
Clarinetist Husnu Selendirici
What we love about:
The clarinet: its warm tone

Diana Damrau as the Queen of Night
Don Giovanni: the appearance of the Stone Guest and how Don G. gets his comeuppance
Violas: that they’re always there as support – you may not notice them in particular, but you’d notice their absence!
Die Zauberflöte: The Queen of Night’s Aria – no one does revenge better

Giraffe piano
Historical pianos: how imagination once reigned in piano design.

Angela Meade gets Russell Thomas’ attention in Norma
Professional choirs: how they can make you re-hear that same music you sang in school and make you realize how immaturely you had approached it!
Sopranos: how they always demand, and get, your attention.

The Tromba Marina from Buonanni’s Gabinetti Armonico (1722)
Wozzeck: When he loses the knife, and hence his whole reason, plus we love it when the moon comes up.
Berg: Wozzeck: Act III Scene 4: Das Messer? Wo ist das Messer? (Eberhard Waechter, Wozzeck; Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra ; Christoph von Dohnányi, cond.)
Books on musical instruments: that there’s more to instruments than just that you see on a concert stage

Harpsichord lid painting by Elizabetta Lanzoni
Classical radio: when they play that new piece of music you’ve never heard from 200 years ago
Harpsichords: how there used to be real works of art inside

Kristine Opolais as Butterfly
P.D.Q. Bach: doing something else with all that classical music you know and letting everyone else in on the joke
Madama Butterfly: imagining how the story would change if she used the knife on Pinkerton, that rat

Der Freischütz at Zurich Opera in 2016, staging by Herbert Fritsch