Julie Andrews, Andre Previn, and one wild Firestone album

Today I put up my Christmas tree and I am going to kick off an exploration of Christmas music.

Our pick today is Julie Andrews and Andre Previn teaming up for a Firestone classic!

Christmas is really a magical time of year when you listen to anything from the 1950s and '60s. This album, I know it inside out, from when I was a little kid. My brothers and sisters and I listened to it ALL THE TIME over the holiday season. This, and other Firestone records. They are all great. But I want to zero in today on this one.

Of course as kids we loved Julie Andrews. And we loved this record. I listened to it today as I assembled my, ahem, Kmart artificial tree, and put lights on it. It all came back to me. "Joy to the... joy to the .... Joy to the ... joy to the..." sang the Firestone Chorus at the beginning of "Joy To The World." We used to laugh ourselves silly over that.

 And we used to love Julie Andrews doing her number on "Deck the Halls" with harpsichord backing her up, and who knows what else.

These arrangements by Andre Previn!

That is what I am appreciating now!

As a kid, I do remember we liked this album. But his arrangements were over our head. Now I listen to them and I see what he is doing, and I love them. I know a little bit about Previn because Leonard Pennario worked with him. They did a great album of Rachmaninoff concertos. Here is the cover.

A couple of nice looking gentlemen there.

What do you know, that album dates to 1965, the same year as this Firestone album. That was a good year for Previn!

You can tell just by listening to his Christmas creations that Previn loved the heck out of Richard Strauss, who at the time was only recently deceased. He lifted stuff from "Rosenkavalier" for half the album. You hear the Presentation of the Rose in "Away in a Manger." And later you hear the famous waltzes. It might have been in "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" but I did not take notes, I was too tangled up in my Christmas lights. The point is, he does it so well. You would think it would be annoying but it is not.

He also gives you a lot of Handel. Even as kids we could recognize that. And he just throws in a lot of surprises and boldness and fun. As Julie Andrews is singing "Jingle Bells," the orchestra just breaks out in squalls all over the place. It is like unpredictable wild Buffalo weather. "Jingle Bells" ends the album. Julie Andrews soars up to some incredible high note on the last "sleigh." And then the orchestra blasts in with this big honk.

So much fun! Too sophisticated for kids maybe, but great for grown-ups, people into jazz and Handel and Richard Strauss. Previn is a great jazz pianist and we will have to get to that another day.

For now, grab this album and put it on your stereo, whether you are isolated or not. What a great mid-century creation it is.

It is a classic!

Operas on YouTube

YouTube is a blessing and a curse.

A blessing, because you can find almost everything you want to find.

A curse, because you do not get done all the things you are supposed to be getting done, on account of you are watching all these master classes, opera videos, documentaries, who knows what all.

The other day I happened on this performance of Richard Strauss' "Der Rosenkavalier," which, anyone who has ever peeked at this website knows how much I love it. I believe that is the CD that goes with it pictured up above. But whatever.

Son of a sea cook, I was glued to this performance!

It just touched me so much. The music that I remembered. Renee Fleming, who was just so lovely and can make you cry. I was supposed to be cooking for church and doing all this baking and I did get it done, but what could have been done in a couple of hours took a million hours. Because I was standing in the middle of the kitchen transfixed.

Then I could not watch it all in one day and so it dogged me over several days.

I thought I knew this opera. I had seen it in Toronto when I was a teenager. In my defense I have not seen it live since then. I saw it on the Metropolitan Opera simulcast several years ago. But I was working. I was doing a story on the simulcasts. And the broadcast cut off at a critical moment, right when Octavian is giving Sophie the rose. And a schuft interrupted the final trio because his cell phone rang and he answered it. And ...

Well, who cares. The point is, I realized I did not know "Der Rosenkavalier" at all. There were all these facets of it I had never considered. Not all serious stuff. Funny stuff. I mean, really funny stuff.

It's all too much. I'll have to share my observations at some point soon. I don't have the time right now. I lost too much time with this new fixation. I am trying to think what opera I should watch next.

Approach YouTube at your peril!

Sing it, Monsieur Souzay

Yesterday after church I stopped by Amvets and I bought one (1) record. It was 17 songs by Richard Strauss sung by Gerard Souzay. Gerard Souzay has made one appearance on this Web log before. But I really knew very little about him. I just know I love Strauss songs.

End result, as we say here in Buffalo, I have listened to the record twice. I just liked it.

