikes to be touched by Albert. Solution Charlotte should have married Werther and Albert could have Sophie. Probability higher for happiness for sure.

2015-10-25 Werther (Massenet), Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich 

Werther = Rolando Villazón

Charlotte = Angela Brower 

Sophie = Hanna-Elisabeth Müller

Albert = Michael Nagy 

Le Bailli = Christoph Stephinger

Schmidt = Kevin Conners   

Johann = Tim Kuypers   

Brühlmann = Johannes Kammler   

Käthchen = Anna Rajah 

Asher Fisch, conductor

Production, Set, Lighting Concept 

and Costumes - Jürgen Rose

Mitarbeit Inszenierung - Franziska Severin   

Lighting - Michael Bauer   

Children Chorus - Stellario Fagone   

Dramaturgy - Ingrid Zellner    

This production of Werther made it into 1940-60s or something. It was just an update that gave us nothing. Werther is always writing and in the middle of the scene is a big stone and there is Werther's writing desk. Always is the production trying to remind us that the original novel was a novel made of letters from Werther etc (I haven't read the novel by Goethe). The walls are filled with the scribblings of Werther. But what does that give us, the spectators. The revolving stage is used too much and means seldom much. Only as we see Charlotte desperate to come in time to save Werther is the revolving stage used to help us see, the stage going in the wrong direction this we see Charlotte struggling and it gets real for use, too.

In the personregie it is much better. One can believe this people. The children are adorable and this time the father is played as one who are their loving father and not just a father who lets his oldest daughters to be the parents. This children already have one parent even though they have lost their mother. The two elder sister are helping out. Albert is nice enough but he wants Charlotte to just say she is as happy as him, he does not want the truth. She never wanted him but Albert understand Charlotte so little that he thinks that if Charlotte loves another man she would naturally be unfaithful to her husband. Albert and Werther, i do not understand them, what a weird friendship.

I saw Dr House in Aida (Munich 2015-10-04)

2015-10-04 Aida (Verdi), Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich 

Amneris = Anna Smirnova 

Aida = Krassimira Stoyanova 

Radamès = Jonas Kaufmann 

Ramfis = Ain Anger

Amonasro = Franco Vassallo 

Der König = Marco Spotti 

Ein Bote = Dean Power 

Eine Priesterin = Anna Rajah

Dan Ettinger, conductor

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Chor und Extrachor der Bayerischen Staatsoper

Inszenierung - Christof Nel Konzeptionelle Beratung - Martina Jochem 

Bühne - Jens Kilian 

Kostüme- Ilse Welter-Fuchs Choreographische Arbeit- Valentí Rocamora i Torà 

Licht - Olaf Winter 

Chöre- Sören Eckhoff 

Dramaturgie - Olaf A. Schmitt   

Since the Puccini album with the Dr House lookalike Jonas Kaufmann I call him Dr House.

Jonas Kaufmann is a great actor but... he is supposed to be a tenor, not just A tenor, but a Great one. His acting is real good and he is a nice person.

Anyway this is about the Aida in Munich and it goes beyond whether Jonas Kaufmann is a great Radames or not. In this production the world Verdi and his librettists created is ignored. With the magic of Verdi et co it is possible to believe that the love between Aida and Radames is real and romantic even as Aida is a slave and Radames is one of her captors. Here in this production Radames is just slightly better than the murdering, raping scumbags that are the soldiers and officers of the Egyptian army. He can save Aida from rape/murder with a slight hand and neck movement. Aida in Verdi's world was captured and became a slave/maid/pretend friend of Amneris, daughter of the King of Egypt. In this production the slaves (females) are there so any scum of the army can use and abuse them and of course slaughter them. In this world where Aida is Ethiopian slave how is her better, easier. Just like it might seem better to be a house slave than a working in the fields slave, it is not better it is as dangerous but in another way. 

Radames is just stupid. He doesn't grasp killing his girlfriends' people is bad. Understanding how her being a slave is affecting her is simply beyond him. He is just about his glory for Egypt. How nice to go to war to the people of his ladylove just for his own glory and take people as prisoners of war, aka new slaves, withouth having any conscience at all. Then his woman sees her father as prisoner and suddenly a bit of these Ethiopians are people too, except that is not that it is about a woman's tear and be a man for his woman. 

Of course, JKs Radames is a good-looking guy. That's nice but really nice singing and then he has the crooning, falsetto thing instead of really singing pianissimo. But with Krassimira Stoyanova we at least have a real soprano and with Anna Smirnova as Amneris a just as great mezzo Stoyanova is soprano. Marco Spotti and Ain Anger sing the basses. Franco Vassallo was jus great as Amonasro.

