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Opera – Lioness at Large

Opera

Fun and Games Literature Music Reviews

Edmund Crispin: Swan Song

  Festive Tasks Master Update Post HERE   As part of my Detection Club reading project, I am slowly and intermittently making my way through Edmund Crispin’s Gervase Fen series: not, so far, in publication order, which hasn’t made much of a difference in the books I’ve read to date, though in this particular instance […]

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Cats Literature Reviews

April 2021 Reading Recap

First things first: The persistent bug preventing followers / readers to comment on my posts straight off the post (i.e., other than by using the WP Reader) has finally been weeded out, thanks to my hosting service’s IT team … so you can, at last, comment even if you’re not using the WP Reader.  (I […]

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Literature Reviews

Ngaio Marsh: The New Zealand Books, plus Grave Mistake

The first book by Ngaio Marsh that I ever read happened to be her very last one, Light Thickens, which is as much concerned with a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth as it is with the murder of one of the cast members.  To a mystery fan without any Shakespearean inclinations, this might have proved fatal, […]

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Blog Cats Lifestyle

An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “N”

This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE.  Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two items mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]

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Blog Cooking - Food - Drink Lifestyle

An Alphabet of My Likes and Dislikes: “C”

This is a post belonging to a new blogging project — the title is pretty much self-explanatory, I think; the project’s introductory post can be found HERE.  Credit for the idea: BeetleyPete. As always, the only thing linking the two things mentioned in this post in my mind is that they both start with the […]

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BookLikes Imports Fun and Games Linked Items Literature Music

My Favorite Books with Music as a Plot Element

24 Festive Tasks: Door 21 – Kwanzaa, Task 2: Music is an important part of a Kwanzaa celebration.  Which is / are your favorite book(s) where music plays an important role in the plot?   In no particular order, books (of all genres, except for artist biographies)* that I love where music plays an important […]

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BookLikes Imports Cats Linked Items Literature Music

Birthday Gifts

BD gifts: My mom gave me a ticket for Bonn Opera’s production of Händel’s Xerxes — a simply riveting, tongue in cheek production setting the story in a dictatorial fairy tale puppet theatre (yes, there is such a thing) — and my BFF raided my Ammy wishlist … as well as adding a few things […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Music

Well, well, go figure …

… who but Bonn Opera’s very own Sumi Hwang got to perform the Olympic Hymn at today’s opening ceremony in Pyong Chang?!  A short interview with her on the experience (in German) is here — she talks about this being a once in a lifetime experience that she’s now privileged to share with the likes […]

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BookLikes Imports Fun and Games Linked Items Literature Music

Halloween: Incidental Opera

 … well, sort of.  I’m not sure whether Bonn Opera actually had Halloween in mind when they scheduled the opening night of their production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (based on Walter Scott’s Bride of Lammermoor) – it’s not overly likely, though I wouldn’t put it past them – but it of course fits the […]

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BookLikes Imports Cats Fun and Games Linked Items Literature Reviews

Halloween Book Bingo 2016: Eighth Update – TRIPLE BINGO (Nos. 3-5)!

  The Books: Bingo No. 3: Witches – Terry Pratchett / Neil Gaiman: Good Omens Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s hilarious end-of-the-world spoof: Armageddon as foretold in the nice and accurate predictions of one Agnes Nutter, witch.  (Time of Armageddon: Next Saturday. Place: Tadfield, Oxfordshire.)  Starring one demon named CrawlyCrowley (who’s got just about enough […]

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BookLikes Imports Cats Fun and Games Linked Items Literature Reviews

Halloween Book Bingo 2016: Seventh Update — BINGO No. 2!

  The Books: Vampires vs. Werewolves – Terry Pratchett: Feet of Clay (Discworld #19) Part of the Night Watch subseries and officially now one of my favorite non-Witches Pratchett novels.  And I also have a new favorite non-Witches Discworld character: the Night Watch’s resident female werewolf Constable Angua, who seriously kicks a$$ (or, um, prods […]

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Fun and Games Literature Reviews

E.T.A. Hoffmann: Der Sandmann (The Sandman)

The first of three Tales of Hoffmann that were (partially) used in the libretto of Jacques Offenbach’s opera of that name; one of the works that cemented Hoffmann’s rank among the progenitors of the horror genre and also one of the (pseudo-)scientific narratives that, over 100 years later, would inspire the steampunk genre: The story […]

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BookLikes Imports Lifestyle Linked Items Literature Movies

Holiday Splurge 2015

The way things have been shaping up in the recent couple of months, the holiday season ending today was most likely my last real reprieve from fairly major (not to say time-consuming and persistent) work-related unpleasantness for the foreseeable future.   This being the case, I naturally decided to make the most of it: I […]

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Blog BookLikes Imports Lifestyle Linked Items Music

Lake Constance: Lindau and Giacomo Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ at the Bregenz Opera Festival

Back from a wonderful weekend: We’ve been going to Lake Constance to attend the Bregenz Opera Festival more or less regularly for some 10 years now, and almost every time I’ve come home claiming this was the best thing they ever produced.  This year was no exception. We left home shortly after 6:00 AM on […]

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Blog BookLikes Imports Lifestyle Linked Items Music

Turandot

I’ll be off over the weekend to see this year’s open air event at the Bregenz Opera Festival on Lake Constance – Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, complete with Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, 27 x 72 m (89 x 236 ft) Chinese Wall and terracotta army stage, and Chinese acrobats (click on any of the images to find […]

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