Mathieu Duplay 🌈

@mathieuduplay.bsky.social

1035 Followers 1324 Following

Music for a while. He/him/his. Reposts are not endorsements. TERFs need not apply. I am Albert Gregor.

People watching the solar eclipse in La Rochelle, France.
In the distance, a government building in Poitiers, France. The rest of the picture shows a barren mineral expanse covered in whitish tiles.
According to Emmanuel Macron, 2026 is an "extraordinary" year "You know, we have to be very humble. What we're experiencing is highly unusual," says Emmanuel Macron. According to him, 2026 is an "extraordinary" year. He goes on to describe "organic matter that is present because there has been a great deal of rainfall, which led to extremely abundant vegetation in the spring and at the very beginning of summer," followed by "an intense heat wave that dried out this vegetation considerably, turning it into absolutely terrible fuel as soon as a fire starts." "So we're going to have to endure," he concludes.
President Macron is currently holding a crisis cabinet meeting in response to the wildfires ravaging parts of southern France. A huge fire in the Gironde region has forced the evacuation of more than 200,000 people and the blaze is now around just around nine miles (15 km) away from the south of Bordeaux. Rain and favourable wind conditions meant the fires did not worsen overnight. However, temperatures are set to increase again to around 40C later this week according to forecasts from France's weather office.
Interior of the church of San Fermo in Verona, Italy.
The same elephant at night.
A huge statue of an elephant, used as a stage prop in a production of Aida.
"Since he had been singing from the age of three, his parents enrolled him in a children's choir directed by Agnès Polet, who recognized his talent and guided him toward the Maîtrise de Caen (Caen Choir School) and its specialized music program, which he joined at the age of seven. Robert Weddle, then director of the choir school, entrusted him with solo roles in Duruflé's Requiem (Pie Jesu), Bernstein's Chichester Psalms, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem. At the age of twelve, he sang the role of Miles in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw at the opera houses of Lyon and Chambéry. At thirteen, he participated as a soprano soloist in the recording of Petits Motets by Sébastien de Brossard with the Maîtrise de Caen."
My dog Tybalt looking pensive.
Theatre poster: Hans Krasa's Brundibar at the Opéra-Comique in Paris
In the distance, a government building in Poitiers, France. The rest of the picture shows a barren mineral expanse covered in whitish tiles.
Poster promoting Marina Abramovic's Balkan Erotic Epic: The Exhibition at the Gropius Bau in Berlin. The poster depicts a row of bare-breasted women in traditional dress, with another woman crouching in the foreground.
Ballet programme : Fearful Symmetries at the Staatsballett Berlin.
The picture shows what purports to be a public park in Caen, Normandy. A couple of buildings, a few trees in the distance, part of a lawn to the left. The rest of the area is covered in a white, reflective substance.
A large dog lying on top of a garage.
Eartha Kitt (l.) as Helen of Troy and Orson Welles (r.) as Faustus in his production of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (1950).
Screenshot from a video posted on Instagram by a person currently in quarantine at the National Quarantine Unit in Omaha, Nebraska. In the foreground, several surgical masks on a dresser, next to a TV screen, along with other, less easily recognisable objects.
Screenshot of a post on Emmanuel Macron's X account. The video shows King Charles telling Tr*mp that "(If it wasn't for us,) you'd be speaking French." Macron's comment reads "That would be chic!"
Screencap from the BBC News website. The caption reads: "The royal couple were shown a beehive shaped like the White House, part of a long-running honey making programme." The picture shows (l. to r.) Queen Camilla, King Charles, Donald Tr*mp, and Melan*a Tr*mp, standing next to said beehive.
Yours truly (right, holding a microphone) with Sarah Schulman (left).
Screencap showing part of the Orion spacecraft (l.), the crescent Moon (center), and the crescent Earth (r.). The caption reads "Artemis astronauts break Apollo 13 distance record."
Opera programme : Tosca at the Paris Opéra.
In 2021, the UAE was ranked among the 20 most dangerous places for LGBTQ tourists to visit.[185] In 2022, several LGBTQ tourists who travelled to Dubai were deported. In March 2022, Thai transgender model Rachaya Noppakaroon visited Dubai to perform at the Expo 2020, but was sent back because her passport gave her sex as male.[186] In another case, a French influencer on TikTok and Snapchat, Ibrahim Godin, was sent back from Dubai because the authorities assumed his male friend travelling with him was his boyfriend. Ibrahim filed a complaint for "public defamation because of sexual orientation", and an investigation was opened by the Vesoul police. He said, "Dubai is not all pretty, all rosy as we see on social networks."[187][188] (from the Wikipedia entry on Dubai)
1907 depiction of the American soprano Emma Eames as the eponymous character in Verdi's opera Aida. She wears long, flowing robes, a pale blue veil and a golden headdress. She appears to be standing underneath the night sky in the middle of an open-air courtyard, surrounded by a dimly visible colonnade.
Opera programme : Nixon in China by John Adams and Alice Goodman.
A view of the old Roman theatre in Arles, France. Three musicians are sitting on the stage. In the background, several Roman columns, some broken.
Album cover: Margaret Price sings a selection of Schubert lieder, accompanied by Wolfgang Sawallisch. Hans Schöneberger plays the clarinet in Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.
Australian soprano Nellie Melba sings into an ancient microphone.
My dog Tybalt, a Jack Russell terrier, seen in profile.
