Rossini's `Armida' revived at Metropolitan Opera

AP – In this Feb. 14, 2011 photo released by the Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming is seen in the title …

By RONALD BLUM, Associated Press Ronald Blum, Associated Press – Sat Feb 19, 4:06 pm ET

NEW YORK – It took 193 years for Rossini's "Armida" to make it to the Metropolitan Opera but only nine months for its first revival.
Soprano Renee Fleming and five of the six tenors who sang in last spring's production premiere returned Friday night. Given the time to work together, the cast sounded and appeared more comfortable than when the staging debuted.
Fleming sang the role of the sorceress at the 1993 Rossini Festival in Pesaro, Italy, and repeated it in a concert performance at Carnegie Hall three years later. The Bel Canto coloratura is not the most natural fit for her voice, but she sings it convincingly and was more relaxed than last spring, leading to a more breezy feeling throughout.
Armida's appeal to Fleming is evident, given her waves of love, anger and pride. She dominates the stage for much of the nearly four hours.
Also back in the cast are Lawrence Brownlee (Rinaldo), John Osborn (Goffredo), Yeghishe Manucharyan (Eustazio), Kobie van Rensburg (Ubaldo) and Barry Banks (Carlo). Antonio Siragusa took over from Jose Manuel Zapata as Gernando, and the native of Messina stood out for his superior diction as the only Italian native in the cast.
Brownlee, van Rensburg and Banks combined for the most moving moment of the night, the third act trio when the two Crusaders rescue Rinaldo from Armida's control. All six tenors showed vibrant voices with sheen.
As he did when the production was new, conductor Riccardo Frizza led a lively account of Rossini's bouncy, colorful music, including a lengthy second-act ballet interestingly and humorously choreographed by Graciela Daniele.
Director Mary Zimmerman's production, with sets by Richard Hudson, is rather plain — the green palm trees suggesting a desert oasis outside Jerusalem would fit in a tiki bar, and the oversize insects would work in a museum gift shop.
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Online:
http://www.metopera.org

New Facebook status options applauded by gay users

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck, Ap National Writer – Fri Feb 18, 9:36 pm ET

NEW YORK – Jay Lassiter is no longer "in a relationship."
Let's clarify that: Lassiter, a media adviser for political campaigns who lives in Cherry Hill, N.J., is still with his partner of nearly eight years, Greg Lehmkuho. But since Thursday, when Facebook expanded its romantic-status options, Lassiter's profile there echoes his relationship's legal status: "Domestic partnership."
It may not be a life-altering change. After all, you can call yourself anything you want on a social network. And Facebook is merely that.
But, Lassiter notes: "I'm no different from all those other Facebook users whose identity is tied up with their Facebook pages, for better or for worse."
And so, he says: "It's high time. It's an affirming gesture. It's sort of one tiny step for gays, but a giant leap for gay rights."
Facebook's addition of civil unions and domestic partnerships to the list of relationships its users can pick from came after talks with gay rights organizations, including GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
The social network has "sent a clear message in support of gay and lesbian couples to users across the globe," said GLAAD's president, Jarrett Barrios. "By acknowledging the relationships of countless loving and committed same-sex couples in the U.S. and abroad, Facebook has set a new standard of inclusion for social media."
He added that the new status options, available to Facebook users in the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Australia, will serve as an important reminder that legal marriage is not an option for gay couples in most states.
Only Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. allow same-sex marriages. Hawaii will soon become the seventh state to permit civil unions or similar legal recognition for gay couples.
Of course, there's also a Facebook option to say "It's complicated" — and that's exactly how some users felt about the new changes. Because, for people both gay and straight, more options mean more decisions to make: What exactly is my relationship, and what should I call it?
"You go into a store and there are 27 kinds of soda, and sometimes it would be easier if there were just Coke and Pepsi," explains Erik Rueter, who works in marketing at an educational nonprofit institution in Pittsburgh.
To Rueter, the essence of his relationship is crystal clear: He and his partner, Robb, will be together forever. "We complete each other's sentences," he says. "We'll be sitting there in the nursing home, gumming up each other's food, chasing each other in our wheelchairs."
Two years ago, Rueter, 34, proposed to his partner on bended knee, despite the fact that in Pennsylvania they cannot marry. They've been engaged ever since, and that's been his Facebook status — until Thursday, when he changed it to domestic partnership.
But Rueter is conflicted about the change.
"Part of me wants to go back to 'engaged' — because I still am," he says. "Part of me wants to say 'married,' as in, 'I don't care what the law says.' And part of me says, 'It's just Facebook!'"
And then ANOTHER part of Rueter tells him just how powerful and influential Facebook is, with well over 500 million users across the globe. "Just having the option to say, 'This is what my relationship is' is a really good thing," he says.
It can be a good thing for some straight Facebook users, as well. Michael Stimson, a Scot who lives in Marseille, France, is not married to his partner, Izzy (short for Isabelle), but they live together and have a young son. He's just changed his status from blank to domestic partnership.
For Stimson, it helps to clarify to other users with whom he's chatting that he is not, well, available. "People do flirt with you on the Internet," he says. "I like to put them in the picture a wee bit, so there's no confusion."
Izzy approves of his decision. "Most people that you speak with on Facebook are people you don't know," she says, speaking in French from home in Marseille. "This makes things more clear."
Of course, there are no political overtones to the couple's change in status. In the United States, though, there is a passionate debate over gay marriage. Lassiter, the campaign adviser from New Jersey, changed his status from "in a relationship" to "married" last year in an act of political defiance, he says, when the state legislature rejected a bid to recognize gay marriage.
But it just didn't feel right, and he changed it back to "in a relationship" months later. Besides the fact that "married" wasn't accurate, "I'm not really the marrying type," he says. "Me and my partner have an equilibrium as things are."
But "in a relationship" made it sound like a high-school relationship, rather than one that's lasted a number of years.
So the new status feels better, says Lassiter. And he's been encouraged by the positive feedback he's gotten on just the first day from Facebook friends — including people from as far back as high school — giving him a thumbs-up.
Lassiter also thinks the change is most important for gay people — especially younger ones — living in areas of the country where their sexual orientation is less accepted than in the liberal Northeast.
"For those people, it legitimizes being in a gay relationship," he says.
And so, maybe a social network can be something of an agent of social change.
After all, Lassiter says, "As Facebook goes, so goes the world."
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Associated Press Writer Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

