Upcoming Liveblog: Handel’s “Tamerlano” (2008) this Friday

[The original “La ci darem la mano”? Or a more interesting version of “Così fan tutte” where the fiancés undergo a gendered body swap? – Ingela Bohlin (Asteria) and Monica Bacelli (Tamerlano) in Handel’s “Tamerlano”, Madrid 2008. – Photo Credit: Javier del Real/Teatro Real]

…

Time for the Madrid “Tamerlano” this Friday, Oct. 6th, at 9 p.m. UTC+2.

The production is available on DVD. (It may also have been on YT once, which we can discuss off-blog).

 

30 thoughts on “Upcoming Liveblog: Handel’s “Tamerlano” (2008) this Friday”

    1. Dr. T, in related Handel news of the not-so-good kind: I probably can’t make the MP “Scipione” in Jan. My boss wants to take me along to a conference meeting, which may or may not include negotiations on the side about him coughchangingscenerycough, and since there may be options for me on the table, too, I’ve got to be there. I know we had talked about the possibility of catching this – really sorry!

      Like

      Reply

        1. wooooahhh 😦
          i’ll ponder then if i should make the trip then.. these very short cross-continent trips are always quite taxing for a solo concert… and in fact because i have to be in the office just a couple of days later for a week-long meeting (that i mentioned that one time i was frantically searching your site for schedule..) i have been worried how i’d make the whole thing work.. but woooooahhh.
          fingers crossed after this experience she will sing in a whole production… at TAdW or Staatsoper, or Stuttgart please!

          wooahh..

          Like

          Reply

            1. 😥

              this is like that one time i had to give a damn (but very important..) talk on the exact same day VK was giving her Händel’s recital 2 years ago.. at *same* time too.. and while getting out of talk receiving texts from Dehggi and Purity reporting how incredible it was… imagine VK and Händel.. and damn schedule (as you can see, i’m still crying about that 2 years later..)

              Like

            2. I’ve been looking up planes and overly lengthy train rides, and calculating… it’s only settling in now and I know I shouldn’t be unduly affected by this, but I had really been looking forward to it (plus hopes of getting to do this with you again). I suppose my boss could ingratiate to the new uni by then (he does have his moments), but that is probably not what I should wish for. Le sigh.

              Like

    2. …and the question of, well, who does end up going ota gay bar with Despina? (Dorabella!) Or did Fiordiligi kind of always fancy Ferrando anyway?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

          1. The more I think about the notion, the more that Don Alfonso as a masculinist gay offers a more interesting alternative to his function as mere plot engine cynic.

            Like

            Reply

            1. …following that thought, I wonder if there is plausible version possible where all of them are gay (except for Despina, because Despina is pan and so beyond the classicist limits to desire)

              Like

            3. wouldn’t it be a hopeful ending if Alfonso (who can’t think past biology and gender and dichotomies and a bourgeois idea of romantic partnership he is no part of and that he tries to destroy for everyone else) is upstaged by the five other characters moving beyond all those limits, and moving onto less restrictive twosomes or threesomes that, as you say, fit their character?

              Liked by 2 people

            4. They all went off together
              and left me here alone,
              self-hating in black leather.
              Best friend? I’m not my own.
              They learned, all right – don’t trust in pairs;
              no promise lasts a day.
              I tried to queer their love affairs
              but only made them gay.

              Liked by 1 person

            6. on a side note, this week I was thinking about how I would write “Campus” if I were to start it now, and other than that it would contain a lot more administrative meetings, and some people would be a bit different in age, and everyone would have mobile phones, there would be one central character who would not be cis (but gay).

              Like

  4. Perhaps you could just out one of them? As should be done for Javert, Hamlet’s Horatio, Faust’s Mephistopheles, Sharpless and Suzuki, Ivan Karamazov, and all the women in Ibsen.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a reply to fitzfulke Cancel reply