La Diva by Natalie Choquette.

     La Diva by Natalie Choquette. A one-woman show about opera. Lots of fun. If you get a chance, go see and hear it. Choquette sings the familiar hits in different costumes with commentary in different accents to suit the sources of the songs. She sings beautifully, and can conjure the scene and mood so well that we don’t notice the absence of the production values that seem to play such a huge role at the Met.
     Most of the songs were more or less happy or romantic, but Un bel di vedremo from Madame Butterfly was seriously affecting. At several points, Choquette came into the audience and focussed on one person, or brought him on to the stage. I don’t usually like this kind of audience participation, since it can feel forced, but Choquette does it so naturally that it works. Disclaimer: I was one of the lucky ones, and thoroughly enjoyed it . It was easy to follow her lead.
     Here is Marie’s e-mail to our friends’n’family:
     The link at the end is to a sample of the show we saw by Natalie Choquette, la Diva. She is an opera singer with a big voice. She loves to interact with the audience. She talked, and talked, in many exaggerated accents. She changed costume 4 or 5 times. All costumes were exaggerated and stunning.
      When she first came out in her multi-layered big dress with hooped over skirt and scarf, she told us she was a Diva and the audience must yell "Bravo, Brava" and throw flowers at her, "like this" (and she threw out a bunch of flowers). Her Queen of the Night solo was great!
     The first person she chose from the audience was Dennis Jacques. She brought him on stage and had him take off his jacket and help her shed her big dress and hooped skirt, while she sang. Underneath she had a close fitting sequined gown.
     The only back-up person travelling with her was the piano player who first came out suited in tails, wearing a gray, fuzzy wig. (In real life he is an organist and choir director).  Later he changed to a Liberace wig and had extra lace, candles, rose etc. The Diva made many attempts to "distract" the piano player, while he was playing and she was singing.
     In the Moscow Olympic set he wore his shaved head and a black tank so he could show his muscles.  For that set, Natalie wore a short, red athletic dress and bare feet. She climbed on the piano to sing, lay down and did a head stand, all while singing.
     Her Madam Butterfly solo was beautiful. Later she summed up the story and told how it could have had a better and happy ending. "The trouble is the women always die in opera... That is why I sometimes like to sing the tenor parts". She spoke for the DLM or "Diva Liberation Movement". Her happy ending for La Boheme was for the artist to get enough money to buy aspirin to cure Mimi. She chose Ron Gauthier to be the artist. She gave him a floppy hat, a big smock and a pencil and easel. He drew while she sang.
     The piano player got to play "his music" when she was off stage. One good piece was Bach's Toccata and Fugue on piano!
     While she was walking among the audience she chose Wolf to be her partner for the tango part. She wore a black, knee length dress which was open from waist down and showed a pink and gold lining and ruffled white pantaloons. She chose Pat Fortino to come to stage at the very end and dance with her while she sang. She made each man the romantic-centre-of-attention while he was on stage.
There's a video of “Nessun dorma” and others on YouTube.
    A great evening. ****

Update 2025-06-21: Choquette has a new version of her show "... et le Maestro", and issued several CDs.

Mordecai Richler. Belling the Cat (1998)

     Mordecai Richler. Belling the Cat (1998) Essays, reviews, etc, so-called occasional writing that kept Richler supplied with Scotch and cigars, and his family in groceries. Richler is a witty writer and intelligent and close observer of politics, sport, literature, and the foibles of humankind. He tends to forgive the ordinary weaknesses, but has no patience with cruelty and hypocrisy. A fun read; even the pieces dealing with crises that we have left behind appeal, because Richler is master of the telling detail. Worth keeping on the shelf for occasional reference when a politician seems to have forgotten what he stood for in the past. Richler loved hockey and baseball, and his knowledge of these sports far exceeds mine: in other words, I’ll have to take his words for it. *** (2003)

Jill Paton Walsh. The Whyndham Case (1993)

