Copious Notes

"Milkless" (2004) -- Jahi Chikwendiu encountered this young mother in the Ouri Cassoni refugee camp just outside Baha'i, Chad. He recalls: "She's holding this baby under her veil. And through the veil, I can see the silhouette of her nursing the baby. So, I took a lot of photos before I approached her. But I'm sure she saw me taking pictures, she just went about her business. Then, when I finally approached her, she started to talk about her and her baby and nursing. That's when she tells me that she's nursing but she has no milk. And she thinks that she doesn't have any milk because of the trauma she experienced. Having her whole village bombed in the middle of the night. And having so many people killed in front of her face and having to scatter from her village." Descriptions and images courtesy of The Art Museum at the University of Kentucky. All images copyright The Washington Post.

I know I am not the only person at the Lexington Herald-Leader who knew Jahi Chikwendiu was a remarkable talent the moment I met him. So his award winning career at The Washington Post comes as no surprise, nor does the decision of the Art Museum at the University of Kentucky to show Jahi’s work as part of the prestigious Robert C. May Photography Endowment Lecture Series. To preview his exhibit, I caught up with Jahi earlier this week before he started a busy day on the job for the Post.

Click the play button to hear our podcast with Jahi Chikwendiu:

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

Here are a few more images from the exhibit.

"Sally Sami, a blogger who left her home country of Egypt (reflected)" (2007) -- Digital print Courtesy of the artist and The Washington Post In Egypt, there are growing restrictions on bloggers who receive threats of arrest for expressing and publishing what are considered anti-government and/or anti-Islam views. Another Egyptian blogger, Karim Amer, was jailed by an Egyptian court for four years for “insulting Islam.”

"Wall of Thorns" (2004) -- Hawa Oosman Adam rests in her temporary home of thorns and twigs where IDP's (internally displaced people) have made an impromptu camp on the outskirts of Nera, Sudan. Some families, including Hawa's, have had to move six times during the course of this 20-month-old conflict where African settlements are being attacked by the government with the help of militias known as the janjaweed.

"Darfur Sandstorm" (2004) -- On his first day in a vast refugee camp in Darfur, Chikwendiu was standing on a water truck at the edge of the camp to survey the scene when a dust storm rolled up. He recalls: "I started noticing people's attention go to an area behind the camp ... I didn't even know what it was. So maybe within a few minutes I figured I'd better get off of this truck. I take off running, and within seconds, wham! I just get hit by this wall of wind, and the sand is moving so hard that it's kind of slicing against you.I just remember looking for shelter. I saw these guys walking and I saw them jump in a tent. So I just jumped in the tent with them. They seemed OK with my being there, because we started giving each other the thumbs up.I was just sitting there waiting for ... hoping, praying that I wouldn't be impaled by something flying. So then, I got myself together. I had a few handkerchiefs that I wrapped around my camera and my face. I fashioned a camera hood out of my handkerchiefs. I started walking around, looking through my camera. Not even taking pictures. Because it was the only way that I could see. The sand was just slicing at my eyes. So, for a while after that, my vision was blurry where the sand had just scarred my eye lenses."

“Black Hawk Down” (2003) — Mourners at the Washington D.C. funeral of a soldier killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Iraq.

Click here to read our story about Jahi.

Click here to see more of Jahi’s work at his website.

OK, it doesn’t have quite the ring of “I’m at WKRP in Cincinnati,” but we started a little audio arts reporting partnership between the Herald-Leader’s online A&E outpost, LexGo.com, and WEKU-88.9 FM in Richmond. Weekly, I’ll be chatting on Friday mornings during Morning Edition — the beat broadcast news show, period — with one of WEKU’s hosts about what’s coming up for the weekend. In addition, I will be contributing some reporting to the station’s already excellent arts coverage by Julie Schindall — who plays a mean marimba, by the way — and the rest of the staff.

Click here to hear this morning’s segment with Charles Compton, and stay tuned.

Also, check out Julie’s story on the Lexington Ballet’s new pro company.

Lexington Herald-Leader culture writer Rich Copley has a bullet wound applied to his head by makeup artist Scott Turner at the Carriage House Theatre, Sept. 17, 2009. Copley was playing a cameo role as the murder victim in Agatha Christie's "The Unexpected Guest." Photo by Rich Copley | staff.

Note: Studio has added a performance of The Unexpected Guest, Sept. 24.

