Monthly Archives: March 2023

Finale 37 – Act I Lohengrin

Wagner’s most performed opera, Lohengrin, returned to the Met this season after hiatus of 17 years. It is also the only Wagner opera we know for certain that Verdi saw in performance. This was on November 9, 1871 in Bologna. He left detailed notes on his impression of the work. The Bologna production was the…


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Politics

How can I, that girl standing there,My attention fixOn Roman or on RussianOr on Spanish politics,Yet here’s a travelled man that knowsWhat he talks about,And there’s a politicianThat has both read and thought,And maybe what they say is trueOf war and war’s alarms,But O that I were young againAnd held her in my arms. ——————-WB…


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LSO Performs Shostakovich and Shchedrin

On April 22 the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1. The soloist will be Cliburn winner Kenny Broberg. He will be joined by trumpeter Will Strieder. The second half of the evening’s program will present Rodion Shchedrin’s adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen For String Orchestra and Percussion. Tickets can be purchased…


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Robert Merrill Sings Porgy and Bess

Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess is now a standard in the operatic repertory. In 1950 a complete performance of the opera was hard to find. The best known songs from the work were often done as recital pieces or on recordings. The Met didn’t mount its first production of the opera until 1985. In 1950 two…


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Lohengrin in HD

Wagner’s most popular opera returned to the Met this season after an absence of almost 17 years. This new production was directed by François Girard with sets and costume by Tim Yip. The staging uses stark walls and a circular device through which moved a succession of moons. Stars dominated the third act. The choristers…


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Prostate Cancer and the Federal Reserve

The two subjects of the above title seem to have little in common. But they are both examples of action unmoored from knowledge. If the scientific foundation of medicine is compared to that of economics, specifically the actions of the world’s central banks, the practitioners of the former are certainly closer to the dictates of…


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Thoughts on the Building of the Tabernacle

The last two segments of Exodus are devoted to the construction of a Tabernacle. Its materials are gifts from the Israelites. These people who recently were slaves seem to have accumulated a stash of valuables of both great variety and worth during a very brief span. They even had dolphin skins. How these were acquired…


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Dreary Norma at the Met

Bellini’s bel canto masterpiece has returned to the Met with Sonya Yoncheva in the title role. American tenor Michael Spyres sang the Roman proconsul Pollione. Adalgisa was performed by Ekaterina Gubanova. The entire cast is below. The show was broadcast last night on the SiriusXm network, so this is just a recount of the singing…


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Science and Religion

That there might be an inherent conflict between religion and science was not envisioned until the Renaissance when the two disciplines emerged as distinct entities. Until that time, man, the world, God or the gods, and natural phenomena were all part of natural philosophy. Aristotle could study just about anything from literature to the heavens…


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