Good Wednesday morning.
I readily and proudly admit to having been a theater/band nerd as a middle and high school kid. I wasn’t terribly good at it, mind you.
Good enough to a small-ish, yet integral part in our 10th grade rendition of “The Music Man” – I was Winthrop, and my parents may well have worried that the lisp I adopted might be a permanent feature – but never featured in a starring role.
I really was more of an enthusiast than anything else, and that might have been due to the fact that I was introduced to musical theater at a very young age.
I distinctly remember attending quite a few local Gilbert and Sullivan performances in which a family friend starred. At one time, I could sing the “Modern Major General” song from “The Pirates of Penzance” from memory. No small feat, that.
I also saw a fair number of Broadway shows in my youth, starting with “Annie” and moving on to “Tap Dance Kid” and “A Chorus Line.” I think there were others, but those are the ones I can remember clearly.
This was a birthday treat that my grandfather – my father’s father – gave me every year, after I graduated from the circus somewhere in my late pre-teen years. This was our routine: Lunch at McDonald’s (always a Filet O’Fish and small fries) followed by a show, during which he would be certain to fall asleep and snore loudly enough to be embarrassing. It never varied.
As I got older I branched out and saw some shows on my own, including but not limited to: “Chicago,” “Avenue Q“, “Les Miserables” (AKA “Les Miz”), and “Rent.”
That last one was a gateway for me, because it turned me on to opera. If you aren’t in the know, “Rent” (circa 1996) was loosely based on the 1886 opera “La boheme.”
Though the settings are entirely different – the former set in the Lower East Side and the latter in Paris – they both deal with the tragedy of star-crossed love, the strength of friendships, and the inner workings of a subset of the counter-culture community (artists and creatives) who are struggling with poverty and disease (in the first case, AIDS, in the second, tuberculosis).
“La boheme” was the first opera I ever saw, and that didn’t happen until I was in graduate school. It was at the Met.
I remember being worried that the whole thing would feel inaccessible and highbrow – especially since I don’t speak Italian – but that wasn’t the case. The translation via “Met Titles“, which appear in the seats in front of you, helped a lot. The singing was beautiful, the costumes and the sets were amazing. It was just all around good.
I can’t say the same for every opera I’ve ever seen, sadly. It turns out that I have very traditional taste in operas. I love the Queen of the Night’s aria in “The Magic Flute,” which is basically as high a level athletic performance as I’ve ever witnessed.
I don’t like experimental and discordant operas, and I have really tried to like them. Even the amazing setting of Glimmerglass wasn’t enough to sway me.
Opera dates back centuries as an art form. It originated in Florence, where a Greek drama set to music in the late 1500s is believed to be the first ever version of this particular genre. From there, two types of opera emerged – the comedies, which were meant to entertain the masses, and the stately or serious versions, for the noble set.
Today is World Opera Day. I know most people feel some kind of way about the opera. Maybe you love it. Maybe you hate it. Maybe today is the day you give it a try.
It’s going to be another unusually warm day – closing in on 70 degrees – with partly-to-mostly cloudy skies.
In the headlines…
In harrowing detail, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother described her 17-day ordeal as a hostage, offering for the first time a captive’s account of the armed Palestinian group Hamas’s subterranean garrison beneath Gaza.
Yocheved Lifshitz said she was forced to walk on wet ground and descended into an underground tunnel system she likened to a spiderweb, where she was greeted by “people who told us we believe in the Quran” and promised “not to harm” the hostages.
Talks about the possible release of hostages among Hamas, the Qataris and the Israelis, with U.S. involvement, are continuing, and freeing a larger number of captives is being discussed.
The secretary general of the United Nations said that the attacks by Hamas that left 1,400 people dead in Israel were “appalling” but did not justify the “collective punishment” of civilians in the Gaza Strip. He called for a humanitarian cease fire.
The surging death toll foretells even greater loss of life ahead in Gaza, where Israeli forces are expected to launch a ground invasion seeking to destroy Hamas. Fuel shortages and the bombardment forced the shutdown of medical facilities.