Doesn’t every theater want this: A dead critic on its stage?

Studio Players got that wish Thursday night when I played Richard Warwick, the dead guy in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest. Seriously, my character is dead from the moment the play starts and the title character (Graeme Hart) comes through a window to find me with an entry wound on the left side of my forehead and my wife (Lisa Welch) standing in the shadows with a gun.

All the actor playing Richard has to do is play dead for 25 minutes at the beginning of the show and then come out at the curtain call. Since it’s fairly short order-acting, director Gary McCormick is passing the part around to area theater notables, celebs, and me.

My evening started with showing up for a 6:45 p.m. call so Polly Robinson could walk me through my part, which actually required a bit more prep than just sitting there. Though I am dead, there were still some things I needed to prepare for, like a welcome jostling by Hart, a few characters poking and prodding me, and a gunshot pretty darned close to my left ear — wouldn’t work out well if the dead guy suddenly leaped from his chair. There were also entrances and exits to prep for.

Then, it was to makeup where Scott Turner, who also plays my brother Jan, had to concoct my entry wound.

Scott started by having me apply a moisturizer where the wound would go while he created this rubbery little hole for my head. Then he applied the hole and started trying to blend it in with my skin. One frustration he had was that the blood he was using didn’t stream down my face the way he wanted. I saw Bob Singleton sporting the wound last week, and it was ghastly. I joked that my blood clots quickly, though it was probably that the faux blood was no longer flowing the way it should.

Me, center with the hole in my head, and the cast of "The Unexpected Guest." Photo by Tanya Spears.

Finally, I had my entry wound and I was in some PJ’s and a robe, apparently Richard’s attire of choice for his favorite evening activity: drinking brandy and shooting at cats in his yard. Really, this guy was a major creep. No wonder they had trouble figuring out who wanted to shoot him.

So, it was time to play dead, which is not as easy as you think.

I was seated at the back of the stage in front of a window with my back to the audience, so they could basically see my head, shoulders and arms. Still, I had to be perfectly still.

The second I heard the curtain open, every possible itch on my body came to life. For a few minutes, I seriously thought I would walk off the stage and scratch myself bloody. I was trying to keep my breathing pretty shallow, but after a few minutes, a bigger concern was a need to draw a deep breath. So, I started trying to remember, from seeing the show last week, where Graeme and Lisa were on stage so I could take bigger breaths when they were drawing attention elsewhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Jonas Brothers take the stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009. Photos by Jason Sankovitch.

I got a lot of sympathy yesterday.

It was all in good fun, as I posted on my Facebook page and Twitter that I was reviewing the Jonas Brothers show at Rupp Arena last night.

“Ummm…sorry?” one local musician wrote, and my sister concurred.

Another friend wrote, “Some people will do ANYTHING for a buck…..hahaha ;-}”

Oh, when it comes to doing things for a buck, I have to say this is a pretty good gig. And if you have this gig, being the critic covering the biggest concert of the summer is where you want to be, so you will never hear me complain about having to go to see the Jonas Brothers or any other act.

The Jonas Brothers fans were thrilled to see the dreamy trio on stage.

Of course, it is usually Walter Tunis covering the big Rupp concerts with a sharp critical eye and years of experience. This one happened to fall to me because I have a daughter who just passed out of the the Jonas generation, so the Disney Channel tween culture is very familiar to me. I’ve watched the Jonas Brothers grow from guests on Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus’ show and tour to a marquee act in their own right, and was even vaguely familiar with their initial foray into Christian rock.

As a critic part of your job is to step back and see and appreciate things for what they are. The Jonas Brothers are the latest teen heartthrobs, backed by the entertainment empire of Disney, and they brought a show that pulled out all of the stops. I sat next to a 43-year-old musician and dad from Louisville and our jaws were dropped a few times by what the JoBros — or, to be acurate, their technical directors and designers — put on stage. I would have liked some more spontaneity and soul. There was little room here for the surprises or improvisations I have treasured in concerts by some of my favorite artists. But no doubt, many a teen and pre-teen girl walked out of Rupp last night thinking they had seen the greatest thing ever.

