Ulrica Reveals More

Off stage and on�

Which editorially-minded Super was reputedly nursing a mildly bruised butt after a kick from a popular out-going ASM at the last Don Carlos bake sale? Said ASM was apparently not amused by some jostling. �Twas all in fun and things could have been worse: the jostled one could have been Lotte Lenya's Rosa Klebb.

And which of Lady Macbeth 's Bolshy Boys (Messrs. Szeczuil, Harvey, Lichtman and McNaughton) carried a very graphic deck of Jeff Stryker playing cards onto the Siberian set for fun at the final performance November 22?

Lady Macbeth's winning hand

And which regular SFO baritone appearing in that scene found the cards quite interesting?

And which Bohème busboy is going to be the unlucky recipient of a pie in the face at the end of the Café Momus scene next month? More will be revealed once rehearsals start on the 19th.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck audition for SFO La Bohème

And which handsome baritone will not be shaving any Vespa-balanced acrobats in the January performances of Il Barbiere? Ulrica is of the opinion that with Figaros as good looking as this season's there's quite enough to watch during �Largo Al Factotum� anyway .

Twilight Zoning

On a recent trip to Washington, DC and Baltimore, committee member Andrew Korniej and partner Chuck Yenson went on a pilgrimage to find deceased soprano Rosa Ponselle. While driving around the massive Druid Ridge Cemetery in Baltimore they felt lost and stopped to ask directions to the main office from a couple of gravediggers. When they said they were looking for Rosa the diggers said �Well she's right here, we'll let you in� and opened the doors to the crypt where one of the greatest sopranos of the twentieth century and her sister Carmella are spending eternity. After paying their respects and playing her superb recording of �O Nome Tutelar� on the car CD player they left the by-now-eerily-deserted, scene.

As if this spooky encounter weren't enough they then went on to nearby Stevenson, Maryland, in search of Rosa's fabled home, Villa Pace. Again lost and clueless they stopped in at a small college campus and asked for help at the library desk �Why it's just across the street,� came the reply. Not seeing the celebrated wrought-iron gate decorated with the opening notes of La Forza Del Destino 's �Pace Pace Mio Dio� they cautiously drove up the drive to the white cruciform villa (modeled after Rosa's costume in the U.S. premiere of Forza at the Met in 1918 in which Rosa made her operatic debut alongside Enrico Caruso). While furtively photographing the scene Andrew and Chuck were greeted by the current and gracious lady of the house who invited them to tour the grounds and dished about the mismanagement of the Ponselle Estate and Foundation.

Rosa was most certainly guiding these two on their mission.

Rosa Ponselle outside Villa Pace, 1950s

At Home and Abroad

From Twisted Sister comes an account of how former SFO employee Chris Bergen was walking alone in London when he heard a rich mezzo-soprano voice calling his name. He turned around and came face to face with Dead Man Walking's Singing Nun, the fabulous Susan Graham, carrying a huge Burger King with fries and apparently not counting her calories�Another Burger Queen from the DMW cast, apparently, is legendary mezzo Frederica von Stade. As Supers Michael Strickland and Charlie Lichtman were chowing down at a Civic Center diner called Flipper last week, in walked Flicka with an unidentified companion and ordered a hamburger. She passed on the fries, opting for a salad instead.   

The Preferred Diet of Divas

Speaking of That Lady from Mtsensk, how nice to see Ann Panagulias back on the SFO stage. For many Supers Ann was their first leading lady, as Natasha in the 1991 War and Peace. She was superb in the 1989 production of Lulu but was inexplicably absent from major SFO roles after W&P; possibly more to do with the prejudices of the previous administration than with her prodigious gifts. Apparently Ann realized she was being taken off the roster when she noticed that her photo had been removed from a previous General Director's office wall. Welcome back Ann!

Another Ann, Ruth Ann Swenson, seems to be singing everywhere but here these days and kudos to her for touting the virtues of the criminally undervalued opera La Sonnambula in the current issue of Opera News . Ulrica still bemoans missing, by one day, a performance of Swenson singing Amina at Lisbon's San Carlos Theater in 1999.

The latest "Opera Schmooze" also offered a very nice review of SFO's Mother of Us All. Check it out. No mention of the Super children, of course.

And apologies to fashionista Brady Hamilton for misidentifying his party outfit as Prada. It was D & G! Continuing incomprehensibly with this train of thought, everyone knows that Ulrica is a great admirer of certain supernumerary nipples but she found this illustration in the current issue of Esquire entirely too confusing:

Finally, Happy Birthday to the artist who elevated Sonnambula's composer Vincenzo Bellini from a   mid-twentieth century low, the great Maria Callas. Maria would have been 80 years old this past December 2nd.

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