U.S. spy agencies believe that the blast at a Gaza hospital a week ago was caused by a Palestinian rocket that suffered engine failure and broke apart into two pieces, with the warhead striking the hospital’s compound, intelligence officials said.
Senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said that the civilians Hamas captured on Oct. 7 would be freed if Israel stopped attacking targets associated with the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman agreed to eventually “build on” the US-brokered negotiations that had been underway to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia before the outbreak of the Gaza war, the White House said.
The B-52s are bowing out of their White House performance at the state dinner for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with Jill Biden suggesting the band would opt out due to the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health will need at least one Republican vote to advance after Sen. Bernie Sanders — angry that Biden isn’t doing more to lower drug prices — said Tuesday he’d oppose her.
Biden saw his lowest favorability and job approval numbers among New York voters since taking office, a new Siena College poll revealed.
According to the poll, Biden has a negative 45-52% favorability rating, down from 50-45% last month, and a negative 46-51% job approval rating, down from 47-48% last month.
One year before the presidential election, Biden and Donald Trump each command 37% of the vote in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll − with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. costing Trump what would have been a narrow lead.
Kennedy, scion of the nation’s most revered Democratic family, won 13% of the vote in a hypothetical match-up, drawing voters who by 2-1 said they would otherwise support the probable Republican nominee.
Biden’s name will not be on the Democratic primary ballot in New Hampshire in 2024, both his campaign and state Democratic Party confirmed.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote to the NH party that “while the president wishes to participate in the Primary,” he is “obligated” to comply with the Democratic National Committee’s presidential nominating calendar.
According to a primary calendar first proposed by the president himself, South Carolina will be the first state to hold a primary that awards delegates for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next year.
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid for speaker hours after securing his divided party’s nomination, after a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald Trump, left his candidacy in shambles.
Rep. Mike Johnson won the GOP nomination for House speaker last night, defeating Rep. Byron Donalds and becoming the fourth speaker designate selected by his party since Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s historic removal as speaker — and the second in a single day.
After the Republican conference meeting ended, Johnson, a little-known social conservative from Louisiana, spoke briefly to reporters and said that his intention is to go the House floor today for a noon vote. He will need 217 votes to win.
“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said, standing beside dozens of other Republicans in a show of unity after he was nominated. “This House Republican majority is united.”
Jenna Ellis, a pro-Trump lawyer who amplified the former president’s baseless claims of election fraud as part of what she called a legal “elite strike force team,” pleaded guilty as part of a deal with prosecutors in Georgia.
Ellis agreed to be sentenced to five years of probation, pay $5,000 in restitution and perform 100 hours of community service. She has written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.
Trump ‘s attorney fired off a barrage of new attacks this week against the federal charges accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, filing nearly 100 pages of court papers seeking to have the case thrown out before it reaches a jury.
Trump faced Michael Cohen yesterday for the first time since declaring his longtime lawyer a “rat” after their fallout more than five years ago.
Cohen accused his onetime boss of manipulating his net worth as Trump stared blankly ahead, at times scoffing at the testimony and shaking his head in anger.
Trump bashed Cohen while leaving court and called his testimony “a disgrace.”
New York based nonprofit organization that works with the Jewish community funded Gov. Kathy Hochul’s trip to Israel. Despite multiple questions, Hochul’s team has yet to release the name of that organization. The trip is under Ethics Commission review.
Hochul announced what she called the largest state investment in renewable energy in United States history, conducting of three offshore wind projects and 22 land-based projects, her office said.
It includes offshore wind and land-based projects, totaling 6.4 gigawatts of clean energy. The governor says that’s enough to power 2.6 million homes and deliver 12% of New York’s electricity needs in 2030.
The offshore projects are planned to supply clean fossil-fuel-free power to Long Island and New York City as part of the state’s push for a carbon-free grid. But the projects will almost certainly impact the Capital Region.