Souzay does not have the passionate approach I love to certain songs, I found myself thinking as I listened. He is too... French. I read today that Souzay specialized in French melodie... the French answer to German lieder, which to be honest, I do not get the appeal of melodie too much.

But coming from this background he brings a certain something to the Strauss songs. If he does not "get" the raw sensuality of some of them he gets the wit of others. And...

Oh my goodness me.

Here I go looking on YouTube for some example of what I mean. And I find these films of Monsieur Souzay in what looks like the 1950s, singing this stuff.

This changes everything.

This guy is something! I listened to him singing "Zeuignung" -- it means "Dedication" -- and he's insanely good. Handsome devil, too. All this passion comes through that did not on this record I have, or else maybe I did not hear it. I will have to listen to it again.

Here he is with "Serenade." If you do not know this song, it is a very sexy song. He is inviting you to slip away with him in the dark, to be quiet so nobody hears, etc....

This song, like all of Strauss' songs, has a wonderful piano accompaniment. Souzay's pianist was Dalton Baldwin, excellent. Make sure you watch Souzay through the end of the video. The end of the song thrilled me when I was a teenager. "And in the morning, when the rose blooms, it will glow from the bliss of the night." Watch his face.



Wow, what a live one! You never see anyone going for broke the way he does singing these songs. He really feels it! He is thinking of every line of that song. In all my years listening to Lieder I have honestly never seen anything like this.

One person comments on the "Zeuignung" video, "I studied with him three years." How would you study with this guy? You would walk in and not be able to sing. Imagine him looking at you. Imagine him saying, "No, you should sing it like this." That French aspect I was criticizing before, he turned that into a strength, that is for sure.

Anyway. There is a lot out there waiting to be explored. And I will explore it.

Merci, Monsieur Souzay!

Merci, Amvets!

The Strauss Frau

Yesterday as we brooded over the story of Richard and Pauline Strauss, I was curious to find more pictures of Pauline de Ahna Strauss. This extraordinary woman, in the words of liner note author extraordinaire Robert Jones.

Let us devote to her a photo page.

Above is Pauline in Richard Strauss' now obscure early opera "Guntram." They met when she played this role, which was Freihild. This opera sounds like a Wagner knockoff. We will have to explore it.

It would be nice to find a picture that gave her a less severe look at her face. Oh, man. Look at this. Richard and Pauline, around the time that they met! Look at that baby face on Strauss. It gives you a whole new image of his personality.

This came from this Web log Interlude. It has an interesting account with the byline of Georg Predota of the romance between the Strausses. The author writes:  "When Richard composed his autobiographical tone poem “Ein Heldenleben”, the Hero’s companion is clearly modeled after Pauline. Strauss writes, “It’s my wife I wanted to portray. She is very complex, very much a woman, a little depraved, something of a flirt, never twice alike, every minute different to what she was the minute before."

By all accounts they really did love each other, you know?

A painting of Pauline.

A pretty picture.

Mr. and Mrs. Strauss.

They do seem to have loved each other, you know?

No explaining the heart!

The riches of 'Great Men of Music'

On my Leonard Pennario web log today I bragged about scoring a whole bunch of Time Life Great Men of Music at Amvets. What a haul!

Is there anything more irresistible than a big pile of classical records you do not really need? It was like Christmas. I did not want to come up to bed because I was sitting on the couch with Mahler and Strauss.

As I confided on the other web log, I love these sets for their booklets. CDs, because of their size, cannot have these luxurious booklets, with big photos to feast your eyes on, beautiful layouts that you can read comfortably while they are spread out on your lap. It fosters concentration, you know? You sit there with the booklet in your lap, or simply the record jacket in your lap, and that is where you remain, glancing at it now and then as you listen.

The Strauss record tells the story of him and his soprano wife, Pauline. It is very nicely written, by someone named Robert Jones. Did he go to Bob Jones University? Wherever he went it speaks well for their writing program, unless he is like me and just writes what comes out of his head.

Anyway, he writes about how Pauline would harangue Strauss but Strauss apparently enjoyed it, took it in some kind of humor. At the end of Strauss' life:

Back in Switzerland, Strauss battled kidney infections and coped with Pauline, whose fits and rages made them unwelcome in one hotel after another. Finally they found sanctuary at the Palace Hotel in Montreux, the only establishment willing to tolerate this extraordinary woman. Andit was there that Ricahrd Strauss composed his last tribute to music, to the soprano voice, to Pauline, and to his own life: the Four Last Songs. Amazingly, they were equal to the greatest music he ever created.

