Opera Bubbles

Hey, opera lovers! New Year is coming! And it's a good time to think about the future or make plans for the next year. As for me, I'm very much looking forward to winter holidays and to 2015 in general cause there will be so much interesting operatic stuff which I'm very excited about, including new CD/DVD releases! And this is what I'd like to tell you about today - upcoming January recordings 2015! CD RELEASES January 5 – Tchaikovsky «Iolanta» by Deutsche Grammophon Anna Netrebko Sergey Skorokhodov · Alexey Markov · Vitalij Kowaljow Slovenian Chamber Choir Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra Emmanuel Villaume

Hey, opera lovers!!! Today is the second annual Opera Bubbles Awards!!! YEAH!!!! Briefly, this year’s been very tough for me, mostly emotionally, and watching/listening to great artists or live concerts helped me to get through the difficulties. But enough about bad things! Let’s focus on a bright side!:) I enjoy doing Opera Bubbles Awards for the second time (Opera Bubbles Awards 2013 is posted here ). I like remembering the most exciting art things that happened to me during last year. Thinking of who could be presented in each nomination, I realized that there were not many candidates. This made me ponder and ask myself: «Why?». Reviewing all the past «operatic adventures» in my mind, I came to conclusion that I just hadn’t watched a huge number of opera productions, but… instead, I’d got new experience from lots of CD recordings. So defining winners was very quick and easy for me. Here they are!

Hey, opera lovers!!! December is already here! That means «holidays are coming, holidays are coming…»:). All buildings are being decorated; famous songs are being played in the streets, at bars and restaurants! And we’re all waiting for a little bit of magic in our life at this time of the year. So the atmosphere is very specific and hopeful, so to speak. What can be better than good festive music for maintaining such an advent mood:)? I have a list of tracks which I keep listening to again and again during December. These songs are about such important things like love, family, friends, piece – things that we all begin to appreciate even more on Christmas and New Year Days. So I wanna share with you my favorite albums and songs which make me happy and charge me with festivity!!! 

Hey, opera lovers! How are you? I’m fine, by the way. Though I was not writing for a while cause I had a lack of inspiration for it and didn’t want to force myself but…it doesn’t mean that nothing operatic has happened to me! On the contrary, I’ve watched and listened a lot in October and in the beginning of November so I’d like to tell you about this experience in a sort of a messy post:). I decided to call it «Tea with Cinnamon» as I love this drink very much and imagine myself sitting in an armchair with a hot mug and talking with you about everything! (Oh! That sounds a little bit weird:)). Join me and maybe such posts will come out regularly:).

Hey, opera lovers!!!  How r u doin'? A huge bunch of new recordings is coming out in November! And it would be foolish of me not to share this information with you:). Check them out! CD RELEASES November 17 – Roberto Alagna «Ma vie est un opera» by Deutsche Grammophon Having had a 30-year career on stage, on this new CD Alagna retraces the significant moments of his life,  singing his most successful arias! This recording also includes two duets with Aleksandra Kurzak.

Hey, opera lovers! I’ve been spending a lot of time reading books recently. And I missed it very much as I had not been reading for about a year! Yeah…that’s a bad thing. There was always a lot of stuff I needed or wanted to do that books turned out to be at the bottom of the wish list! And my book comeback gave an idea to write a post about «opera books». We know that maybe a half of operas is based on this or that novel. But I’d like to tell you about, so to say, unknown books which inspired famous composers to create their masterpieces. And they are «Carmen» by Prosper Mérimée , «Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre» («Don Juan or The Feast with the Statue») by Jean-Baptiste Molière and «Scènes de la vie de bohème» (« Scenes from the life of Bohemia ») by Henri Murger. (Oh! I’ve just noticed that they are all French!:)). 

Hey opera lovers! Today I really wanna talk about a very new album of Joyce DiDonato which is called «Stella di Napoli» . I know I’m not a pioneer in reviewing this CD cause a lot of influential journals, newspapers, internet sources have done it before. But I just wanna share my emotions and thoughts with you as a usual opera listener, not as a critic. And I think this recording deserves to have many reviews because of its amazingness! Photo: Pari Dukovic