Fun and Stun
Last Friday, being the workday before Halloween (which I still maintain Australians shouldn't have to celebrate), was a dressup day to look terrifying at work. I have photos, which I'll eventually get around to uploading somewhere, but the number of people who really get into it is incredible.
Donna was a rather risque-looking devil, Mel was a dark angel-thing, Cookie was a succubus, there were vampires, ghosts, mad scientists and Frankensteins all over the place. I was going to organise something vaguely vampiric but didn't get the chance to, so I adopted the traditional "sheet over the head" ghost look, which got lots of laughs. Indeed, a photo of yours truly is on the highlight wall.
The highlight of the weekend was the final opera of the year, Verdi's "Aida". I'd never seen this performed, and knew surprisingly little of the music apart from the "Gloria all'Egitto" triumphal fanfare. The version Opera Queensland was running was marketed as a visual extravaganza, and it lived up to that billing. It genuinely seemed at some points as though the director just kept putting more and more members of the chorus on stage to show off - there was a "river Nile" on stage which people swam in, the moon rose and set, heiroglyphs turned up at various points and people walked in and out of what looked like pyramids. I can definitely see why this is such a standard work in the operatic canon, particularly the end of Act 2 which is up there with the best scenes in opera overall.
With the new month has come a new shift - of 7-3:30. It's a bit of a shock to the system, but it gets me home nice and early and means that the Christmas/New Year shifts will be kind again.
Donna was a rather risque-looking devil, Mel was a dark angel-thing, Cookie was a succubus, there were vampires, ghosts, mad scientists and Frankensteins all over the place. I was going to organise something vaguely vampiric but didn't get the chance to, so I adopted the traditional "sheet over the head" ghost look, which got lots of laughs. Indeed, a photo of yours truly is on the highlight wall.
The highlight of the weekend was the final opera of the year, Verdi's "Aida". I'd never seen this performed, and knew surprisingly little of the music apart from the "Gloria all'Egitto" triumphal fanfare. The version Opera Queensland was running was marketed as a visual extravaganza, and it lived up to that billing. It genuinely seemed at some points as though the director just kept putting more and more members of the chorus on stage to show off - there was a "river Nile" on stage which people swam in, the moon rose and set, heiroglyphs turned up at various points and people walked in and out of what looked like pyramids. I can definitely see why this is such a standard work in the operatic canon, particularly the end of Act 2 which is up there with the best scenes in opera overall.
With the new month has come a new shift - of 7-3:30. It's a bit of a shock to the system, but it gets me home nice and early and means that the Christmas/New Year shifts will be kind again.