     Jill Paton Walsh. The Whyndham Case (1993) The title turns out to be a pun. As the scene of the murder, a library of sixteenth century books, is also called the Whyndham Case, after the donor. Actually, the first death is a sorry accident; but the next is a murder to conceal the negligence that led to the first death. The amateur sleuth is Imogen Quy (rimes with why), nurse at St Agatha’s College, Cambridge. The puzzle satisfies, both in its complexity (not too ingenious, thank goodness), and its solution (psychologically sound). Imogen is a pleasant and kindly woman, and the whole story has a gentleness and decency about it that makes it appealing. The first victim was an only son, and his mother grieves not only for him but for the daughter-in-law and grandchildren she will never have. Well, it turns out that there will be a grandchild, so there will be some joy to compensate for the grief. The style is straightforward, moving the story along and sketching in enough of the characters that we care for their fates. I haven’t been able to find any more Imogen Quy books, unfortunately. **½ (2003)

Tony Koester ed. Model Railroad Planning 2002

     Tony Koester ed. Model Railroad Planning 2002 The theme for this issue is the 4x8, and as usual, Iain Rice’s design catches the idea and inspires thought and dreams. One of his plans has an up-and-over point-to-fiddle-yard line draped around a harbour; the other shows a squished oval surrounding an inlet with wharves on each side. In both, the centrally placed water acts as scenic divide. Although one sees the whole layout at a glance, the water separates the layout into two scenes. Such a design is about the only way to make a 4x8 layout work visually, the size is both a limitation and a challenge.
     Small locos and short cars, plus careful design and construction of the buildings, will produce an outstanding layout in a small space, and Iain Rice shows how it can be done. The other plans are more ingenious, but only the On30 plan by Chris Webster accepts the limitations of the 4x8; he too uses a scenic divider to create two scenes. 1/4" scale requires larger structures, but again, if carefully designed and built, the overall effect should be convincing. The rest of the issue continues the trend to overall design. “Planning” is becoming a misnomer, the articles clearly show a bias towards design, with scenic, operational, and civil engineering problems all being handled in terms of a single unifying concept. *** (2003)

Harold Edmonson. Railroad Station Plan Book (1977)

     Harold Edmonson. Railroad Station Plan Book (1977) One of Kalmbach’s books from the glory days of model railroading, when model building was (of necessity) a much larger part of the hobby. 28 plans, all illustrated with one or more photographs, of stations ranging from wayside halts to elaborate buildings that also housed division offices. CP’s Standard No. 2 station is illustrated with a photo of Thessalon. An excellent reference for modellers, since the editor chose mostly standard designs typical of their regions. The drawings are clear, and the photos add useful information about the stations’ appearance, along with details such as fuel tanks, shrubbery, advertisements, and so on. *** (2003)

Jean E. Karl. Strange Tomorrow (1985)

     Jean E. Karl. Strange Tomorrow (1985) An SF story for young readers, apparently intended for middle school. It’s in two parts, one about Janie, who survives with her father and brother when the Clord destroy all life above ground on Earth, and one about her great-granddaughter, also called Janie, who is the Sustainer (physician) in a group of people that leave Alpha Valley to establish human habitation in Zeta Valley. The Clord are not further discussed; the focus is on Janie, who is a typical 13-year-old when she very unwillingly leaves home with her father instead of going with her mother to visit her grandmother. Her father is to do some basic maintenance work on an underground bunker, set up to preserve the government in case of a nuclear war. It saves their lives, of course, because a blizzard confines them to its shelter for several days while the Clord do their dirty deed.
    After the disaster, Janie develops unexpected leadership, while her father goes into a deep depression. Janie organises activity for herself and her brother Mark, activity that keeps them sane, and sets up a listening schedule on the bunker's communication system. They pick up a message from some people near Santa Fe, and this section ends with the family setting out to meet and bring these survivors back to the bunker.
     Part two takes place several generations later. The few human survivors have been able to utilise the biological supplies in the bunker to reseed their small part of the Earth with plant and animal life. The colony must divide and spread according to a plan worked out by the Old Ones (ie Janie One and her group). Janie Two at first doesn’t want to, but eventually, when her idea of yearly gatherings to exchange news, ideas, and goods is adopted by the other settlements, she is reconciled to her new home.
     The book works because of the detail and the believable characters. Karl ignores questions of ecology, such as where the oxygen comes from. I presume it’s coming from the oceans, whose life was protected as life underground was. Nor does she seem to realise that once viable soil with growing plants is re-established, both microbial soil life and plant life would spread rather rapidly on their own. She also does not develop the plot point of retaining memory of the Clord atrocity and preparing for possible conflict with them. I think the book will appeal to its intended audience, but I’m not a good judge of that. I’ll send it to Texas, and see what David and Caroline say about it. The book contains the seeds of a much longer, more complex work, one that might appeal to adults also. **½ (2003)

