As it is the shortest day, I had intended to add something from the shortest opera to the playlist. Research shows that the honour of writing the shortest opera belongs to Peter Reynolds and his four minute opera The Sands of Time. Having found the full thing on You-Tube, I have decided not to add it to the playlist, but the link is here so that you can make up your own minds. If you’re looking for entertainment about how long it takes to boil an egg (which I believe is at the heart of the Reynolds opera) you could do a lot worse than listen to Loriot’s Das Ei, not an opera but still entertaining. I was looking for it on You-Tube, and suddenly find that a few hours have passed while I’ve been working my way through the Loriot catalogue. I’ve always been a fan of his written word, but had no idea there were all these videos of his work. If you need a good laugh, I can thoroughly recommend the meal on the aeroplane.
But from tears of laughter to tears of sadness … since I’m not adding the shortest opera to my playlist, I’m choosing one of my favourite operatic pieces: Mimi’s last moments in La Boheme. Tonight we’re featuring the wonderful Angela Georghui and Robert Alagno. This was probably recorded when they were young, in love and the hottest couple in opera-biz, rather than during the divorce years. And yet again, a couple of opera singers whose lives are as unbelievable as the plots in which they appear. We’re building up quite a list of these.
Like Mimi’s, my tiny hand (and feet) were frozen today, as I tramped the streets ostensibly buying stuff for the yuletide, but in reality being diverted to Lia Wolff’s fine photo-book emporium, so that’s my presents to me sorted!