In May 1949 Strauss returned to Garmisch, having the previous year been cleared by a court in Munich of any taint of collaboration with the Nazis. Seriously ill, he was put to bed, suffering from a kidney stone that at his age was inoperable. Before he sank into his final coma he quoted a line from "Tristan": "Greet all the world for me." And to Alice Strauss, his daughter-in-law, he observed, "Dying is just as I composed it in 'Death and Transfiguration.'"

Richard Strauss died peacefully in his sleep on the afternoon of Sept. 9, 1949. He was 85. At his cremation three days later the trio from "Der Rosenkavalier" was sung.

Pauline Strauss -- that strange woman with the voice that haunted the pages of her husband's music, that termagant whom nobody but Richard Strauss understood -- lived for less than nine months after his death. At 87, on May 13, 1950, Pauline followed her faithful Richard into eternity -- in a towering rage, one likes to think, at having been kept waiting.

Beautiful.

It is funny, whenever anyone preaches to us about composers and their muses no one ever mentions Strauss and his wife. I had no idea she was that bad, you know? I mean, to be run out of hotels! But how interesting. All you hear about his Robert and Clara Schumann. I want to hear about Richard and Pauline Strauss. This booklet said he wrote that passionate song "Cacilie" the night before their wedding. To have a song like that ....



... written about you!! Wouldn't you die??

Hahaha... that pianist is scrambling ... but we get to hear Jussi Bjoerling. That high note at the end!! Have you ever heard anyone hold it that long? The guy is like a steam engine. Maestro, you go!

Where was I?

Oh yes. Anyway this is why I buy these box sets.

I will post other things I discover.

Bedroom community

 Ben Heppner singing the Italian Singer's Aria from "Der Rosenkavalier" ... that is so last week.

This week it is Jonas Kaufmann.

Howard and I were laughing yesterday at how Jonas handles the part. He behaves so Italian! He kind of swaggers good-naturedly in and is all smiles and charm.

The old guys watching the score are completely believable.

This clip comes from Baden-Baden, Germany, where part of my family is from. The costumes are kind of creative. They are modern era but somehow fit in among the wigs and breeches of the footmen. I always enjoy this scene, where the Marschallin is receiving petitioners in her bedroom. Imagine that, you hold court in your bedchamber for this parade of people who are bowing and scraping.

One thing bugs me, though. I am not impressed with the bed. This big, sloppy, lumpy bed, it looks like the futon in my old apartment.

But the singing, no problem with that. Kaufmann always sounds like a baritone to me. Something mysterious is going on there. He brings a lot of power to the aria and also I like his sense of fun.

Bravo!

More Strauss by moonlight

I cannot stop observing Strauss' birthday. It is like in the Catholic Church when we have a big feast day, like Easter or Pentecost or Christmas, there is an Octave of it. It means that for a week you just stop and think about it.

Perhaps I will do that for Strauss.

There is this clip from "Rosenkavalier" I watched last night.



It has Anneliese Rothenberger as Sophie. I never knew what she looked like. Always loved her singing.

The great Erich Kunz has a cameo as Herr von Faninal, her father. Of course I am partial to him having the same name. But he is so charming. It is not just me. Look at the spin he puts on his one famous little line about "That's what they do, young people." He is so humorous, so human. Dear Uncle Erich. Superb.

And Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the Marschallin, following him. So blindingly beautiful. And her famous "Ja, ja," in answer to Erich Kunz. So much hinges on those two syllables. They are a pivotal line in opera. A soprano can do so many things with them.

Look at how she gives Octavian a look on her way out. And how he responds to it. How he kisses her hand and does not want to let it go.

Something is going on there.

Then the beautiful ending. Warning: Watch this carefully because you should not watch it twice. This is already listening like a pig, just listening to the ending of this opera. You do not want to do that too often.

Beautiful!

You know what, I am going to go out on a limb here and say: Greatest composer of the 20th century. I know he was born in the 1800s, and he wrote his first pieces in the 1800s. But in the 20th century I do not think anyone topped him. Not even Mahler, and trust me, I love Mahler like my life. I do not think anyone topped Strauss.

Strauss, who was not even out for greatness.

Terry Teachout at the Wall Street Journal did this column a while ago, that sometimes you are great by not trying to be great. And that people trying to be great failed, because they got too tangled up in their ambitions. I think I linked to it at the time.