But the production: a beautiful scenography with great costumes, then the regie and ballett stinks.

Brutality on stage, yep, there was a lot of onstage killings. Always making sure that the Egyptians are just murdering scums who also enjoy raping. Every ballett scene was a scene about killing, destroying. Was that really necessary, annoying director/regie maker? 

Why can't we just have VERDI's Aida instead on REGIE-Aida?

For reviews from my travels, see www.operaduetstravel.com

La Mamma morta (2012-10-08)

Breast Cancer, that was it that killed my mother. My mother looked as a skeleton, she reminded me of victims of Auschwitz but her suffering was not because of the evils of human hatred. A disease killed her, a disease that is more like natural disaster than a car accident.

Unlike the many victims of the Nazi regime where hospitals, doctors and nurses was a part of the pain and suffering. In many cases hospitals was the place to die suffering under uncaring and often brutals arms, my mother was cared for as one always, ALWAYS, should be when in care of doctors and nurses. She still died but her sister was with her on her last night.

The Nazi regime is our shortcut when talking about the evils of the world. We won that battle. I doubt we will really act against the atrocities today as long as Hitler and Nazism are talking points. It is so safe to talk about Hitler comparing people to him because Adolf Hitler is dead and World War 2 is over. Such obvious evil and how to fight was simply going to war.

I hate the Pink ribbon of the fight against breast cancer. I will never go with one. The color Pink is a cheap and easy point to women, men gets breast cancer too. Cancer is not cute and all women are not pink princesses. Cheapening pain is never ok. Breast cancer will never and should never be alluded to as sexy.

The problem is that the cute Panda bear drives in more money than sharks that are under threat of dying out and if they dies our seas might just became rather dead too. 

All cancers needs funding and research and Pink Ribbon is just a cute but it is just breast cancer funding.

Cruelty, death camps still exists but the people might have the wrong color and it is maybe in the wrong country. And si we are blind just are were in many, many years until we finally got into the fight against the nazis. Some even thought they were right, but usually today they will I was always on the right side.

We are too often on the wrong side or indifferent, saying who cares about THEM.

We are them, they are us!!!

Nabucco in the Bible - a start with Kings and Chronicles

2 Kings 24 Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings+24&version=CEV

Footnotes:
24.1 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia: Ruled Babylonia 605-562 B.C.
24.7 again: Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian army in 605 B.C. at the town of Carchemish. But a few years later, he was forced to retreat all the way back to Babylonia, which allowed Jehoiakim to rebel (see verse 1).
24.12 Babylonia: These events took place in 597 B.C.
24.13 warned: See 20.16-18.

2 Kings 25Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings%2025&version=CEV

Footnotes:
25.1 tenth month: Tebeth, the tenth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-December to mid-January.
25.2,3 fourth: This word is not in the Hebrew text here, but see the parallel in Jeremiah 52.5,6.
25.4 wall: Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C.
25.8 About a month later: Hebrew “On the seventh day of the fifth month.”
25.17 pomegranates: A bright red fruit that looks like an apple.
25.22 Ahikam: Hebrew “Ahikam son of Shaphan.”
25.25 Ishmael: Hebrew “Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama.”
25.25 about two months. . . his rule: Hebrew “in the seventh month.”
25.27 Evil-Merodach. . . Babylonia: The son of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled Babylonia from 562 to 560 B.C.
25.27 twelfth month: Adar, the twelfth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-February to mid-March.

Mostly war... and Kings, of course.

1 Chronicles 6 Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Chronicles+6&version=CEV

Absolutely no need to read this for Nabucco.

2 Chronicles 36Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Chronicles+36&version=CEV

You can read this but not really that interesting.

I love Carmen and Carmen loves me (not?)

Bizet: 25 Carmen
1985-05-03, 1991-05-06, 1992-11-07, 1998-10-21, 2000-02-05, 2000-06-25, 2002-05-15, 2002-06-22, 2002-06-23, 2002-06-26, 2002-09-29, 2003-06-27, 2003-06-30, 2003-07-29, 2003-08-23, 2004-09-25, 2008-05-24, 2009-10-10, 2012-12-15, 2013-02-02, 2013-09-16, 2014-05-01, 2014-10-25, 2015-03-28, 2015-07-20

