My thoughts on the Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff, and a certain television show produced in Cardiff, will follow shortly. Hopefully within the next week, backdated. Chinese bass Shen Yang won the Main Prize (he's only 23! A baby by bass standards!), English coloratura soprano Elizabeth Watts won the Song Prize, and South African baritone Jacques Imbraillo won the Audience Prize.
And happy Father's Day to all fathers out there. I'm a little distant from this holiday as my father has been dead for 25 years. Maybe next year I'll do a post on all the wonderful father/daughter duets in opera (thank you, Giuseppe Verdi). A pity there are comparatively few for moms.
I do have a new Father's Day ritual, though - watching an episode of aforementioned television show entitled "Father's Day".
2 comments:
My new Father's Day ritual. . . .
It would doubtless in most cases be impossible to persuade Dr. Who fans otherwise, but for my money (recently $49 to Amazon for Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Two), the greatest of all Father’s Day productions is the 1951 animated Chuck Jones classic “A Bear for Punishment.” In this, “Pa” bear is clobbered with an unwanted breakfast in bed, blown up by a pipe filled with gunpowder rather than tobacco, chased with a jagged-edged straight razor, and, finally, dunked head first into flower and transformed into the Statue of Liberty per patriotic burlesque show finale. I don’t think this has been shown uncut on commercial television for some years, though, when I was growing up, shielding kids from violence was not such a concern. The last time I saw it, the pipe/gunpowder incident had been expurgated, as was “Pa” slamming an alarm clock into “Junyer’” Bear’s face. (The likelihood of some kid actually blowing up his dad with gunpowder seems slim, but, admittedly, the business with the clock might provide a bad example.)
Well worth $49. Really.
Sounds interesting - and vaguely familiar. But that's clearly meant to be funny, whereas "Father's Day" is just about the only episode of "Doctor Who" I've seen in 22 years that made me nearly cry. Oh, and "Human Nature/"The Family of Blood", not yet shown in the US. But that's by the same author, Paul Cornell.
Post a Comment