It's been a minute since I took in an opera. But thanks to e.'s ridiculous travel schedule, I got the opportunity to see Verdi's Luisa Miller for the first time courtesy of
( Read more... )

The one upside to spending so much time at home was that--most of the time, at least--I wasn't too sick to read. Maybe I could've pushed myself to get through a little more, but I'm content with finishing one novel, starting another, and making substantial progress on a third.

The round house was the novel I finished and it was a terrific read. In ( Read more... )

More reading! On Saturday, I started on another Woodrell novel, Give me a kiss; I finished it Monday night. (And that's with Sunday being mostly a lost day due to my stumbling home at 4 a.m ( Read more... )

Lyric's Rigoletto was a happy family. The only weak voice was Monterone, but, hey, Silvastrelli can't be in every production of theirs. We knew Kelsey could sing from past seasons but he still impressed us; I actually got shivers at one point. Polenzani was excellent but the real revelation was Rose Feola as Gilda. I know encores aren't a thing any ( Read more... )

Nuphy called Don Quichotte "the season's weakest link" and perhaps that's what it will turn out to be. After all, it was by all accounts an impressive Lucia and I can personally attest that we had a solid Rheingold. I'd take a mediocre version of either of those over a top-rate Massenet most days and I'm so dang excited about finally seeing Les ( Read more... )

Opera season technically opened for us last weekend, but it was only Lucia and Nuphy wasn't going to miss a major playoff game just for that and I wasn't going to go to it without him so we found a good friend (Diego) to pass our tickets on to. I would've been more hesitant about agreeing to this if it weren't for the fact that I knew we'd catch ( Read more... )

At some point in my reading of Borstal Boy, I attempted to compare it to my memories of the 2002 film adaptation and come to the realisation that I had none. I mean, I dredged up a few vague images and I remember something about a stage play, but I couldn't recall the plot. Or the character arc. Or the characters. Or the actors who played them. So ( Read more... )

I feel remiss for not writing full reviews for the couple of recent opera performances I saw. I was under the weather both times, but I wish I could've been sicker for The merry widow than for Wozzeck rather than the other way around, since obviously a serious drama about the exploitation of the proletariat requires just a bit more concentration ( Read more... )

So if you want to know where the inspiration for the garish pastels in the costumes of Barbara Gaines' production came from, look no further than here:

( Read more... )

I meant to use the weekend to catch up on some reading but I caught up more on films instead. For various reasons, there were three at the house, but I don't want to watch Winter's Bone until it's cold, so I sent it back. That left a Chinese film and a French-Canadian one, and I watched them in that order.

It's been so long since I dropped 桃姐 ( ( Read more... )