Ombra Mai Fu Fun

[einahpets]

Dude, Ombra Mai Fu is one of my favorite New Age/classical songs that comes up on my internet radio. 
Takarazuka covered it!!! WHAT?  YES!

Comments

[snow-lynx.livejournal.com]

OMG!

I know this, of course, as the classical mezzo pants-role aria... I've never heard a modern re-mix... this is very cool!

The opera singer in me, though, is being too picky and wants to kneel down behind her on the low notes on "fu" and squeeze her bottom ribs to help her support from the back. After, of course, stapling the tip of her tongue to the back of her bottom teeth. That said, the rest of it is rather expertly executed and I am extremely impressed! Pretty cool!

And all that should be taken with the caveat that the following is what I'm used to hearing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_m6mnMIofc&feature=PlayList&p=967169BF9629537E&playnext=1&index=29

Jennifer is a technical GODDESS! Xerxes is sometimes sung by a man these days, but being a pants role mezzo myself, I rather prefer when they leave the pants roles to the ladies :)

From the opera itself, if you want to compare staging:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l25f4YOXg3I
It's preceded by the overture in this clip, but you'll go straight to the aria if you skip to about 3:45 for Ann Murray in full glory :D

[snow-lynx.livejournal.com]

I'm further impressed that the song completely looks like a war-victory, now-bring-me-a-woman song! As Handel wrote it, it's a "I love my pretty tree!" song, LOL

[reni-m.livejournal.com]

lol, I know what you mean! Takarazuka tends to do that with a lot of various songs when they cover them. Heh.

To be honest, when I found the version yesterday I was only familair with this covered version of the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cjPG_x5BZY
I knew the artist, Paul Schwartz, was inspired by actual arias but I had no idea that it was a Handel aria until I actually researched a little more (and he's one of my favorite Baroque composers).

Thank you so much for the extra versions of the song!! I really enjoy expanding my palette of singers and artists.