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After the Super Bowl




I inscribe here my miscellaneous thoughts on this year's Super Bowl, a shockingly lopsided 43 to 8 Seahawks' victory. 
Queen Latifah started things off vigorously with her take on America the Beautiful.


Then Renée Fleming did an awesome job with the Star Spangled Banner.  Opera fans know her as a great diva. If you don't think you're likely to catch her performing in that capacity on stage, you might take a pick from this very partial discography. She is featured in each of the following CDs:


  • Handel Arias Decca 2003/2004
  • Requiem (Verdi) Philips 2004
  • Haunted Heart Decca 2005
  • Sacred Songs Decca 2005
  • Homage – The Age of the Diva Decca 2006
  • Strauss: Daphne Decca
  • Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss Decca 2008
  • Verismo – Arias of Puccini, Mascagni, Cilea, Giordano, Leoncavallo Decca 2009
  • Dark Hope Decca Records 2010
  • Poèmes – French songs, Decca 2012


    • But back to the game. The best thing you can say about the Denver Broncos is that they were right in the thick of it, right up until ... the first play from scrimmage. They received the ball in an unspectacular but non-disastrous first kick-off play. Then on their first play from scrimmage, the center snapped the ball erratically, and into the Broncos' own end zone, costing them 2 points.


    The sad thing is that their offense really never got better than that. And this was widely supposed to be the best offense in football. Well ... they weren't on this day. They can only by charity and literal-mindedness even be said to have been one of the best remaining two!


    Peyton Manning threw directly into an interception at the end of the 1st quarter. How did he do that? How did he not see the coverage?  Those were the frenzied questions I jotted down on a napkin at the time.


    Manning, and his place within the Manning family dynasty, made a great story going into this Super Bowl. Archie Manning was a highly respected NFL quarterback, back in the day, working with a team that otherwise stunk, the N'Orleans Saints of the days when their fans wore bags on their heads,


    Archie's two kids, Eli and Peyton, have both had -- are both having -- remarkable careers.


    But there is one Sunday that PM would surely like to forget.


    So maybe he should spend the off season listening to Fleming's CDs!
    By the way, since the Super Bowl took place in New Jersey this year, people who don't know opera from fuhgeddabodit might want me to be specific: she wasn't one of those Sopranoes. She was a Soprano of the musical sort.





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