opera! squee!

Teh intarwebs are being excruciatingly slow this morning -- worse than dial-up. Evil!

I'm also excruciatingly slow this morning, having witnessed all five and a half hours of Götterdämmerung last night. That's actually less painful than it sounds. Everyone dies and the world ends (spoilerz!!!one!) so it's kinda my thing.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I approved of the interpretation; they were trying to be very clever and minimalist, so they had very bare setpieces and modern costumes. It worked at times (Hager as a scheming corporate suit, the Norns as homeless women sleeping on a highway, the Rhinemaidens as sex workers) and didn't work at others (they had a dramatic explosion in the Prologue when the Norns' cord is severed, which set up an expectation of something equally incendiary at the end. No such luck, though.). My main problem is that opera tends to be, well, a bit over-the-top, and Wagner doubly so, so if you're going to bother putting it on, you should respect that tradition. It was, as R. commented, the sort of production that we'd have found edgy and avant-garde in high school but now, not so much.

The music was fabulous, though, which was even more impressive given that the fellow singing Siegfried had bronchitis and I have all sorts of unpleasant associations with Wagner. And the best thing? We poached second-row seats. R. is the best; not only does he come up with $18 tickets, but he is also wise in all sorts of opera deviousness and landed us right by the orchestra pit. Heh.

Operas are strange events, especially these days. The audience tends to be about 3/4 rich decadent types who see it as some sort of cultural signifier (and then leave early or never show, lending us their $200 seats) and 1/4 jean-clad students who actually know something about the music and got nosebleed seats for $20. We sat behind a couple that R. noticed first with a measure of disgust: an attractive young Asian woman who barely spoke, and a portly, mustachioed older guy who remarked that the new opera house looked like a toilet bowl but had he known he could get box seats, he would have. Ewww.

It figures that the one time I remember to bring my opera glasses is the time that I don't have a need for them.

On a more low-brow note, I spotted in a washroom:

YOUR ALL MORONS

followed by

LEARN 2 GRAMMAR
KTHNXBYE.

opera! squee!

Teh intarwebs are being excruciatingly slow this morning -- worse than dial-up. Evil!

I'm also excruciatingly slow this morning, having witnessed all five and a half hours of Götterdämmerung last night. That's actually less painful than it sounds. Everyone dies and the world ends (spoilerz!!!one!) so it's kinda my thing.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I approved of the interpretation; they were trying to be very clever and minimalist, so they had very bare setpieces and modern costumes. It worked at times (Hager as a scheming corporate suit, the Norns as homeless women sleeping on a highway, the Rhinemaidens as sex workers) and didn't work at others (they had a dramatic explosion in the Prologue when the Norns' cord is severed, which set up an expectation of something equally incendiary at the end. No such luck, though.). My main problem is that opera tends to be, well, a bit over-the-top, and Wagner doubly so, so if you're going to bother putting it on, you should respect that tradition. It was, as R. commented, the sort of production that we'd have found edgy and avant-garde in high school but now, not so much.

The music was fabulous, though, which was even more impressive given that the fellow singing Siegfried had bronchitis and I have all sorts of unpleasant associations with Wagner. And the best thing? We poached second-row seats. R. is the best; not only does he come up with $18 tickets, but he is also wise in all sorts of opera deviousness and landed us right by the orchestra pit. Heh.

Operas are strange events, especially these days. The audience tends to be about 3/4 rich decadent types who see it as some sort of cultural signifier (and then leave early or never show, lending us their $200 seats) and 1/4 jean-clad students who actually know something about the music and got nosebleed seats for $20. We sat behind a couple that R. noticed first with a measure of disgust: an attractive young Asian woman who barely spoke, and a portly, mustachioed older guy who remarked that the new opera house looked like a toilet bowl but had he known he could get box seats, he would have. Ewww.

It figures that the one time I remember to bring my opera glasses is the time that I don't have a need for them.

On a more low-brow note, I spotted in a washroom:

YOUR ALL MORONS

followed by

LEARN 2 GRAMMAR
KTHNXBYE.