And there is the point here where the critic needs to remind cynical adults that every generation has its teen idols, and some of them were even the Chairman of the Board, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Fab Four. Am I saying the Jonas Brothers are going to be the next Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley or Beatles? Hardly. The jury is still very early in deliberations on that, and in the long run, the fraternal trio will do well to be as enduring as The Monkees or Duran Duran. Time and the Jonas Brothers talent and public taste will tell the tale of how far they go. I do think they have musical and songwriting talent, and fairly winning stage presences. But the stigma of being someone’s favorite when they were 10 can be a tough thing to overcome. The daughter who familiarized me with the Jonas Brothers world has already moved on, had no interest in last night’s show, but really wants tickets to the Kings of Leon in October.

This is why any artist that makes most of his or her cash off the delirious excitement of girls who are too young to drive would be well advised to invest that money wisely, because the trip from arena stages to the where-are-they now category can be as quick as fashions change and those shoes become so five minutes ago.

And adults will always look at the flavor of the moment with some disdain. As one friend wrote, “If you can’t poke a little fun at teenage millionaires, who can you pick on…? : )”

Jeremy Denk talks to the fellows at the 2007 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera before performing Charles Ives' Concord Sonata on Bargemusic in New York. Behind him is institute co-director and NPR Music senior producer Anya Grundmann. Photo by Rich Copley.

When I heard Joshua Bell was coming to the Norton Center for the Arts for a recital Monday night, I was excited. When I heard Jeremy Denk was set to be his accompanist, that feeling doubled.

In October 2007, I got to spend a little time in Denk’s sphere as part of the NEA’s Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera at Columbia University. Among the slate of artists and arts journalists that participated, including conductor James Conlon and New Yorker critic Alex Ross, was Denk. His two appearances with us were on a blogging panel with critic Terry Teachout and performing Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata at Bargemusic, literally a recital hall on a Barge next to the Brooklyn Bridge — had to limit my time actually watching Denk perform, because he was in front of a window through which we could see the Brooklyn skyline bobbing up and down.

The performance was exhilarating and informed by Denk’s witty and reverential discussion between movements. But the thing that fascinated me was that Denk was on a blogging panel. Before heading to NYC, I decided to check out Denk’s blog, with a little skepticism. After all, we were journalists. Wouldn’t we rather hear from another fellow journalist with a journalistic blog, like Teachout, rather than some artist prattling on about himself?

That skepticism vanished when I started reading Think Denk: The Glamous Life and Thoughts of a Concert Pianist for the first time. The blog is as self-depricating as its title indicates, which I quickly discovered in the first post I read, about accidentally receiving a package addressed to Yo-Yo Ma.

Often, Think Denk is about the rigors of touring, even playing second banana to bigger-name artists like his most recent post, a live blog about an all-star concert in London which he played with Bell. He talks about how he knows he’ll have to play on a piano bench adjusted for bigger name players Radu Lupu (sports car low) or Andras Schiff (firm and high).

But even in the midst of his second banananess, he finds unexpected affirmation when Schiff tells Denk he loved his Sarah Palin blog. Denk made a little splash in October with a faux interview with the Republican vice-presidential candidate about Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata.

JD: I just simply can’t believe in the midst of this intense campaign season, you could find the time to talk with me about the “Hammerklavier” Sonata.

SP: Well, ya know, Beethoven was the dude who said thanks but no thanks to Napoleon. Plus from all the mavericky songs he wrote, maybe this one could be known as the most maverickyest.

As funny as Think Denk can be, it’s also extremely insightful, particularly as Denk routinely includes musical notation to explain ideas he’s mulling over. That thoughtfulness is evident in his recordings, and in performance. In blogging, Denk is obviously exploring form, much like a pianist explores his instrument.

My skepticism disappeared in discovering a artist with a lot to say, in many ways, and well worth reading and hearing — like, say, Monday night.

Further reading:

~ Joshua Bell: A bow wonder

~ Joshua Bell: Violin hero?

For the day-after-New Year’s Weekender, Scott the editor asked me and the other Herald-Leader critics to weigh in on what we are looking forward to in 2009. Here’s my list of local arts events.

Gil Shaham performs Valentines Day at the Singletary Center.

Violin virtuosos: Early in the year, we will receive visits from two of the hottest ­violinists on the planet: Joshua Bell in recital with pianist Jeremy Denk on Jan. 26 at the Norton Center for the Arts in Danville; and Gil Shaham performing with the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, on Feb. 14 at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Either one of the guys coming to town would be a big deal. To get both violin ­virtuosos less than a month from each other is huge.