1st Carmen was Guerilla-Carmen (1985).
2nd Carmen was also performed in Oslo (1991).
3rd Carmen still performed in Norway, but this time in Bergen (1992).
4th Carmen was in Zurich and I was disappointed that Agnes Baltsa did not sing (1998).
5th Carmen was in Berlin and with the stupendous Agnes Baltsa. I also enjoyed Alberto Cupido as Don Jose (2000).
6th Carmen was in Zurich, this time with Agnes Baltsa and Gösta Winbergh as Carmen and Don José. Loved it partly, but loved Berlin more (2000).
7th Carmen and with Baltsa and Cupido together this time in Helsinki, Finland. Bravo!!! (2002)
8th Carmen was in Zurich but with a new production so I left for Vienna as quickly as I could (2002).
9th & 10th Carmen was in Vienna with Agnes Baltsa and Richard with Anja Harteros as Micaela. Wonderful (2002).
11th Carmen was also in Vienna with Agnes Baltsa and Fabio Armiliato. Fabulous (2002).
12th Carmen still in Vienna but this time with Baltsa and Julian Gavin. Krassimira Stoyanova was Micaela (2003)
13th Carmen was the same as 12th except with Roxana Briban as Micaela (2003).
14th Carmen was in Verona and it was magic with Jose Cura and Marina Domashenko (2003).
15th Carmen and we are in Oslo but Carmen is still Marina Domashenko (2003)
16th Carmen with Agnes Baltsa and Julian in Berlin (2004)
17th Carmen was in Karlsruhe with Denyce Graves and Jose Cura (2008)
18th Carmen was in Munich with Julia Gertseva and Jose Cura (2009).
19th Carmen with Jose Cura and Anita Rachvelishvili in Berlin. This time in another production, but Berlin still produces wonderful performances (2012)
20th Carmen was in Munich with Nancy Fabiola Herrera and Thiago Arancam. She is great, he is meh (2013).
21st Carmen was in Vienna with Roberto Alagna and Rinat Shaham (2013)
22nd Carmen was in Barcelona with Sergi Gimenez Carreras. This was Salon Opera at its finest (2014).
23rd Carmen was in Madrid with Maria Jose Montiel and sung in Spanish as "Zarzuela" (2014).
24th Carmen was in Milano with Elena Garanca and Jose Cura. Wonderful is a word! (2015).
25th Carmen in Barcelona with Sergi Gimenez Carreras and promised more but we did get some real Flamenco and some cuts (2015).

I love Carmen!!

The Movie was great!!!



For reviews from my travels, see www.operaduetstravel.com

September and I got a new lense

On August 31st, 2015 I had my first cateract operation. I see better on my right eye now but my left is still -3.5 so that is difficult. I took the the right eye glass out of my glasses. Well I went to optitician and he did it for free. Personally I had to just pay 75 NOK for the operation, the Norwegian State pay the rest. I am so lucky to be a Norwegian living in Norway. 

So sad that not the rest of the world do not have this kind of welfare state. Naturally, there are places that are even better than Norway, and that is OK by me. To have a functioning welfare state cost a lot of money so many countries are too poor to give their population good health care. Any rich state have a duty to help in my opininion. For me the most heartbreaking stories are from the USA. A rich country but UNWILLING to help their own. They are against Rights for All. They all want PRIVILEGES. Only I and my family have rights, my neighbours never!!

The Republican Jesus with the Prosperity Gospel is ruining USA in their effort to save it from itself. Hate is Love. Taking away possibilities is to help people. To call people evil is an excellent way to save them to Christianity.

Back to Norway. it is really nice here and mostly people are rather mellow. True, it can take a long time to really get us as friends but we are often good, real friends by that point. Racism is not that obvious, we are seldom that directly hateful, but then when you students all in the beginning of the year, they black and white and no no natural mixing and then you wonder more about racism (is it or not). Of course since Norwegians are mostly white we are often wrong about things like racism, was that racist and so on. So we are often blind but we believe that we see it all. One of the most racist things we do is how fast we declare that there was no racist thought there. We can never be sure of that. There will always be places in our mind where old racist ideas lives even if we have work most of our lives to debund them, reject them. They came insidenof our mind without our choosing it, we heard it, we read it, we saw it in movied and on TV.  Colorblind is not an option so long that racism and colorism is there. 

We have to open our eyes. White folks listen more to other Whites even if we can not be experts of lives we have never lived.

All lives matters! That sounds great. Except that we never truly believe it. Not that all matters equally, nope, we don't believe. Old people should also get a heart transplant as the twenty year old. No, not really. When women talk it is as serious as mens talk.... That you should listenas respectfully when a child talk as an adult. Black lives matter! is telling about whose lives are in danger all the time, and it it not the White, Rich, Hetero, Cis men who are in danger. BLM is all the danger and they are more all lives matter than ALM. BLM their ideas will stop the dangers from cops who is not doing real police work from harrassing and killing others. ALM is most angry about the word Black.