Hey! Wottheheck is going on? I just checked the "Brunnhilde" link in my post above and it's definitely NOT the one I intended to post. In fact, I've never seen the image before! This, apparently, is the one Stilly was commenting on.

I googled images of Brunnhilde and picked one showing her dressed in essentially Viking battle armor, with a spear in one hand, shield in the other, standing on a rocky promontory and surveying the scene below her. Most impressive!

Also, I checked the link on "Preview," and it was the right one, so I hit "Submit Message," then checked again, and it was still the right one.

This morning I took a look and the image is entirely different! Wotthehell hoppen!??

Anyway, lemme try it againd and see what happens:    CLICKY.

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On the Classic Arts Showcase channel, I've seen a clip of Natalie Dessay singing the "Mad Scene" in Lucia di Lammermoor. WOW!!!

The opera is adapted from Sir Walter Scott's novel, "The Bride of Lammermoor," adapted to the opera stage by Gaetano Donizetti.

The Lammermoors and the Ravenscrofts have been feuding for generations.   One day, Lucy is walking in the woods nearby, and is attacked by a wild boar. A young man appears in the nick of time, kills the boar, saving her. It turns out the young man is Edgar of Ravenswood.

They continue meeting surreptitiously in the woods, and, of course, they fall in love (basic Romeo and Juliet plot). Edgar, who is very poor, tells her that he will go to France, recoup his wealth, then go to the head of the Lammermoor family, Lucy's brother Henry, make peace with him, and ask him for her hand in marriage—joining the two families and ending the feud.

While he is away, Lucy's brother Henry learns that she and Edgar have been seeing each other, and intercepts Edgar's letters to Lucy. Lucy, not hearing from him, is in despair, afraid that he has abandoned her.

In the meantime, the Lammermoor family is having financial problems of its own, so Henry arranges to have Lucy married to the wealthy Lord Arthur Bucklaw. Lucy refuses, but under heavy pressure from Henry, including his lying to her and telling her that he has heard that Edgar has married someone else, the miserable Lucy agrees to Henry's demands, not caring what happens to her at this point.

A few moments after the wedding contract is signed by both Lord Arthur and Lucy, in bursts Edgar, just back from France (the famous "sextet" takes place at this point). Edgar, thinking Lucy has betrayed him, curses her. He and Henry agree to meet the following morning for a duel and end the feud forever, one way or another, then he stalks out, furious and bewildered. Lord Arthur stands there with a finger up his nose, wondering what the hell is going on. And Lucy is starting to come unglued!

In the next scene, Arthur and Lucy have adjourned to their chamber and the wedding party is having a jolly good time, when a maid appears and announces to the party that Lucy has just killed Lord Arthur Bucklaw with a dagger. As the crowd stands around with their mouths open, Lucy appears at the top of the stairs with blood stains—Arthur's—all over her wedding dress.

CLICKY.

WARNING. This scene lasts about twenty minutes. But the singer is the aforementioned French coloratura soprano, Natalie Dessay.

I have seen this opera a couple of times on television and once live at Seattle Opera, and Natalie Dessay's "Mad Scene" is the best I've seen, both singing and acting.

[The only thing I DON'T like about this rendition is the tendency on the part of some opera directors to "update" the staging and costumes of operas set in historical eras. As I recall, in the Seattle Opera production, the men were wearing kilts. Most appropriate.]

Some decades back, I saw "Lucia" on television with the great soprano Joan Sutherland singing the role. The voice was great—but Dame Joan just STOOD there for the whole thing, essentially motionless, with her hands clasped like a little choir girl, and sang straight to the audience.

In addition to having a first class singing voice, Natalie Dessay is a fantastic actress!

Don Firth