Time for another post in Balladeer’s Blog’s annual orgy of entries on various versions of THE Christmas tale. The Charles Dickens classic has a certain unquenchable charm that ensures it will continue to be adapted for at least another few hundred years. Here’s an encore post from last Christmas season for my blogging buddy Didi Wright and her whippet George, the co-authors of the blog My Little Dog. Didi’s daughter Brianna hopes to be an opera singer someday so hopefully Brianna will enjoy this post, too.:
This time I’ll look at three opera versions of the classic Dickens tale. I’ll start off with the most lauded one- the 1982 Granada TV broadcast of the Royal Opera House’s staging of the opera by THE Thea Musgrave. Musgrave has also done the libretto and music for the celebrated operas Mary, Queen Of Scots … Harriet, The Woman Called Moses … Simon Bolivar and Continue reading
presentation is magnificent. It’s NOT a book-on-tape, it’s Patrick Stewart acting out the story by himself, like he did on Broadway in the 1980’s. Stewart clearly “gets” the story and includes all the crucial parts that many adaptations omit, and since he’s taking the lines faithfully from the book, it’s also made clear, like in the book ,that MARLEY IS NOT JEWISH, he’s referred to in the book as a Christian, just like Scrooge is. If people 
1. BLACKENSTEIN (1973) – This was one of the first flicks to try and cash in on the coattails of the surprise hit Blacula. A mad scientist named Dr Stein is conducting unspeakable experiments in human genetics. A Vietnam vet who has lost both arms and both legs in the war is Dr Stein’s next guinea pig. He restores the man’s limbs but 
Yes, as if I wasn’t boring enough already I’m also into opera! Now, I know traditionally “the” Halloween Opera has always been Don Giovanni , but I’ve never bought into that notion since there’s really only one scene in the whole opera that qualifies as spooky and supernatural. At this time of year I prefer Offenbach’s Tales Of Hoffmann. Not only is it full of appropriately eerie and menacing elements, but it’s also 
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