>but hey, that's art.

And I say, "murderous totalitarian regime".

Yeah, same thing.



Oh, and I lost all respect for Pavarotti much earlier than when he even started lip-synching. Not much of a role model there.

As a sweeping generalization coming from my own upbringing and experiences, I think Chinese people (and their government) tend to value aesthetics greatly, and thus a decision like this is upsetting but not very surprising. At the same time, though, this sort of mindset isn't at all an Evil China exclusive; look at magazine photos (where in some magazines, they're more painting than photo now anyway), musician/performer successes, diet trends, fashion trends, the meat of the advertising world ("You're not good enough. Buy this and maybe you'll be less horrible.") etc. And I definitely can't endorse high-and-mighty comments about how evil China is; they're just as evil as everywhere else, but they're not as good at covering it up. You say the Chinese media is state-run like that's uncommon. Did CNN lose its "Joke" status? China's just more transparent about it.

Returning to the topic, I read an article on this earlier in the week (which carried a little more substance to it) and apparently the story is that the girl you SAW was selected early to perform (she IS a singer, and a nice one), but during the last rehearsal a powerful politician decided her voice had to go. Thus the music director scrambled to find another good voice, which he did, but then the owner of that lovely voice was deemed not cute enough to represent China. Both kids and their families say they are okay with it (of course, they might have been instructed to say that), the singer that she's just happy her voice was used to represent China. I think that's a classy way to come off it, and whoever's handling PR for China seems to have done the best they could after the fact (ie not denial). I still don't agree with the decision, as I think both kids were adorable, and I feel confident that if the visible girl made it through auditioning and rehearsals, she was indeed a great singer anyway. It's unfortunate that this one dude with all the power decided otherwise, but hey, that's art.

And finally, to whoever posted that quip about slave labour being related, that's gotta top my personal list of dumbest correlations ever. And further, a country that is known to use slave labour might be a sad thing, but is it much better to be in one of the many countries that quietly but enthusiastically continue to fund said labour?

My overall point is this isn't a good deed by any means, but I suspect that the world is chomping at the bit to cry foul at China, given the one-sided press it gets. And as another poster commented, on the grand scale, who really cares about lip-synching? (Pavarotti lip-synched in the 07 Winters, I think... due to age and cold air?)

PS: Milli Vanilli was AWESOME. Blame it on the Rain was such an awesome song I'm not even upset about the whole lip-synching faking debacle.

I was actually looking for animated flash music vid of 'frou frou - let go' some time ago. I couldn't find it easily, so I'd figured I would find it some other day. That was 3 months ago. And today I just saw your 'frou frou - breathe in' submission.

At that point I thought to myself 'ah crap, lost another 2-3 sifts to Issykitty...' Because not surprisingly, someone as diligent as IssyKitty don't take her sweet time getting things done You've done the same thing to Radiohead sifts, sarah chang sifts, Pavarotti & classical sifts, cats & dogs sifts, and the national geographic sifts.

ALL BECAUSE I'M LAZY!

I'm forced to do my searches whenever I get the chance nowadays, otherwise I lose them all to you because we have similar sifting tastes in some genres.

I say some, because I definitely remember seeing few of your sifts that I had absolutely no clue what exactly it was about

Sorry, this one is a dupe: http://www.videosift.com/video/RIP-Pavarotti-Pavarotti-and-James-Brown

This is a good topic for Sift Talk Kronos!

I knew about Videosift for almost a year before I joined. I lurked for many months and found that it was a great place to find a variety of things to watch to appeal to everyone, and I really enjoyed reading the commentaries for the videos. I also noticed that many sites such as Reddit would link a lot of content here. I found this among many others from lurking this awesome site.

The thing that got me to join was when Luciano Pavarotti passed away. I was really sad and distraught, and wanted to find everything Pavarotti on the Sift. It was my desire to post a particular classic video clip as my personal tribute to him, in a sense. The community impressed me so much, I decided to go charter just a couple of weeks later.

Yeehawr. 235 sifts in half as many days? Stupendous!
And to think it all started with Pavarotti.

Perhaps your greatest contribution to the Sift:
http://www.videosift.com/playlists/Issykitty/Wonder-Showzen
I'm also partial to this post.

The pink diamond goes very well with your purple title. Sooo, the big question, what will the new channel be?

Thank you very much! I love these guys.

In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
*promote

Payback time silvercord!! AHAHAHA!! Remember this?!?!: http://www.videosift.com/video/Le-Nozze-De-Figaro-Duettino-SullAria

You thought I forgot, didn't you?? AHAHA!!

p.s. I kinda thought Carreras (middle) wasn't up to par against Domingo and Pavarotti. Ugh...

*promote

Payback time silvercord!! AHAHAHA!! Remember this?!?!: http://www.videosift.com/video/Le-Nozze-De-Figaro-Duettino-SullAria

You thought I forgot, didn't you?? AHAHA!!

p.s. I kinda thought Carreras (middle) wasn't up to par against Domingo and Pavarotti. Ugh...

Wow, I remember voting for issy's first (and a great one) post;

http://www.videosift.com/video/Pavarotti-Non-tamo-piu-by-Tosti

Congratulations!

Thanks for the link, Enzoblue. Might I add that even though this may be "after his prime" in your opinion, it is still a wonderful and worthy performance of Maestro Pavarotti. I don't often get to see him in performances that are in a recital setting with only piano accompaniment, and I am sad that I never got to see him live and in person. I can only imagine what it was like to be there through these recordings. That is all.

Know this: This and all Pavarotti duets and '3 tenors'-ness were done after his prime. If you truly want an appreciation for this master, check this duet with the legendary Joan Sutherland:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CC9U43BFio

See what is was like in the 70's when his voice was effortless and sublime.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'opera, music, pavarotti, tenor' to 'opera, music, pavarotti, tenor, schubert' - edited by Deano

Tags for this video have been changed from 'opera, music' to 'opera, music, pavarotti, tenor' - edited by Deano

No problem, welcome to the sift! This is a really good submission, I enjoyed it.

In reply to this comment by Issykitty:
Thank you for your vote on my very first submission (Pavarotti:" Non t'amo piu" by Tosti), and I am only 1 more vote away from making it out of the queue. Yayyyy!

Just wanted to thank you for your vote on my submission, ("Pavarotti: "Non t'amo piu" by Tosti) and as of now, I just need ONE more vote to make it! Wish me luck...