From bicycles to beautiful singing

My attention is constantly flitting from one interest to another so I've decided to embrace it and in doing so, expand the scope of this blog. With that, here is the lovely Carol Vaness singing "Dove sono i bei momenti" from Act III of Mozart's opera Le Nozze di Figaro. Vaness sings this absolutely beautifully yet still viscerally, which is the only way Mozart should be sung, in my opinion. This video clip is from a fantastic 1985 Met production with Thomas Allen as the Count, Ruggero Raimondi as Figaro, the infamous ill-tempered diva Kathleen Battle as Susanna, Flicka von Stade as Cherubino, a young Dawn Upshaw as Barbarina and Jimmy Levine in the pit. (Incidentally, I learned recently that Levine stuttered as a child. Who knew? See and listen here for a very interesting interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross on NPR.)