Music

Rap
Audio: Qualmes - Players Guidance Courtesy Qualmes. Pasadena's own Qualmes rolls up with the next release in his "Direct Deposit" series. The smooth cut titled "Players Guidance" features some dope production DannyDee. Check in soo...
Audio: Qualmes - Players Guidance Courtesy Qualmes. Pasadena's own Qualmes rolls up with the next release in his "Direct Deposit" series. The smooth cut titled "Players Guidance" features some dope production DannyDee. Check in soon for more new music!
score: 1 15 minutes ago
Rap
Perfeck Strangers LIVE This Saturday at Holla-Palooza! Catch PERFECK STRANGERS live in concert this Saturday, May 18th at Holla-Palooza going down inside Rancho Relaxo, 300 College St. in Toronto! Don't miss the super duo of Dan-e-...
Perfeck Strangers LIVE This Saturday at Holla-Palooza! Catch PERFECK STRANGERS live in concert this Saturday, May 18th at Holla-Palooza going down inside Rancho Relaxo, 300 College St. in Toronto! Don't miss the super duo of Dan-e-o and Promise as they continue to wow audiences with their incomparable stage show in support of their debut album, "Series Premiere".
score: 1 15 minutes ago
Title: Groove Divide EPArtist: MAKAROV & STEENLabel: Ex-tractFormat: 192 mp3, 320 mp3, wavTrack listing: Groove Divide A Groove Divide B Groove Divide (Aima & Eugene Lost In Space remix) Groove Divide (Aima & Eugene Lost I...
Title: Groove Divide EPArtist: MAKAROV & STEENLabel: Ex-tractFormat: 192 mp3, 320 mp3, wavTrack listing: Groove Divide A Groove Divide B Groove Divide (Aima & Eugene Lost In Space remix) Groove Divide (Aima & Eugene Lost In Dark remix) Groove Divide (D-Niel & Otiatros remix) Groove Divide (Matt Ess remix) Juno Download: Techno – New Releases
score: 1 18 minutes ago
Title: El ManikomioArtist: DJ JOSE GARCIALabel: BluntFormat: 192 mp3, 320 mp3, wavTrack listing: El Manikomio El Manikomio (Fran Denia remix) Juno Download: Minimal House/Tech House – New Releases
Title: El ManikomioArtist: DJ JOSE GARCIALabel: BluntFormat: 192 mp3, 320 mp3, wavTrack listing: El Manikomio El Manikomio (Fran Denia remix) Juno Download: Minimal House/Tech House – New Releases
score: 1 20 minutes ago
score: 1 22 minutes ago
score: 1 23 minutes ago
score: 1 24 minutes ago
According to the Royal Opera House’s new production of Rossini’s La donna del lago, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. But while the production’s vague juxtaposition of barbaric hi...
According to the Royal Opera House’s new production of Rossini’s La donna del lago, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. But while the production’s vague juxtaposition of barbaric highlanders and European-style courtiers doesn’t really work, there’s a lot of exciting singing, Joyce DiDonato as the titular aquatic lass, and Juan Diego Florez in a kilt. So there’s that. Rossini, La donna del lago. Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 5/17/2013. New production premiere directed by John Fulljames with sets by Dick Bird, costumes by Yannis Thavoris, and lighting by Bruno Poet. Conducted by Michele Mariotti with Joyce DiDonato (Elena), Juan Diego Florez (Uberto), Daniela Barcellona (Malcolm), Michael Spyres (Rodrigo), Simon Orfila (Douglas). La donna del lago is a peculiar match of style and content. The story is wildly Romantic but the musical language is a semi-anachronistic, heavily ornamented opera seria that doesn’t seem to gel with the more primal sentiments that it is expressing. (My colleague the Zwölftöner wrote about this in terms of a very different production of this same opera.) Throw in a convoluted plot and threats of fairy tale kitsch and this is a very tricky opera to stage in a dramatically interesting way. But it’s a star vehicle and Rossini singing is arguably one of the brightest corners of operatic vocalism right now, so it’s a problem that keeps coming up. John Fulljames’s production is not convincing, however. He gives us a Scottish court of Europe-oriented aristocrats, dressed in a French style and situated in something that is simultaneously a library and, the side boxes suggest, the inevitable theater-in-theater. A sentimental landscape painting of a loch covers the paneled wall at the back, and encased in glass are the human domesticated fragments of Scotland’s wild Highlands are literally encased in glass in the middle of the room. The courtiers let Elena out of her box, she’s in a white nightie looking dazed and emerges singing her opening cavatina. In disguise, the King (that would be Juan Diego) runs off into their Highland world--this is the main body of the opera’s plot. The courtiers constantly observe this action. At the end, Elena is not married into the court but paired off with fellow wild Highland spirit Malcolm, and they are both returned to their glass boxes. So I guess Fulljames is setting up a juxtaposition of wild Scottish Romanticism with the vestiges of eighteenth-century Enlightenment-era court life, something like the contrast between Walter Scott’s source and Rossini’s transformation of it. The problem is that this isn’t integrated enough to feel anything more than tacked on. Also there may have been a Rossini look-alike running around. I'm not sure if that was him or not. There are some cheap attempts to be shocking, such as the disembowelment of a goat (a small ram?) that looked so fake as to not even make my Top Five Operatic Onstage Disembowelments (what can I say, I go to see Bieito productions a lot—but seriously, I can name a whole slew of opera houses that the ROH props department could call for tips on making that carcass look more realistic), some hanging bodies at the end that show us the cost of the court’s taming of the Scottish beasts within, and finally the Highland men do the now-expected thing where they prepare for war by groping passing women, a thing I really wish productions would stop doing. I know what you’re trying to do but you’re using women as a prop to say something about the men, and that’s problematic no matter the message. The moment to moment Personenregie is not good at all, involving many stock gestures and static moments. I know that you can’t demand too much during this kind of obstacle course singing, but you can do better than this. The result was a certain dearth of character development. The cast was, ho
score: 1 25 minutes ago
score: 1 25 minutes ago
score: 1 26 minutes ago