Silas House’s new play: In 2005, the Kentucky author made his debut as a playwright with The Hurting Part, a play with the familiarity of characters close to our homes, sketched with great drama and wonderful language. In April, Actors Guild of Lexington is scheduled to present House’s second stage effort, and it will be interesting to see whether a new Kentucky playwright is indeed emerging.

TBA’s first season: In April, we will learn who is going to take the baton for the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra and lead the orchestra into the future. After 37 years of George Zack on the podium and two years of a search for a music director, it will be fascinating to see how this person settles in, what he or she will program, and what sort of public face he or she will bring to the Philharmonic.

River of Time: In 1999, University of Kentucky music composition professor Joseph Baber wrote An American Requiem, a powerful choral and orchestral work that seemed a bit like putting Ken Burns’ The Civil War into a classical composition. River of Time, Baber’s opera set to be premiered by UK Opera Theatre in the fall, will mine the same period, telling the tale of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood in Kentucky and the impact of his presidency.

The economy: Do I look ahead to this with anticipation or dread? It all depends on whether the country’s financial status continues to deteriorate or starts to turn around. Either way, it will dictate what arts groups do in 2009-10, and a severe financial downturn could irrevocably alter the arts landscape in Central Kentucky and across the nation.

Here are a few other things I’m looking forward to on the national stage:

New movies from Kentucky’s A-listers: Johnny Depp and George Clooney are notably absent from the awards race this year, but 2009 sees both with fresh, intriguing projects. Depp’s highest profile film has him playing gangster John Dilinger in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, due in July. Clooney is starring in Men Who Stare at Goats, the feature film directoral debut for his Good Night, and Good Luck co-writer Grant Heslov, a film about a U.S. military unit that uses the paranormal against its enemies. Depp and Clooney have other projects coming as well.

Other movies: We’re back with that old saw that Hollywood can’t make anything but sequels these days, and there are plenty this year, including a new Transformers and Harry Potter. A few reach farther into the past, and I am intrigued to see how Star Trek (sans Shatner) and Terminator (sans the Governator) fare with new visions.

Alan Gilbert taking over the New York Philharmonic: Like here in Lexington, New York’s leading band will get a new conductor starting in the fall. Unlike the recent line of venerable old conductors that have conducted the NY Phil, Gilbert promises to bring a new profile to what should be, but often is not, one of America’s leading orchestras. BTW, the NY Phil comes to Danville with outgoing conductor Lorin Maazel March 5.

Sean Watkins and Jon Foreman are Fiction Family.

Jon Foreman’s new project: The Switchfoot frontman’s solo EP’s were some of last year’s best music. He starts 2009 in collaboration with Nickle Creek’s Sean Watkins for Fiction Family. Speaking of Christian rock, I am also looking forward to new music — finally! — from Rebecca St. James.

The Obama administration: We haven’t heard a Presidential candidate or President-elect talk about the arts nearly as much as Barack Obama. His campaign included an arts platform, and both his campaign and transition team featured arts policy advisors, so it will be very interesting to see what kind of action this translates into. We’re talking about this more this weekend at le blog and in Sunday’s Herald-Leader Arts+Life section.

Covering a rehearal of "The Little Foxes" at the Bodley-Bullock House, I happened upon Paul Thomas going over his lines in the dining room, simultaneously detached from the history around him and reaching back to that world.

I’ve spent a lot of time ragging on 2008 lately, but one of the joys of the past 12 months has been reconnecting with photography. When I was in college, I actually got into photography before writing, but ended up steering my career toward the written word the past 15 years or so.

I went to the Ben Sollee show at the Dame to get pictures of Ben for Walter Tunis' Musical Box blog, but came away liking this image of singer-songwriter Daniel Martin Moore concentrating over his instrument.

But the combination of some staff and budget trimming plus the fact I could never get staff photographers for all the things we try to cover in le blog prompted me to pick up an SLR again. Now, my skills with a camera are nowhere near as refined as our staff shooters, who have been cranking out amazing year-in-review packages at our photo website this week. But this little shift in my job duties has given me the interesting experience of covering a beat I’ve now followed for more than 10 years in a bit of a different way, capturing scenes and images that I often just carried in my head, like the image of an actor, above, deep in rehearsal. So, here’s a look back at some of the images that have helped me tell the story of the arts in and around Lexington in 2008.

