Today Ismerie and I went to see the opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). It was the opening night of a new production of this opera. A lot of people in the audience were dressed in black tie and I even saw one guy in white tie and tails. This must be because of the opening night gala that took place the same night.
Ismerie, an opera expert herself, said that the quality of singers was very high. She was especially looking forward to hear Juan Diego Florez who is an astounding tenor. Indeed he and the other singers were very good. If they were paid by the word, they'd make a lot of money in this opera! After many arias the applause just kept going and going with lots of "bravos".
The stage set was quite plain but they did have a live donkey. At the end of Act 1, I am still not sure what was up with the huge piece of iron slowly coming down on top of a cart full of pumpkins and crashing it to pieces. Are they saying goodbye to the Halloween season?
To day my friend Yelena Grinberg and her musical partner Emilie-Anne Gendron gave an inspiring concert at the Harvard Club. Together they comprise the ensemble by the name G-Sharp Duo. The concert showed that they both excel at their instruments - Yelena on the piano and Emily on the violin.
On my way back from lunch I saw a crowd of people with cameras right next door to my office building on 5th avenue between 13th and 12th streets. It turned out that Madonna was getting a facial at a beauty parlor right next door to my office. The crowed gathered around Tracie Martyn beauty salon which is "Hollywood's Favourite Beauty Secret". People patiently waited for Madonna to come out. After about 25 minutes, she finally came out surrounded by bodyguards. One of the photographers who was standing next to me got a great shot of her. Hopefully he'll email me the photo...
Today I turned into an airline pilot and went to the annual Village Halloween Parade. My friends and I were watching it, not marching in it, but at some point to get a better view, we ended up in the parade itself. I got a chance to take some photos from other people in the airline industry.
Today we had a great Halloween Costume party at Clayton's place. Not only did people have to wear costumes, but they also had to act out the character with a skit or a song. Below is the video highlights of some of the performers:
Today I went the 50th annual Bal Polonaise benefiting Polish Assistance Inc. This year it was held at St. Regis hotel. I have never been to it, so it was very exciting to see the new venue. The ball was held on the 20th floor penthouse. The main ballroom was very beautiful, but not as big as the one in the Plaza or even at Pierre, so the dancefloor was very small and was packed most of the time leaving no space to any civilized ballroom dancing. As always, there was a performance by a Polish folk dance company:
After dinner a second room was open for "disco" dancing to the DJ music. The ball went by pretty fast because they stopped shortly after 1 AM even though the program said it would go on till 1:30. This is the first ball where I actually spent more time socializing than dancing.
Today the New York Chapter of USA Dance hosted the pre-halloween dance social. In spite of Halloween being more than a week away, there was a great turn out of peopel dressed up in costumes! We had a costume competition in which people had to act out their costume character. I happend to take the third place wearing my Zuit Suit. The social took place in a beautiful space at Studio 101 in Chinatown.
A friend of mine gave me free tickets for
the biggest Korean pop concert in New York. The event brings together Korea's most popular Hip Hop and R&B talents who are in the YG Family. The YG Family consists of Se7en, Jinusean, 1TYM, Gummy, Big Mama, StonySkunk, Lexy, and Big Bang. All these popular Korean artists shared the stage of the Theater at the Madison Square Garden. The concert had awesome light effects and projections all synched up to the music. Here are the highlights:
Today I went to a performance by a singer Dina Fanai which was to celebrate her CD release. Julia knew her and invited me to come along to the concert.
Dina has a very nice sounding and powerful voice. The music was very diverse. Some songs were slow ballads sung to the piano accompaniment, some were dreamy and abstract pieces sung together with a cello and steel guitar, and some were energetic fast paced songs with very complex rhythm.
Not sure if it is my recent purchase of jeans or something else, but I got the "Bad Boy" award at "From Russia With Love" party at Fizz tonight. The prize was a bottle of "Jewel Of Russia" vodka, which I gave away to a friend of mine who would put it to better use than me. The ladies also competed for the "Bond Girl" award.
All my life I have been looking down on jeans. I could not comprehand the idea of wearing shabby clothes and being proud of it. For this reason I have never owned a pair of jeans.
This Halloween I decided to be the Big Bad Wolf. This is a perfect excuse for me to actually buy my first pair of jeans to be used as part of the costume. After I put them on and looked in the mirror they actually looked "not too shabby"!
My friend Julia Kulakova invited me to her performance which was part of the New York Gypsyfest festival. It was held at club Roxy. The program started with a performance by a Gypsy music group Romashka featuring the vocalist and dancer Dorit. Then my friend Julia performed Gypsy dance routines and the rest of the night was filled with the performance of the new generation of Gypsy Kings.
If you're afraid of big waves, but still want to go to the beach and swim, you can always go to Lake Welch which has a man-made beach. More info about this lake is here and my photos from this trip are here.
Today Ismerie and I went to see the opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). It was the opening night of a new production of this opera. A lot of people in the audience were dressed in black tie and I even saw one guy in white tie and tails. This must be because of the opening night gala that took place the same night.