NFL, union hold 2nd day of mediated negotiations

By HOWARD FENDRICH, AP Pro Football Writer Howard Fendrich, Ap Pro Football Writer – Sat Feb 19, 6:48 pm ET

WASHINGTON – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, union executive director DeMaurice Smith and members of their negotiating teams participated in a second consecutive six-hour session with a federal mediator Saturday, trying to spur progress less than two weeks before the league's labor deal expires.
They're finally talking to each other — but they're not revealing how well it's going.
"I have nothing to say, obviously," Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer for the NFL Players Association, said on his way out of the meeting. "We're in a cone of silence."
For the second day in a row, the two sides convened at the office of George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a U.S. government agency. They met with Cohen for the first time Friday after agreeing to the mediation, which is not binding but is meant as a way to initiate progress in the slow and sometimes contentious bargaining.
The plan calls for several days of negotiations with Cohen, who asked participants to not make any public comments on the process.
Neither Goodell nor Smith stopped to take questions as they left Saturday's meeting.
Asked while he got into a waiting car if he were sure he didn't want to comment at all about the negotiations, Goodell replied, "That, I'm sure of."
The current collective bargaining agreement runs out at the end of the day March 3. The players believe that team owners are preparing to lock them out as soon as the following day, which could threaten the 2011 season. The NFL has not lost games to a work stoppage since 1987.
Among those joining Goodell on Saturday: NFL counsel and lead labor negotiator Jeff Pash; league senior vice president and treasurer Joe Siclare; and outside lawyer Bob Batterman, who was working for the NHL when it lost its entire 2004-05 season to a lockout.
Smith was accompanied by at least a dozen people, a much larger union contingent than was seen Friday. In addition to Kessler and another lawyer, Richard Berthelsen, the union was represented by Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday, New York Jets fullback Tony Richardson, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch, and former players Pete Kendall and Sean Morey.
None would reveal anything about what went on during Saturday's talks, but Saturday noted: "Nothing can be done without communicating."
Indeed, the start of mediation could be a positive sign after several months of infrequent negotiations — and frequent rhetoric, including charges from each side that the other was hoping for a work stoppage.
The league and union went more than two months without any formal bargaining until Feb. 5, the day before the Super Bowl. The sides met again once last week but called off a second meeting that had been scheduled for the following day.
The most recent CBA was signed in 2006, but owners exercised a clause in 2008 that allowed them to opt out of the deal.
The biggest issue separating the sides is how to divide about $9 billion in annual revenues. Among the other significant points in negotiations: the owners' push to expand the regular season from 16 games to 18 while reducing the preseason by two games, a rookie wage scale, and benefits for retired players.

Bahrain opposition plots strategy before talks

MANAMA, Bahrain – Bahrain's opposition leaders were mulling on Sunday on whether to join talks with the country's rulers after nearly a week of protests and deadly clashes.
A leader of the main Shiite political bloc, Abdul-Jalil Khalil, said the opposition is considering the monarchy's offer for dialogue, but he noted that no direct talks were yet under way.
Meanwhile, opposition groups are calling for a general strike to increase pressure on the rulers of the strategic Western ally — home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
Hundreds of protesters spent the night Saturday back in the landmark Pearl Square. They reoccupied the site after the withdrawal of security forces, which stormed into the protest camp Thursday in a siege that killed five people.
The royal family, which was quick to use force earlier this week against demonstrators in the landmark square that has been the heart of the anti-government demonstrations, appeared to back away from further confrontation following international pressure from the West.
The demonstrators had sought to reproduce successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in attempting to bring political change to Bahrain.
Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, deputy supreme commander of the armed forces, appealed for calm and political dialogue in a brief address on state TV.
People circling through the square after it was reoccupied clapped, whistled and wept. Some wore white sheets symbolizing their readiness for martyrdom, while others carried Bahraini flags, flowers and signs that said "Peaceful."