The Lexington Singers have always been a passionate group of musicians, which I thought really came through as Virginia Adams, Janet Corum and Lynn Mitchell rehearsed Handel's "Messiah."

Ryan A. Harr is Dr. Finache and Alex Maddox is Victor Emmanuel Chandebise in the University of Kentucky Theatre's production of Georges Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear." Comedy can give you the most wonderful expressions, and though we weren't doing a story on this show, it was a blast to get some of the shots the cast's acting provided.

There has always been a social aspect to the summer outdoor arts scene in Lexington, which we set out to capture in images such as this at Actors Guild of Lexington's production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at Shakespeare at Equus Run.

I guess we would call this interactive art at the Woodland Art Fair.

Being there for the moment of creation is a fun part of this job, like this songwriting session in Nashville with Lexington's Amber Rhodes and songwriter Josh Rush.

Having interviewed "Constant Star" author Tazwell Thompson before going to shoot a rehearsal of Actors Guild's production of the show, I knew Shakespeare was one of Ida B. Wells favorite writers. So, when Cathy Rawlings, playing Wells, stepped in front of the Bard's visage, this shot became a must.

I didn't know Christopher Conley, Andrea Trusty and Amanda Balltrip were longtime friends until after shooting this picture of them when they won at the Kentucky District round of the Met Auditions. But in retrospect, you can see that bond in their expressions.

On the Verge Productions' presentation of "The Little Foxes" at the Bodley-Bullock House was a unique show. Here, we see the confrontation between siblings played by Roger Leasor, Janet Scott and Paul Thomas looking like a scene out of the past.

Looking at this image of Jeremy Cady rehearsing UK Opera Theatre's production of "La Boheme," I thought, "Pavarotti." The next day, in an interview, Jeremy went on about how listening to Pavarotti inspired him to get into opera.

Cameron Perry was one brave guy belting out "Sodomy" in the middle of the Arboretum during SummerFest's production of "Hair."

I didn't think much of this image from a rehearsal for SummerFest's production of "Antony and Cleopatra" when I turned it in. But later on, I saw in (L-R) actors Walter Tunis and Adam Luckey and director Joe Ferrell, the sense of fun and camaraderie that marks the rehearsals for most of Ferrell's shows.

I had followed Ichthus Festival director Jeff James (left) through an entire day of the Wilmore Festival. This moment during the festival's last worship service, with his dad, Henry James, testified to how Jeff leans on personal connections to get through trying situations the fest inevitably presents.

Is Ichthus a good place to confess? I used to smuggle a camera and 200 mm lens into concerts to take pictures of Sting, R.E.M, etc. I always dreamed of being in the photo pit to get pics like this one of Casting Crowns frontman Mark Hall at Ichthus. Writing or shooting, this is a great gig.

There are two big reasons to watch WKYT-TV 27 (Insight Channel 9 in Lexington) tonight:

UPDATE: Scott Shive won Dec. 30, taking in $33,601 and besting Stevens by more than $10,000. He’ll be the defending champion Dec. 31.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek and LexGo editor Scott Shive. Photo from Jeopardy Productions Inc.

~ Scott Shive, the editor of LexGo and arts and entertainment editor of the Herald-Leader, is on Jeopardy! at 7:30 tonight facing down Fairview Park, Ohio’s Jim Stevens who’s already won something like $140,000. Doesn’t that seem like enough? Anyway, Scott is sworn to secrecy, so even those of us who work mere feet from him don’t know how he did — the show was taped in Novemeber. I will say all three contestants, including Stevens, dropped several questions last night that Scott could have easily answered.

Click here to read Scott’s account of his Jeopardy! experience and here to see his Jeopardy! video greeting (they need to make those embedable).

~ At 9 p.m., catch the Kennedy Center Honors, usually one of  the best awards shows of the year. You’re not sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for results — like we are with Scott — but it is often an evening of great performances. The honorees tonight include Barbra Streisand, Morgan Freeman, Twyla Tharp, George Jones, and The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend. Among those paying tribute to the honorees will be Beyoncé, Jack Black, Garth Brooks, Clint Eastwood, Alan Jackson, B.B. King, Idina Menzel, Ne-Yo, Brad Paisley, Queen Latifah, Joss Stone, Koko Taylor, Lily Tomlin, Randy Travis and Denzel Washington.

Gerald Finley as J. Robert Oppenheimer in the Metropolitan Opera's production of John Adams' "Dr. Atomic." Copyrighted photo by Ken Howard for the Metropolitan Opera.