The picture shows a night view of Roman ruins mostly consisting of broken columns, a few with a segment of entablature.
Opera poster: Mieczyslaw Weinberg's La Passagère (The Passenger) at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse.
Opera programme: Richard Wagner's Siegfried at the Opéra Bastille.
A crowd scene with a person holding up a colourful sign that says, "Queer joy is a radical act" (it is!).
Picture of a streetcorner in Rome, with a sign saying "Vicolo Cellini."
Picture of the London Mithraeum, or Roman temple of Mithras. The original structure's foundations are still visible. A light show outlines the missing parts, including walls and columns.
View of Porto (Portugal). In the foreground, a tile roof; further back, the Douro and the Ponte Dom Luis I. In the background, Vila Nova de Gaia and the Monastery of Serra do Pilar.
Book cover: La Storia by Elsa Morante, in the Italian edition. The cover shows a black-and-white picture of a young boy sitting among the ruins of a bombed-out house.
My lovely dog Tybalt, a Jack Russell terrier.
Maria Callas and Ferruccio Tagliavini recording Lucia di Lammermoor in London in 1959.
Opera programme: Die Walküre at the Paris Opéra
Album cover: Verdi's Macbeth starring Piero Cappuccilli, Sylvia Sass, Péter Kelen, and Kolos Kovats. Lamberto Gardelli conducts.
Black-and-white picture of the American novelist Willa Cather, wearing an ample skirt, a blouse and a feathered hat, and riding a railroad handcar.
Picture of a box containing a metal stapler on a black desk with a red armchair in the background.
Album cover: Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, with Lisette Oropesa, Stefan Pop, Mattia Oliveri, and Riccardo Zanellato. Fabrizio Maria Carminati conducts.
View of the Cerasi chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (Rome). A dozen tourists admire Caravaggio's Conversion of Saint Paul (on the side wall) without giving a moment's thought to the altarpiece, Carracci's Assumption of Mary,
Painting by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690) depicting the Temptation of Saint Anthony. Seated at a table near the mouth of his cave, the saint is attempting to read a devotional book, but his attention strays to a motley group of colourful characters embodying the Seven Deadly Sins: an amorously inclined young couple (Lust), a fashionably attired young man and woman carrying fans made of peacock feathers (Pride), a miserly old woman counting money (Greed), a drunken man riding a pig (Gluttony), a sleeping woman (Sloth), an angry woman riding a lion and brandishing what appears to be a large broom (Wrath), and a crouching figure visibly devoured by Envy. Assorted demons hover in mid-air, along with a bat and various fantastical animals.
Tiramisu in a bowl, with a spoon and an empty glass.
Concert programme: Akhnaten by Philip Glass.
Black-and-white picture of the opera singer Nellie Melba. She is standing in front of a strange contraption identified in the top left-hand corner as a "wireless phone". She holds a tiny handbag in her left hand. Judging from the clothes, hat, and hairstyle, the picture was probably taken in the early 1920s.
Album cover: Szymanowski's Krol Roger (King Roger), conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
Picture of my dog Tybalt, a Jack Russell
Opera programme: Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Opéra Comique in Paris.
Album cover: Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with Joyce DiDonato and Michael Spyres. Maxim Emelyanychev conducts Il Pomo d'Oro.
Publicity photo of the Australian opera singer Marie Collier (1927-1971) doing the dishes, ca. 1965. Collier is wearing a light-coloured jacket and what appears to be a dark head scarf; she is shown standing in front of the kitchen sink, in the act of cleaning something. There is a spice rack on the wall behind her, as well as a half-open window behind the sink on the left of the picture.
Black-and-white photograph of Gertrude Stein (l.) and her wife Alice Toklas (r.), both wearing fabulous hats.
Portrait of Caravaggio (1621) by the Italian artist Ottavio Leoni (1578-1630).
The opening paragraph of Virginia Woolf's The Years (1937), the 1880 section. It was an uncertain spring. "The weather, perpetually changing, sent clouds of blue and of purple flying over the land. In the country farmers, looking at the fields, were apprehensive; in London umbrellas were opened and then shut by people looking up at the sky. But in April such weather was to be expected. Thousands of shop assistants made that remark, as they handed neat parcels to ladies in flounced dresses standing on the other side of the counter at Whiteley’s and the Army and Navy Stores. Interminable processions of shoppers in the West end, of business men in the East, paraded the pavements, like caravans perpetually marching,— so it seemed to those who had any reason to pause, say, to post a letter, or at a club window in Piccadilly. The stream of landaus, victorias and hansom cabs was incessant; for the season was beginning. In the quieter streets musicians doled out their frail and for the most part melancholy pipe of sound, which was echoed, or parodied, here in the trees of Hyde Park, here in St. James’s by the twitter of sparrows and the sudden outbursts of the amorous but intermittent thrush. The pigeons in the squares shuffled in the tree tops, letting fall a twig or two, and crooned over and over again the lullaby that was always interrupted. The gates at the Marble Arch and Apsley House were blocked in the afternoon by ladies in many-coloured dresses wearing bustles, and by gentlemen in frock coats carrying canes, wearing carnations. Here came the Princess, and as she passed hats were lifted. In the basements of the long avenues of the residential quarters servant girls in cap and apron prepared tea."
Picture of an elaborate Chinese bronze-mounted bowl. In the background, three high-back tapestry chairs and part of a painting.
View of the Luis I Bridge in Porto.
Opera programme: Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Paris Opéra.