Click image to see photos of protests in Bahrain

AFP/Joseph Eid

In apparent emulation to the semi-permanent camp that dominated downtown Cairo for weeks during the protests there, Bahrainis Saturday night built barriers around the square, set up a medical tent, a sound system and deployed lookouts to warn of approaching security forces.
President Barack Obama discussed the situation with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, asking him to hold those responsible for the violence accountable. He said in a statement that Bahrain must respect the "universal rights" of its people and embrace "meaningful reform."

12 killed as Libyan troops fire on mourners

NICOSIA: Troops in Libya’s second city Benghazi firing heavy weaponry have killed at least 12 mourners who tried to storm a military barracks during mounting anti-regime protests, witnesses and reports said.
The death toll appeared to be approaching the 100 mark after nearly a week of protests, as the regime of veteran strongman Moamer Kadhafi pursues what Britain called a “horrifying” crackdown in eastern Libya.
The bloodshed worsened in Benghazi on Saturday when mourners heading to the funerals of people killed by security forces targeted a military barracks on the route to the cemetery, a newspaper editor told AFP.
They threw firebombs at the barracks and troops responded with live rounds in which “at least 12 people were killed and many more injured”, said Quryna chief editor Ramadan Briki, citing security sources.
A Benghazi resident told the BBC that the troops had fired on the mourners with mortars and 14.5 millimetre machine guns. It was a “massacre” of civilians and hospitals were running out of blood, Al-Jazeera quoted witnesses as saying.
The Middle East news network, citing doctors, said at least 15 people had died after being riddled by bullets from “high-velocity rifles”.
Kadhafi has still made no public comment about the unprecedented challenge to his four-decade regime, part of a region-wide wave of popular uprisings that have already toppled the regimes in Libya’s neighbours Tunisia and Egypt.
After regime opponents used Facebook to mobilise protests, as in neighbouring Egypt, the social networking website was blocked and Internet connections were patchy, Internet users in Tripoli and Benghazi said.
Libyan authorities said they had arrested dozens of foreign Arab nationals across the country for allegedly stoking the protests. The official Jana news agency hinted that Israel was behind the alleged plot.
Those detained were members of a “foreign network (and were) trained to damage Libya’s stability, the safety of its citizens and national unity”, Jana said.
Sources close to the investigation, quoted by the agency late Saturday, said the group included Tunisian, Egyptian, Sudanese, Palestinian, Syrian and Turkish citizens.
Reporting that “certain Libyan cities have been the scene of acts of sabotage and destruction since Tuesday”, Jana said the suspects sought to “take arms from police stations and the military police and use them”.
Before the latest bloodshed in Benghazi, New York-based Human Rights Watch said security forces had killed more than 80 anti-regime protesters in eastern Libya since Tuesday.
“Security forces are firing on Libyan citizens and killing scores simply because they’re demanding change and accountability,” it said, citing phone interviews with hospital staff and witnesses.
HRW said thousands had poured into the streets of Benghazi and other eastern cities on Friday, a day after clashes in which 49 people were killed including in the city of Al-Baida where two policemen were reportedly lynched.
The demonstrations have been largely confined to Libya’s east with the capital Tripoli quiet so far. But Al-Jazeera said thousands had protested peacefully in the western city of Misurata against state brutality.
Libya’s attorney general, Abdelrahman al-Abbar, has ordered an inquiry into the violence in the east, an official in Tripoli told AFP.
The prosecutor has called for “procedures to be expedited to judge all those who were guilty of death or looting”, the official said on condition of anonymity.
US President Barack Obama has condemned the use of violence against peaceful protesters in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen, while Britain, France and the European Union urged Libyan authorities to exercise restraint.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague denounced the crackdown, urging authorities to rein in the army. Canada’s foreign minister urged the government to engage in a “peaceful dialogue” with protesters.
Washington cautioned US citizens to stay away from eastern Libya.
“The US Department of State strongly urges US citizens to avoid all demonstrations, as even peaceful ones can quickly become unruly and a foreigner could become a target of harassment, or worse,” said a statement.
Kadhafi, 68, is the longest-serving leader in the Arab world. His oil-producing North African state was long a Western pariah, but relations had improved markedly in recent years. — AFP

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DELIGHTED PERFORMERS…

DELIGHTED PERFORMERS… (TOP PIX) Singer Cee Lo Green performs during NBA All-Star Saturday night presented by State Farm at Staples Center on February 19, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (BOTTOM PIX) Recording artist Keri Hilson waits for the start of the NBA All-Star Saturday night basketball. Pictures by: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images/AFP(TOP); REUTERS/Danny Moloshok (BOTTOM)