Anyway there is something touching about Strauss and how he did not strive for greatness, and achieved it anyway. I read that he was confused by how Mahler always wanted to be redeemed. Strauss said something like, "When I sit down at my desk, I don't think about redemption. What did Mahler mean?"

Come to think of it, when it comes down to it, I do not know how you choose between those two men, those two artists. They are too different. It is the proverbial apples and oranges. And I love them both in different ways. I think they may have been made to go through history together. I think God might be looking down on them smiling.

But anyway, Richard Strauss.

Tremendous.

Strauss by moonlight

I get in under the wire to observe Richard Strauss' birthday. Here I love Richard Strauss and write about him all the time and yet I am going around all day, la la la la la, without realizing June 11 is his birthday.

I just cannot retain a lot of people's birthdays. I have too much going on in my life.

Es tut mir leid, Herr Doktor Strauss. That means I am sorry. I remember that from German class.

That is a picture up above of Strauss that I love, where he has an Afro and looks like a rocker.

There is so much of Strauss I love. I love anything by Strauss. Here is the "Moonlight Music" from "Capriccio." I first heard this on piano because being a nerd when I was a teenager, I had a vinyl copy of "Kraemerspiegel," this song cycle it was originally from. I loved it right away without knowing this part of it was famous and he had reused it later. I used to play it all the time.

This is what I love about having a Web log! It is all about me!

 

 Here is a Richard Strauss song I love, "Heimliche Aufforderung." Only the Germans could come up with a romantic song like this, so sensual, so seductive, and call it "Heimliche Aufforderung." I am telling you.

No one can sing this song like Nicolai Gedda. This is the greatest.



"And weave the splendor of roses into your hair ... Oh, come, you wonderful, longed-for night!!"

I will never forget listening to that when I was 17.

Let's try Jonas Kaufmann.

 

Close ... but no cigar. You must be Nicolai Gedda to sing this song, I am sorry. Other singers need not apply.

The great, great Nicolai Gedda is still among us. He was born in 1925 and his birthday is a month from today.

We must remember to observe it! We should all get together and get Nicolai Gedda trending on Twitter and on Yahoo.

Meanwhile, a toast to Richard Strauss.

What smoldering music he wrote.

The folks I met at the Met

What with talking about my weird experiences at the Metropolitan Opera Simulcast I  never got around to mentioning my other impressions on the production of "Der Rosenkavalier."

One thing, I forgot how adult the whole opera is. My sister Katie teaches high school German and was thinking of taking her class and I say, "Achtung!" This is really a sex comedy like "The Marriage of Figaro" and before I took high schoolers with all their friends I would really think twice.

Another thing, I am not sure that the big screen, with all those huge closeups, works with an opera like this. From a distance you can suspend disbelief and the "trousers role" works: You can imagine Susan Graham being a man. Up close it is tough. Although I do give Susan Graham credit for capturing those male mannerisms. I once interviewed a singer about doing that for "Hansel and Gretel." She was playing Hansel and she told me about the adjustments you have to make when you are playing a boy. I thought Susan Graham did that beautifully.

Amazing, that Renee Fleming and Susan Graham sang "Rosenkavalier" together at the Met 10 years ago. At the Simulcast I learned that on intermission the camera takes you backstage. You glimpsed Fleming and Graham walking offstage and they kind of clasped hands for a moment before going their separate ways. Old buddies in this opera.

As Sophie, I thought Christine Schaefer was a bit too stern and moody. Poor Octavian, he was trading in one moody woman for another. Well, maybe that is his type.

I had forgotten the magnificence of the Baron Ochs role. Forgive me: The last time I saw this opera all the way through, I was 16.  Our Ochs in this production was terrific. They brought him in from Finland. He has a beautiful name,  Kristinn Sigmundsson. He was a biologist, imagine that! That is he in the picture up above except it is a different Sophie.

Sigmundsson was a wonderful Ochs. He had all these great comic touches, such as after Faninal kisses his hand you see him wipe his hand off on the back of the jacket of one of his manservants. Ha, ha! You had to look closely to see that but I did. His manservants all looked like guys out of "Monty Python," unkempt and rough. When Ochs came out for his curtain calls he blew kisses to the audience. On the second intermission the camera followed him backstage and you saw him walking through backstage in his red coat like a big live nerve. Radiating life and humor and fun. And acting like Ochs, as if he owns the place.

They asked him something about how he approached the role and what he thought of Baron Ochs.

