Opéra National de Lyon

Now, um, and, and I guess one of the, the, the key kind of indicators of what's going on, I mean, in terms of economics, uh, you know, the, the domination, the dominance of, of, of, of, of the Paris region in terms of the economy is that Lyon, uh, which was always France's second city, uh, first in gastronomy, as I said earlier, uh, uh, the, the bank of Lyon, uh, the Crédit Lyonnais, that is the, the Lyon Bank, uh, in the eighteen sixties moves its headquarters to Paris, uh, not in Lyon, as if it's sort of given up.

And people, for example, who follow the Lyon Opera always say, "Well, our opera is fine, uh, but it's nothing, of course, like Paris," where all the resources are poured, uh, into Paris.

How did it get this way? I mean, just thinking over the long, long run, how did France end up so, uh, so centralized? I mean, all states, uh, you know, centralized, uh, uh, became larger and centralized their ability to extract resources from their population.

If you take Europe in fifteen hundred, the year fifteen hundred, there were about fifteen hundred territorial states, and they ranged from big, consolidated monarchies like Spain and, and England and France to, uh, to, uh, uh, bishoprics, uh, uh, such as Trier, uh, in Germany that were hardly bigger than the gardens of the archbishops, uh, who r- ran them.

yeah

opportunities and now what do I do but yeah I went to um Bielefeld in Germany for Felix Launderer's company um And then I went to Opera de Lyon in the south of France.

Wow.

I did Nuremberg, Nuremberg Ballet in Germany as well.

That is the gorgeously definitive recording of Trees on the Mountain from Carl L. Floyd's Susanna.

This is the 1994 recording from Opera de Lyon with Cheryl Studer crushing it as Susanna with Kent Nagano conducting.

And finally, one of the songs that is one of my favorites and probably Dolly's most famous, I Will Always Love You.

The whole point of I Will Always Love You is that the central character is leaving her love, not because she wants to, but out of necessity and obligation.