The Democratic governor announced the conditional awards as high development costs affect other offshore wind projects for New York and around the globe. The state also announced awards to 22 land-based solar, wind and hydro projects.
Hochul’s job approval and favorability numbers remain stagnant in the latest Siena poll, with only 40% viewing her positively and just 45% saying she’s doing a good job in office.
Hochul says there are 32,000 jobs ready and waiting for the immigrants who have flooded New York in recent months — but an apparent bottleneck in the federal work permit approval process has left them mostly unfilled.
Correction officers in local jails across New York would be barred from dispensing opioid medication to inmates under legislation introduced at the state Capitol earlier this month.
AG Letitia James and 32 members of a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit against Meta, alleging the social media’s “addictive” platforms have had a role in the nation’s youth mental health crisis.
Beset by high taxes and quality of life woes, 545,498 New Yorkers left for other states in 2022, according to US Census data.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment, discussed running to reclaim the office in 2022 but decided against it because he didn’t want to subject his daughters to another campaign, Melissa DeRosa says.
A New York City Council member and a state senator were among the more than 100 protesters arrested at a pro-Palestinian rally sponsored by the DSA where hostile demonstrators bellowed antisemitic chants and waved signs supporting the Hamas terrorists.
Mayor Eric Adams has promised to “protect” the Sikh community after a 66-year-old man who wore a turban was killed in Queens last week.
“Jasmer Singh loved his city and deserved so much more than his tragic death. On behalf of all New Yorkers, I want our Sikh community to know you have more than our condolences,” Adams wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Adams said the migrant crisis has become so severe that he’s actively planning for the day migrants will have to sleep outside, adding that that it isn’t a matter of “if” people will be sleeping on the streets, “it’s when.”
Adams defended a top adviser involved in a confrontation with security guards last week, saying that the longtime ally is “a professional” and that the matter is now under “review.”
The City Department of Investigation is formally investigating the incident involving Timothy Pearson, a longtime confidant of the mayor, focusing on a physical altercation between Pearson and security officers at a migrant respite center he tried to inspect.
Adams announced last week that the city recovered all of the jobs lost during the pandemic. Analysts say that’s only part of the story.
Two brothers who own a Queens construction safety company have pleaded guilty to helping orchestrate a straw donor scheme that aimed to generate illegal public matching funds for Adams’ 2021 campaign, Manhattan prosecutors announced.
A new plan unveiled this month by the Adams administration aims to make way for new housing and ease the pressures that drive up rents and home prices. Whether it will work is less clear.
Hate crimes have spiked citywide since conflict exploded earlier this month in the Middle East and sent ripples around the world, according to the NYPD.
The New York Police Department wrongly denied a Brooklyn man a firearm license because of his many traffic violations, a federal judge ruled, a decision that could stop the city from considering moral character when deciding whether someone can have a gun.
The Biden Administration has agreed to pick up half of the $6.6 billion tab to extend the Second Avenue Subway through East Harlem, providing funds the MTA says are essential to finally getting the project off the drawing boards and into construction.
After more than a dozen anonymous people filed a complaint detailing allegations of abuse — physical and mental — in the Saratoga Springs schools girls’ athletics program, the board of education has decided to investigate.
With Election Day near, the city of Saratoga Springs’ former finance commissioner, Michele Madigan, who is now running for county supervisor, has not yet filed her financial disclosures.
For the second time, the state asked the owner of a mobile home park on Saratoga Lake to stop harassing and threatening tenants with eviction, allowing residents a temporary reprieve from the owner’s wish to accelerate redevelopment plans.
The large blank concrete palette on the side of Proctors’ GE Theatre in Schenectady will soon be transformed into a colorful mural, the latest public display of artwork in the city.
GlobalFoundries has agreed to settle a federal workplace safety investigation into a March incident at its Fab 8 computer chip factory in which a worker suffered an electrical shock.
Photo credit” George Fazio