He gloated: "The opera was almost named after me!" Which, amazingly, it was. The working title was "Ochs von Lerchenau." It is incredible to imagine it being called that now, accustomed as we are to the romantic title "Der Rosenkavalier."

Then Sigmundsson said: "There is a little bit of Ochs in all of us."

Ain't that the truth!

There was a more than a little bit of Ochs in the guy behind me in the theater, I have to say that. Well, I griped about that already. I have to put that behind me.

Ochs is supposed to be this bumptious German of the worst type but here is one thing: Those glorious romantic waltzes, they all come from Ochs' music. You can tell that Strauss viewed this oaf with affection. He liked Ochs. It shows in the music.

Funny, when Ochs looks at Octavian and says, "I see myself in him." So does it work out that Octavian was in reality Ochs' son? It sure looked that way to me.

It is great that Ochs in English is the exact same thing, ox. We can get the joke.

It is also great that the stereotypes of the little servant boy and the Italian tenor hang on. Nice of the world to respect that they are needed in the opera.

My mother cried at the ending. When the servant boy skips in to pick up the handkerchief. That is such a beautiful ending and the little boy who played the part did it so well.

What a masterpiece that opera is, from the first second to the last.

Richard Strauss, Deal Maker

Yesterday my friend Carl Herko and I got to kidding around about Richard Strauss and witty things Strauss, pictured above, said. Carl brought up the quote: "Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them."

After laughing about that, I was joking to him that we should come out with "The Quotable Richard Strauss."

With which, there is this site www.thinkexist.com which gives you lists of people's quotes. Isn't this a tremendous era in which to live? You never have to do any work. You just hit a few computer keys.

The trombone quote is up there front and center on the Strauss page.

Then there is this:

“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.”

Strauss was wrong about that. He was a first-rate composer. Another funny thing about that quote, I heard it attributed to W. Somerset Maugham who said it about himself as a writer. It seems to me I have heard it attributed to other composers too.

That might be one of those quotes that flies around. Like the famous, "There are just two kinds of music, good music and boring music." I have heard it ascribed to Mozart, Rossini and Duke Ellington, to name just three.

Back to the quotable Strauss. What else did he say?

“The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.”

Fine, that sounds good.

Wait, what's this?

“Building brand name is key. That's what America is all about." I did not know Strauss had opinions about America but I like that!

And:

“We've actually been at the low-end of the Street range for the fourth quarter ... (and) felt that we had to go even lower, so we did -- a nine percent across-the-board trimming here for the fourth quarter, ... The backlogs are still very significant, but the current environment is just not allowing deals to get done.”

Hahahahaha! The thing about the brand names I maybe could have swallowed but not that second one.

There must be two Richard Strausses and the computer could not tell that.

“It's a wonderful networking opportunity. I've definitely furthered deals. I meet high-level and influential people here, and it's a good way to touch base." That is another quote from The Other Richard Strauss.

The other Richard Strauss must be something like Bruce Wasserstein, who warranted a big obituary the other day in the Wall Street Journal. I loved the obituary's headline: "Bruce Wasserstein, Deal Maker."

That is a great way to be remembered!

Hey, you never know, maybe the two Richard Strausses are the same person after all.

I seem to recall that Strauss was a Gemini.

Tough love

Last night I heard this overwhelming recital by the violinist Elmar Oliveira. That is a picture of Mr. Oliveira above. He plays the way he looks, I will tell you that!

Uncompromising!

Oliveira did the Strauss violin sonata which is a piece I love. I mean, Richard Strauss. He looks in pictures like a piece of old furniture.


Well, here is a picture of him with what almost amounts to an Afro. I have never seen this picture before, what are the odds of that?


People sometimes describe Richard Strauss as "bourgeois" and I can see why. I mean, look at him. He was quiet and German and Catholic and happily married to a wife who bossed him around all the time.

Then this music comes out of him.

I mean, this is not just normally romantic music. It is delirious and listening to it you cannot help but wonder.

You have to wonder what people thought when they heard that music back when Richard Strauss was among us. I wonder if anyone said to him: "Oh! Mr. Strauss!"

I personally would have blushed when I saw him.

Here is the movement of the Strauss sonata that got me. This is a beautiful sonata. It is the sonata Jascha Heifetz went to bat for in Israel. They did not want him to play it because of the bitterness over World War II but he played it anyway, even though the audiences would not applaud. Finally he got beat up for it. These thugs beat him up. That is a terrible thing to think about.