Niles Eldredge. The Triumph of Evolution (2000)

     Niles Eldredge. The Triumph of Evolution (2000) A rehash of the tired old arguments by creationists, and their refutations. Eldredge points out that all their modern arguments are more or less updated versions of the ones used in the mid-19th century, when Darwin’s book was attacked by people with the same mindset as those who attack evolution today.
     Eldredge writes well, but his tone is occasionally shrill; I suppose the American Christian Fundamentalist obtuseness on the question must be exasperating. He notes that the real argument is not about science, but about politics, for conservative self-styled Christians want their vision of the truth to prevail. Like all true believers, they lack faith, and cannot tolerate anything that would call their superstition into question. They really do believe that morality is not possible without divine fiat, therefore that if evolution is true, the humans would act like animals. Eldredge doesn’t make the easy point that animals in fact are more rigidly constrained in their behaviour than humans are, and that it might be a better world if humans did act more like animals, instead of doing what they want when they want (and claiming divine approval for their actions, besides).
     At present, the conservative Christian world view dominates US politics and especially their foreign policy. He is correct to focus on the teaching of science as a method of understanding the material world. He claims that the method presupposes nothing about the existence or non-existence of God; and that science by definition cannot investigate the supernatural. He quarrels both with the creationists and those scientists who believe that science entails the assumption that nothing exists beyond the material phenomena that science investigates. There may or may not be something else, but science can never settle that question. Good point; and I find it ironic that many Biblical literalists, believing that the truth of their beliefs depend on the historical accuracy of the Bible, invoke the methods of science to prove the historical truth of the Bible. See, for example, the “scientific” expeditions to find the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat.
     The focus on the American version of this debate may seem to limit the usefulness of its arguments, but the entanglement with politics and hence with schooling is unavoidable, even in Canada. Here, too, we have conservative Christians (many of them pastored by American or US-trained ministers) who want to bring about a theocratic state. Throw fundamentalist Muslims and Hindus into the mix, and the controversies can get ugly; they expand well beyond the evolution versus creation argument. The main appeal of the Alliance Party, after all, is that it promises to do the right thing, and what’s right is not defined by a consensus arrived at by thoughtful debate and discussion, but is known absolutely, from revelation. This is a politics that ignores practical evils, insisting that it’s better to do the right thing and cause certain harm, than to do the usually harmless wrong thing and let someone get away with something.
     What’s interesting here is that no matter what the religious tradition, fundamentalists share the same trait: they are unable to handle uncertainty. Consider the unwillingness to give chance a role in producing order: one of the arguments against evolution is that it operates by “blind chance”. The argument reveals both a profound misunderstanding of what “chance” is, and a need for certainty. The fear of uncertainty drives these people; they lack the faith to handle the doubt that maybe they are wrong, and that God isn’t what they think he is; isn’t at all, perhaps. And worse, that if God isn’t what they think he is, then they can’t be sure what is the right thing to do. I go with Luther on this question; he knew that we can’t be certain. His vision of the faith that justifies is that if we act with the best knowledge and understanding, and with the right motives, God will forgive our inevitable mistakes.
     There are few too many typos. *** (2003)
     This is a repost because the original disappeared.