There are so many reasons to adore Franco Zeffirelli - his La Boheme certainly being one of them - but the opera director's unabashed diva attitude is just endlessly entertaining... Hey, when you're that talented you just start wanting to get your way.

So Zeffirelli had a vision to build an academy of theater arts in his hometown of Florence, Italy, but it appears certain semantics were just too much for his creative soul: The academy was supposed to be built in the Piazzale del Re, but something to do with the owner of the area not signing on, or not allocating enough space, proved too much for Zeffirelli. Here's hoping the academy finds its new home in New York!

I'm still waiting for the interview follow-up, but La Nazione published the letter Zeffirelli wrote to the mayor of Florence with his polite, though over-the-top, dismissal of Florence as the site of his great academy - mostly to due with his "relationship with the management culture of Florence today." Oh yeah, artists and "management culture" don't mix.

Full disclosure, I just plugged this letter into Google Translate, but this was too funny not to post:

"I spoke primarily ... to delegate the task to our city to preserve and hand down to future generations all the assets that I modestly put together in over 60 years of an explosive career in all fields of entertainment."

Oh, Franco - how modest.

If only Mozart had been privy to instant, interactive audience feedback during his performances...

operamission, based in New York, staged a production of Cosi fan Tutte, encouraging its audience to Tweet during the show. The performers themselves were working on a fittingly spontaneous basis: Jennifer Peterson, director of operamission, conducted an unrehearsed orchestra; she was joined by dramaturg Cori Ellison, stage director Ned Canty and Italian baritone Marco Nisticò. Meanwhile, audiences were encouraged to follow the score online and provide feedback on the performance, which was divided over several days.

So how did Cosi fan Tutte: Some Assembly Required production go? Well, according to some Tweets, the air conditioner was broken and the fire alarm went off at one point, but a little drama is to be expected; perhaps more importantly, the hotel venue sold PBR at the cafe during intermission. Maybe this is the future of opera performance...

You can check up on the #nycosi Tweets yourself, but follow the link for a good assembly of the weekend highlights. Here are a few I enjoyed:

poilaparola: Ovation for Caroline Worra's Per Pieta.

lownote: Phone dying, gonna have to pass on anymore livetweeting. That was a pretty convincing wind serenade for a 1st read!

poilaparola: Doing a secco recit EXACTLY as written. Sounds precisely awful. Ye gods. #nycosi

tim_hill: #nycosi baaatttttteryyyyy dyyyyyyyyying can't tweet anymorrrrrrrrr

...now that last one was truly a sign-off worthy of an opera lover.

Lately baritone Duncan Rock of the Glyndebourne Chorus has doubled as quite the correspondent. As he prepares for his cover role in the 2010 Festival production of Mozart's Così fan tutte, he has participated in a video diary documenting his rehearsal process, as well as his feelings on performing opera in general.

I highly recommend the video series, for the exclusive look into premier opera rehearsals, of course, but hey - what's not to like about Duncan himself? (Follow the Glyndebourne link for fantastic video content they've assembled as well.)

© Glyndebourne Productions 2010. Produced by Karen McCallion, Sam Wilkins and Simon Yapp