Speaking of great performances: Some opera fans may have noticed KET did not air Great Performances‘ presentation of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of John Adams’ Dr. Atomic last night. It was scheduled to run at 9 p.m. nationally, but did not air until 1 a.m. here. If you’re like me and have a season pass to Great Performances on your TiVo, fine. Otherwise, you have to wait until Jan. 17 . . . at 2 a.m. This seemed a bit odd, since Dr. Atomic was sort of a big deal on the Met’s schedule this year, so we caught up with KET program director Craig Cornwell to ask what happened.

With Dr. Atomic, specifically, Cornwell said the program was not added to the PBS lineup until after KET had already printed its program guide, and the station is loathe to deviate from the guide because viewers get upset about that. With operas in general, Cornwell says they are difficult to program because they are usually so long, and, “We don’t have many three-hour blocks of time avaialble in our schedule.” He also noted that opera doesn’t attract a large audience but added, “There are passionate opera fans out there we hear from,” and “We feel it’s a viable art form and are committed to showing it.” He said there are quite a few operas scheduled in the new year and many will get prime-time airings.

Presidential Masks; Caroline Copley; ink on newsprint; 2004.

When we moved in March, few things that hung on my 11-year-old daughter’s wall in our old house made it to the walls of her room in our new residence. But one treasured artwork did: Her treatment of the Weekender 2004 Presidential candidate masks.

Nothing affirmed my little girl’s sense of whimsy as much as her take on Republican candidate President George W. Bush and Democractic candidate Sen. John Kerry. She basically kind of did a cool Mrs. Doubtfire thing with them, giving them hair pins, earrings, dresses and sunglasses. Hey, there’s a reason the kids like the Doubtfire thing.

I don’t know if she’ll have the same kid of fun with Chris Ware’s masks of Sen. Obama and Gov. Palin in today’s Weekender, or Sen. McCain and Sen. Biden online. She is four years older and may be too cool to play with it this time. But you sure can have a good time with them. Happy Halloween . . . and Election Day.

A periodic source of amusement since we started blogging here at LexGo central has been the spikes in traffic we will get because of the word “nude.”

Karita Mattila sings the title role in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Richard Strauss' "Salome," which will be rebroadcast tonight as part of the Met's Live HD series. Copyrighted photo by Ken Howard | courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.

We initially noticed this the first time Jamie Gumbrecht, now working in Atlanta, blogged about the Lexington Art League’s Nude International exhibit and her traffic spiked. Looking at Sitemeter, she noticed that she was getting a lot of Google hits for the word “nude” paired with any number of female celebrities she had blogged about. Even though she had not blogged about, say, Catherine Heigl  nude, still the fact that her fabulous It’s All About blog had the words Catherine, Heigl, and nude in it meant Google or whatever other search engines people used put them together and guided people to Jamie’s blog.

Now, lest you think this is all big brothery, we cannot see who is doing the searching through a Sitemeter or Firestats or other web traffic reporters. We just see the site or search terms that directed people to our sites.

The nude phenomenon is something that I’ve also seen here at Copious Notes, mainly with movie stars and other celebrities.

But opera stars?

Well, a few weeks ago, around the same time I started migrating Copious Notes from Typepad to Wordpress, I blogged about Richard Strauss’ Salome being the first offering in the Metropolitan Opera Live HD series of broadcasts to movie theaters. Salome, as opera lovers know, contains a brief nude scene for the title character, sung by Karita Mattila in the Met’s current production, and I did mention the scene in my original post. Well, Firestats, the traffic reporting site that comes with Wordpress, includes a section that reports specifically on the top search terms generating traffic for you. Right at the top in the initial week or two at the new home?: “Karita Mattila naked,” and a few variations on that. They also show up regularly on Sitemeter, which tracks this and my old address.

Naughty opera fans.

But no, we are not displaying any nude pictures of Karita Mattila here at Copious Notes, at LexGo or in the Herald-Leader. Thanks for stopping by though.

Apparently the Met did not show its star unveiled either (I didn’t get to see the broadcast, but I’d love it if anyone who did would comment and let us know how the show was and how the broadcast handled that scene). Mattila reportedly gives one heckuva performance, which you can see in the rebroadcast of Salome at 7 tonight at Regal Hamburg Pavilion and Lexington Green Movies 8.