[jekylljuice]

Three more episodes of Operavox:

The Barber of Seville - As I'd predicted, I enjoyed this one immensely. It was high-spirited and well staged and rendered charmingly in stop-motion animation.

Carmen - Probably my favourite of all the Operavox episodes, in part because it's such a great opera, with magnificent music, and also because the rotoscoped animation used to render it was gorgeously done. Gotta say that my sympathies here are with Jose, and not Carmen herself.

Turandot - Another magnificent opera. What I particularly loved here, other than the brilliant music, were the lush watercolour backgrounds, which ensured the Chinese setting a real splendour.

And no, I wouldn't really consider myself to be much of an opera buff by any stretch of the imagination. I'd previously been familiar with bits and pieces which I'd heard here and there (everyone knows the Toreador Song from Carmen, surely), not to mention the odd reference on Frasier, which had helped to whet my appetite somewhat, but I'm taking this series to be my first genuine introduction to those featured. It would be quite nice if I could see some of them on stage sometime, since as I say, they were by-and-large magnificent. I could make a Culture Vulture out of myself yet.