Aida sells out Orlando

Our 3-performance orlando run was a box office record for the opera. The Orlando paper gave it a fair review, although they didn't mention ME!

This weekend we do two performances in Tampa. I've got a CD loaded with performance photographs and I'll cull through to share some good ones later. Meanwhile here's a backstage pic of us soldiers with one of the dancers. more photos temporarily here

Egyptians 17 and 18

BobWill
Originally uploaded by Baritone Bob.

Fellow baritone Will poses with me backstage at the Bob Carr

Aida

I'm in rehearsals for Verdi's Aida, which opens this coming friday, 4/22. Last weekend we held the "sitzprobe" rehearsal, which is the first time all the singers and musicians come together to run through the entire opera top to bottom. Its quite thrilling to be that close to the music, and the principle singers. Everyone is full voice, no marking, and for the first time in a while we can focus on the music instead of the staging, costuming and blocking we've been stumbling through.

update: More photos being posted here!

Prior to rehearsal [click on photo for a larger image]





Our Maestro is renowned composer Anton Coppola -- of the Coppola family. He's in his 80's, and he appears to have the entire score committed to memory!

Linda's 50th is coming!

Please help us celebrate as Linda turns 50 and
bids ta ta to tamoxifen.
great food ð live music ð dancing ð swimming

Birthday cake for Dad/Seymour, the other
Taurus in the family
Saturday, May 7 , 5pm - ? pm
2915 Little John Road

Friends and family are all welcome.

make it quick and make it hip

Here's an interesting article from June 2004 Vogue magazine about the evolution in restaurant dining in America, written by a New Yorker who toured Orlando chain restaurants with an expert from the University of Central Florida. I hope to try Seasons 52 soon. The entire article follows in the comment thread...

Living Will anyone?

Editor ROBERT FRIEDMAN from the St. Pete Times really captures the gist of it for me..

"(In the event of my incapacitation...) I want the medical geniuses and philosopher kings who populate the Florida Legislature to ignore me for more than a decade and then turn my case into a forum for weeks of politically calculated bloviation.

Read the whole column here

Update: here's a humorous example of a living will crafted for political ends.