Leonard Pennario told me all about Heifetz and from what I understand he could be a pain but he was in his own way a man of principle.

I wish I could find a recording by Oliveira or Heifetz but this is the best I could find on YouTube. This violinist Sayaka Shoji does a good job but Oliveira, he just dug into it with so much more passion.

After lastnight maybe they will all sound like weenies.

Nightmare at Covent Garden

Weirdo Wagner staging is something we do enjoy chewing on from time to time. So I ate up this commentary on the performance of the "Ring" cycle conducted by Valery Gergiev going on right now at Covent Garden in London. That is a slice of it pictured above.

How can you take an opera seriously when characters are wearing floor-length fluorescent wigs?

Can't they just let us enjoy the opera, you know?

I know Wagner was a mean man but we can still enjoy his creations. Please just let us enjoy them. But oh, everyone has to get in the way. Everyone wants to be new and different.

Got to at least get Wotan into a business suit.


Ha, ha! See, I just got on Google Images and did a search for "Wotan Business Suit" and all these pictures come right up! The above business suit is from once when Pierre Boulez conducted a "Ring" at Bayreuth.

Wagner takes the biggest hit in this department because he was a baddie and I believe people feel guilty encouraging other people to enjoy his music. But this sort of thing happens occasionally to other composers too.

Once I dragged my husband, Howard, to "Salome" at the Canadian Opera Company. He was new to opera and I thought, this would be a good first. It's only 90 minutes long, it's a Bible story everyone knows, it's taut and violent and the music is arresting. I love the music of Richard Strauss and I cannot imagine anyone else not loving it.

Guess what happened?

They managed to make the thing so confusing that even I had trouble following it! Some figures were in robes, some in modern dress, a video screen took the place of the "Dance of the Seven Veils." I have seen good production at the Canadian Opera Company but this was not one. The whole thing was pretentious and silly.

Result: Howard is still new to opera.

These wacky stagings, they are everywhere. It is an annoying and boring situation.

I do not see it getting better in our lifetimes.

If music be the food of love...

In honor of Valentine's Day may I present a bouquet of music by Richard Strauss. Look at that beautiful poster up above that I found on the Internet. It is celebrating Richard Strauss Week in Munich in 1910.

Here is a song I love and only got to know about five years ago. This is "Cacilie" and here it is sung by Jessye Norman. Dear Jessye, she looks so beautiful. Look at that hair. And what I love is her expression, her body language. Talk about throwing yourself into this blissful song!

What a sentiment there in that poem at the end. "If you only knew it, you would LIVE WITH ME!" Who could argue with that?

Here is Miss Norman from the same recital singing "Zuignung," or "Dedication." This song and I have been friends since my teen-hood. It has the same kind of euphoric finish as "Cacilie."

Naturally these songs would be even better with piano but we take what we can get. One thing I like about these videos is there are English subtitles.

Here is the last scene of "Der Rosenkavalier" which I know I have mentioned before but what the heck, it is Valentine's Day, give me a pass. Click on "info" and you can find out what is going on. It is evil how they cut off the ending! You want to see the little servant boy run in and grab the dropped handkerchief. Fie on them. Fie!

Still, what a performance. Briggite Faessbinder, what an actress. If it weren't for her voice you could swear she was a young man. She is quite the gender-bender! She did a wild "Winterreise" once, too. That is a song cycle written to be sung for a man and only recently women have begun to sing it a little bit more.

In the last scene of "Rosenkavalier" it has to be a challenge for the singers, I always think, to act romantic without giggling. Once in my college days I lived with two gals who were gay. They came in once while I was watching, you guessed it, "Rosenkavalier," and they got hooked and soon they're watching it too. And at the end, they couldn't believe it. "Lesbian opera!" one of them exclaimed.

I have not thought of that in years!

What else do we have in our little bag of Valentine's treats today?

Oh, I remember. There is this little video sent in by Prof. G that shows Strauss himself, in person. Thank you, Prof. G, and may pink and white candy hearts rain down upon you!

In the video Strauss is being greeted at Bayreuth in 1936 by Winifred Wagner(the widow of Wagner's son Siegfried) and a crabby-acting Heinz Tietjen who was in charge of opera in the Third Reich. The circumstances are regrettable but it is so dear to see Strauss, so touching how he waves to the camera as he is getting out of the car. It is as if he is waving to us years later.

Now that is a romantic thought.