Musical interlude

Forget "Opera Guy" Paul Potts, here's the real thing on You Tube:

• For the girls and those who like steel in their singing, Mario del Monaco singing Puccini's Nessun Dorma as it's supposed to be sung. Strong. Bold. Terrific. Now you can maybe understand why although Paul Potts might want to sing opera, he isn't an opera singer.
• For the boys and those who think Mozart always has to sound like so much passionless tinkling, here's Dianne Damrau as a showstopping Queen of the Night from The Magic Flute. [Singing starts about two minutes in.]
  
• For those who enjoy orgasms -- and let's face it, apart from the Pope who doesn't -- here's the best, if not the only, ten minute orgasm in music: Richard Wagner's Transfiguration from Tristan and Isolde, sung by the incomparable Jessye Norman, and conducted by God. Delicious.
  
• And here's what I'm looking forward to tonight: Simon O'Neill and the Auckland Philharmonia doing a show called 'Rome - The Eternal City'. If those Tosca excerpts they're promising include most of Act III (perhaps the best thirty or so minutes in opera), I'll be a very happy man indeed.
  

Hope that gives you some pleasure over your lunch hour.