Gems: Maestro Rowan Atkinson

Humour

A little about me: I'm a fan of conductors, parodies, and Mr. Bean. So, here's all three, in the form of Rowan Atinkson hilariously taking the podium for Beethoven's 5th. Hilarious, but also legitimately brilliant. Enjoy!

Concert etiquette, or put down your phone

Humour

Alright, so I've been thoroughly enjoying the 2015/16 season of opera and concerts so far, but I'm a little dismayed that it's only November and we already need to talk about concert etiquette.

Gems: Millan & Faye's Top 10 Opera Deaths

Humour

Singing through tuberculosis, poisonous leaves, or death by high note? Millan & Faye are soprano and opera comedienne Kyra Millan, and pianist and straight man extraordinaire Tina Faye. In this hilarious short, they opera's ten best death scenes in under 5 minutes. I'll admit to laughing out loud at Rigoletto.

Gems: The Operatic Alphabet

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Opera comedienne duo Millan & Faye are soprano Kyra Millan and Tina Faye, pianist extraordinaire. In this little short, they go right back to basics with their operatic stylings of...the alphabet. Talk about singing on your consonants.

Gems: Barbara Hannigan does comedy

Humour

Canadian soprano, conductor, and general Renaissance woman Barbara Hannigan has been on my mind lately, largely because she's in Toronto Oct 7th and 8th to conduct and to sing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Hannigan's website has tons of video gems available to view, one of which stuck out as a must-share.

Public practicing & pet peeves

Humour

Singers, I love you all. You're brave folks, putting in literally endless hours of practice, taking all the criticism with a smile, getting up in front of bored-faced crowds to bare your souls. I always admire you guys, and never envy your jobs. But singers, let's chat about singing in undesignated areas.

So, can we hear hologram Callas soon?

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Whitney Houston's hologram will sing a concert next year at "a major U.S. venue" next year. Pat Houston, president of the Whitney Houston Estate and Greek billionaire Alki David, CEO of Hologram USA, are working together on this latest hologram concert venture; Whitney's image will be shown onstage "the same way that Tupac and Snoop Dogg interacted onstage at Coachella," according to David.

Gems: Beauty Pageant Opera

Humour

It's rare, but I just love it when it happens: beauty pageant opera. It usually happens one of two ways for me: predictably not great, or surprisingly good. When I'm listening to the former, I'm wondering how they picked their aria, trying to hear their singing background in their sound, all very judgy things that I scold myself over almost immediately.

If you could accessorize with opera...

Humour

Accessories designer Diana Broussard is introducing a new resin handbag this November. This doesn't seem like a topic worthy of an opera blog, but stay with me. The handbag comes equipped with an LCD screen, and wearers can play video and audio of their choice, whatever goes best with your outfit, I suppose.