ah right. i forgot to relay the recap of the lovely opera i saw on sunday with laura and her dad. as you might have guessed from the title, it was verdi's la traviata, as performed by the opera company of philadelphia in the lovely academy of music (i do so love that name. the academy of music. such light and airy feelings of enlightenment and scholarship.) i'd seen la traviata before, at the opera house in kazan, russia. it was the first opera i ever saw, and i didn't want to see another. since then, i've seen a bunch of operas with laura (including la boheme with a large black woman singing the title role--not so much having me believe she was dying of tuberculosis, i pagliacci, othello, don giovanni, and aida, which was translated into russian. i knew for sure it was a disaster when one singer had to sing "no, no" and it was "nyet, nyet." russian just doesn't have the appropriate ratio of consonants to vowels for opera. just you try to sing the 'hello' in russian: zdravstvuite!)

so this production of la traviata was wonderful. the soprano, maureen o'flynn, started out a bit shaky (nerves? for a professional?) but settled in, and did a fabulous job both with the ah, fors' e loi... sempre libera aria from the first act, where she sings about the possibilities of love with alfredo and decides to live only for pleasure and freedom (with him), which is apparently the one that sopranos dread the most, and with the addio del passato area from the last act, where she is about to die and sings a farewell to past happinesses.

the tenor, william burden, was also good, except during one aria (forget which) he totally failed to hit the last, high note. cringe.

the story of la traviata is basically the same as all other operas: beautiful woman and handsome man fall in love (details vary from opera to opera about whether they are both rich, both poor, or one of each) against the odds. at the height of their happiness, tragedy strikes (details vary from opera to opera about the root of tragedy is a selfish and intrusive relative (as in this opera), sickness (a sub-text of this opera, but one that is, at the height of their happiness, being defeated), or jealousy). one of the lovers dies (details vary from opera to opera about who dies, and how. in la traviata, violetta dies of tuberculosis. other operas end in the suicide of a scorned or regretful lover, or the murder or accidental murder of one of the lovers).

upshot: yay opera!

a rainbow of fruit flavors

05 February 2003 - 12:02 pm

so what the difference between a kinder surprise egg (cf here) and george w. bush?
one's a glueless kit ...

a priest, a rabbi, a robot, and a duck walk into a bar. the bartender says "what is this, some kind of joke?"

the roach population in the kitchen is on the rise again. everytime we open the dishwasher, there were a few scurrying around. great. they're living in the dishwasher. so we took apart the dishwasher door. got the raid spray ready. after all the scurriers were killed, there were 27 roach corpses in and around the dishwasher. ew. just ew. but an exterminator is coming next week (to deal with the mouse problem that we have only recently discovered. mousey is living in the wall between the living room and the foosball room. we've plugged her hole (temporarily, i'm sure) with those bastions of home repair, jenga blocks) and we'll see if he's got any ideas about how to deal with the roaches. damn roaches.

karl's college buddy e.i.r.u.n. is coming on saturday to stay for 3 weeks. (three weeks of his nine weeks vacation. NINE WEEKS.) david, who came november 2001, isn't coming this time. he just bought a house. with claire, his non-girlfriend. yes, they are sleeping together. yes, they just bought a house together. no, they are not, says david, together. um, yeah.