MERIDA, Mexico (AP) - Placido Domingo’s concert at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza on Saturday night is being billed as “the world’s greatest tenor at one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World,” a claim few lovers of opera or history would dispute.

But some Mexicans question whether the show should go on at all.

Archaeologists are pressing for criminal charges against the organizers, reviving a debate over how to use treasured ancient sites.

It’s a balancing act many countries face as they try to promote and protect their cultural heritage. As artists seek to perform in stunning places from the Great Wall of China to India’s Taj Majal and ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian structures, many worry not only about damage but also about cultural propriety.

Domingo sought to reassure his critics Thursday, saying “I know there has been some discomfort in Mexico because I was going to perform at this site, but we have taken care of every detail to carry out this event.”

Mexico’s federal government turns down almost all requests to hold concerts at ancient temples, but they are increasingly pressured by state governors to promote ruins already swamped with tourists.   …the whole thing

And now - slim is the only way to go for some opera companies.

Traditionally, it isn’t over until the fat lady sings. But it seems it will soon be over for the singing fat lady. The stereotypical large woman in a horned helmet and braids belting out Wagner is preparing for her swansong as opera embraces a new, younger audience.

The drive to reach out to these fans is resulting in slimmer, fitter and more glamorous singers on stage. New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Opera is in the vanguard of this movement, according to John Allison, editor of Opera magazine. “I have noticed the slimming down of performers,” he says, “and I think this is largely driven by the Met, which feels that audiences are more likely to connect with a glamorous, thin singer.”

Elaine Padmore, director of opera at London’s Royal Opera House (ROH), has also seen a move away from large women to more petite performers in certain roles. “We have been seeing glamorous women and handsome leading men for a time now, but this is the entertainment world, after all,” she says. “It is expected these days, when people are used to seeing beautiful people in films and on the television.” …read the whole article

It’s Saturday night, and about 15,000 people have come to Nationals Park to see a winning performance. The anticipation is palpable. Across town, decked-out folks sit in the red-velvet womb of the Kennedy Center Opera House, awaiting the live performance of Verdi’s “La Traviata.” Here, though, everyone from the teething to the tattooed has pulled up a chair or a patch of grass for the Washington National Opera’s first live simulcast into the stadium.

Watching in high definition on the JumboTron means that, as Israeli conductor Dan Ettinger stands in the orchestra pit, you can see the roosterlike combs in his gelled and spiked blond coiffure, shadows carving his face like a mask, as he stands motionless in his black frock coat. Suddenly, Ettinger lifts his baton, the fingers on his other hand vibrate and pulse as if playing the violin, and the music begins: gorgeous, symphonic sound swelling through the ballpark.

The curtain rises and we see a party, circa 19th-century Paris. There’s Violetta (soprano Elizabeth Futral), flirting and kicking back champagne, singing, “Pleasure cures every ill and life is to be enjoyed. . . . Without pleasure, life isn’t worth living.” …read the whole article.

Katharina’s [the great grand-daughter of Richard Wagner] idea of turning the Mastersingers into Masterpainters initially seems rather arbitrary and sits awkwardly with the libretto. After all, Stolzing wants to become a Mastersinger so as to win Eva’s hand in a singing competition.

All I can say is, it takes real Chutzpah, even on the part of a distant relative of Richard Wagner, to stage Die Meistersingers as Die Meisterpainters.   How do you turn an opera about singing into an opera about painting?   I guess that’s the part that “sits awkwardly.”

More fun than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick.

It’s blog opera. Because there’s not enough great opera out there to enjoy just the way it is.

Now, in the 25th anniversary year of supertitles, such systems have been embraced by companies and audiences. The benefits are obvious. Opera is a form of drama, and that basic element of the genre becomes immediately apparent, even to neophytes, when titling is used. In the early 1980s productions of Wagner’s complete “Ring” cycle were undertaken by relatively few companies. Now a “Ring” production has become a calling card for any house that wants to be taken seriously. Titles have made the difference.

With audiences able to follow Wagner’s librettos, this complex mythological tale of sacred treaties made and broken and the catastrophic mingling of gods and mortals, of curses, hatreds and impossible hopes passed down through generations, emerges as an engrossing, humane and tragic operatic epic.  …

Robert Jacobson, then the editor of Opera News, published by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, deplored supertitles as a “pathetic marketing grab for the fringe public,” adding that opera “is not a reading experience.” Then, speaking of the Met, there was James Levine. As supertitles were catching on everywhere, Anthony Bliss, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, said that even that august company was considering a tryout. But in a 1985 article for The New York Times Magazine the music critic Will Crutchfield quoted Levine as saying, “Over my dead body will they show those things at this house.”

He is still living down that statement. In 1995 the Met introduced Met Titles, a system of individual screens mounted on seatbacks. Levine has said that he dropped his objections when the Met devised a system that allowed patrons the option to turn the things off.

Yet the record reveals widespread support from the start, most critics included. Reviewing the City Opera’s “Cendrillon” production in The Times, Donal Henahan described supertitles as “a dangerous experiment in audience education that on the whole worked astonishingly well.”  …more

My advice:  Sit in the cheap seats if you don’t want to strain your neck reading them.

Soprano Joan Sutherland was picking flowers at her home in Switzerland, fell down and broke both her legs. Please send prayers and happy thoughts for a quick recovery. She’s 81 years old, God bless her.

Dame Sutherland made countless recordings, among them is Les Huguenots with my voice teacher, Anastasios “Taso” Vrenios.

Here’s Taso in the final scene from La Rondine with Teresa Stratas.