Word: grans
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This is Aida? Well, yes--as staged by a New York-based all-male company called La Gran Scena. This rare--and rarefied--troupe recognizes that opera thrives on the tension between the sublime and the silly. After all, when a 90-kg soprano trips down the castle steps trilling like a half-kilo canary in the mad scene in Lucia di Lammermoor, should one weep at her character's insanity or howl at the absurdity? La Gran Scena's answer is: both. As they see it, loving opera and laughing at it are one and the same thing...
...spectacle of men getting dressed up as divas and belting out Verdi in falsetto may seem a specialized taste. But the appeal of La Gran Scena goes well beyond that of your usual drag show. As they have been demonstrating on their seven-city U.S. tour, these divas can convulse mainstream audiences; and they are not only consummate clowns, but they can really sing...
...Gran Scena's brand of burlesque may owe much to Mel Brooks and the Marx Brothers, not to mention the late drag master Charles Ludlam. But it is also clearly an inside job--the work of connoisseurs who, even in falsetto and falsies, have a keen understanding of the magnificent excess that makes this art form so compelling...
Music: The all-male troupe La Gran Scena skewers opera...
...Among La Gran Scena's most vociferous fans are some of the most formidable names in opera, including the Met's artistic director, James Levine, and divas Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland. In recent seasons the troupe has traveled well beyond its initial cult status, playing such venues as Washington's Kennedy Center and the Edinburgh Festival...