Category: Blog

  • Aase Nordmo Løvberg

    Lovberdebut

    Aase Nordmo Løvberg sings “Dich, teure halle” from Wagner’s TANNHAUSER.

  • Sleepwalking Scene

    Montserrat-Caball

    I’ve re-discovered Montserrat Caballe’s atmospheric recording of the Sleepwalking Scene from Verdi’s MACBETH. Elizabeth Bainbridge and Sir Thomas Allen provide world-class support as the Gentlewoman and Doctor.

    Montserrat Caballe – Sleepwalking Scene ~ MACBETH – w Elizabeth Bainbridge and Sir Thomas Allen

    LADY MACBETH
    A spot…still here.
    Out, damned spot! I curse you!
    One, two, it is time!
    You are trembling? You do not dare to go in?
    A soldier, and a’feard?
    For shame! Come…hurry!
    Who’d have thought that old man
    could have so much blood in him?

    DOCTOR
    What did she say?

    LADY MACBETH
    The Thane of Fife,
    was he not a husband and father?
    What happened?

    GENTLEWOMAN and DOCTOR
    Oh, horror!

    LADY MACBETH
    Shall I never be able
    to clean these hands?
    There’s blood here still.
    All the perfumes of Arabia
    could not cleanse this little hand.
    Alas!

    DOCTOR
    She sighs…?

    LADY MACBETH
    Put on your nightgown. Come, wash yourself!
    Banquo is dead, and the dead
    cannot come back from the grave.

    DOCTOR
    This too?

    LADY MACBETH
    To bed, to bed …
    What’s done cannot be undone.
    Someone is knocking! Come, Macbeth…
    let not your pallor accuse you.

    GENTLEWOMAN and DOCTOR
    What terror…!
    Lord, have mercy on her…

  • The Readers

    Matisse The Readers  1933

    The Readers ~ Henri Matisse, 1933

  • EVIDENCE

    Earth-Landscape-Art-1280x1024

    I didn’t write this, but it expresses my feelings pretty accurately:

    “There is not a single shred of evidence to support the claims that the universe was created by a supernatural being, that said supernatural being authored (or edited) a book in his spare time, or that the first member of the human species was formed from dust and divine breath in a magical garden with a talking snake. There is not a shred of evidence to support the stories of ancient virgin births or of special individuals with the ability to change the molecular structure of water into the molecular structure of wine, to walk on water, and to raise the dead. There is not a shred of evidence to support the claim that believing in a supernatural being will lead one to an eternal life of happiness, nor is there any evidence to support the claim that failure to believe will result in eternal damnation.

    The fact that many millions of people believe these myths to be factual does not make them true. The fact that many millions of people find peace or take comfort from these tales in time of duress does not make them true. The fact that millions of people find these tales give meaning to their lives does not make them true. The fact that enormous institutions are constructed in support of these tales does not make any of them true. The only thing that could make them true is the same thing that makes anything true, and that is evidence.

    Without evidence there is no point in appealing to said supernatural being to relieve us from the burdens and challenges we all face. Such appeals are little more than desperate pleas in the dark. It is time to wake up and recognize these stories for what they are: fables and old wives’ tales. It is time to emerge from fantasy land and embrace reality.”

    People will point to the natural wonders of the Earth and of the universe as proof that gods exist, but the Earth and the universe simply are and there’s really no way to determine how they got here. And really – as we live from one day to the next – does it really matter how it all began?

    People will quote the Bible in support of their theory that the Christian god created and controls everything, but quoting the Bible no more proves god’s existence than quoting Tolkein’s LORD OF THE RINGS proves the existence of Middle Earth.

  • Laundresses

    Larger

    Laundresses, by Natalia Goncharova (1911)

  • The Lovers

    Couple-orlando_2

    “With drooping wings, ye cupids come
    and scatter roses on their tomb.
    Sweet and loving were their hearts…
    Keep here your watch, and never part.”

  • The Lovers

    Couple-orlando_2

    “With drooping wings, ye cupids come
    and scatter roses on their tomb.
    Sweet and loving were their hearts…
    Keep here your watch, and never part.”

  • Recordare

    Angel

    Recordare, Jesu pie,
    quod sum causa tuae viae:
    ne me perdas illa die.

    Quaerens me, sedisti lassus;
    redemisti crucem pacem:
    tantus labor non sit causas.

    Juste judex ultionis:
    donum fac remissionis
    ante diem rationis.

    Recordare – Verdi~Messa da Requiem – Luba Organasova & Anne Sofie von Otter