reading Trilby, & watching Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Met
Wow, it's been a while since I've had time for LJ! It's been a pretty awful couple of months, but outside of the horribleness of car repairs draggging on for months (and still not fixed!!) and having to help my mum clear her stuff out of the basement, I've actually had a chance to do a little reading. (Gasp!)
I haven't read an actual novel in about 2 years, but I eventually picked up Trilby by George Du Maurier. Victorian sensationalism it may be, but I've always been rather curious about it. In it's day it was wildly popular enough for Trilby hats to be named for her (though she doesn't wear one!), and Svengali is now a dictionary term everyone knows, and so it's interesting to go back to the source and see what created such a stir. I'm about halfway through, just before Trilby actually appears to sing under Svengali's power, and even though the authorial voice can be rather Victorian in the negative sense (condescending toward Jews and imperious toward women, and generally very sure of the insightfulness of his observations), nevertheless, it's also a cracking good read thus far. I haven't been bored yet. The beginning, with bohemian artists in fin-de-siecle Paris, is colorful and fun, and the characters actually are quite believable. Trilby herself is a great character, except for the fact that she's got to fill the typical, annoying, 19th-century tragic heroine plot. But even with the melodramatic stuff, I'm invested in the characters and interested to see how they all end up.
Also made an attempt to watch the Metropolitan Opera's complete Ring Cycle when it aired on TV, but really I just think the human body wasn't meant to sit for that long! Gotterdamerung alone is like five hours long! I had to turn it off every now and then and go do other stuff throughout most of them, just to keep the circulation in my legs going! Also I always find it a bit of a slog to watch anything with subtitles, no matter how good it is. And all the talk about the sets was just hoopla, it didn't look that different or exciting (at least the parts I saw; I missed Siegfried forging the sword and slaying Fafner, and I would have liked to see their dragon! But I saw all the finales, which were pretty cool. The Ride of the Valkeries, on the other hand, was singularly lame. It just looked ridiculous, like they were little kids sitting on giant seesaws on a playground. When you've got such epic music, you just gotta have a more striking visual to live up to it). But it was still a fabulous production, thanks to the fact that the Niebelungenlied is just an awesome story for an opera (and would have made a much better series of movies than it's better known rip-off by Tolkien! Just sayin'.) and the great cast, who were all really wonderful. Deborah Voigt in particular, was an amazing Brunhilde. (The image of Brunhilde as a stodgy fat lady in a horned helmet is forever put to rest by her, I think!) She was just radiant. She really managed to bring out every side of the character, from the commanding yet vivacious goddess, to the conflicted daughter, to the beautiful, sexy paramour, to the wronged, but still noble, human being. You couldn't ask for more. And she and Jay Hunter Morris (who was also amazing! Where does he get that boundless energy??) as Siegfried had really great chemistry too, which I find is rarer to come by in opera, where they obviously have to cast roles based on voice before all other considerations. So that was a lucky strike. The whole cycle is on DVD, and I think I might actually have to go back and watch all the parts I missed someday. It was that good!
And I've listened to a ton of cast albums, so reviews will be forthcoming when I get more time!
I haven't read an actual novel in about 2 years, but I eventually picked up Trilby by George Du Maurier. Victorian sensationalism it may be, but I've always been rather curious about it. In it's day it was wildly popular enough for Trilby hats to be named for her (though she doesn't wear one!), and Svengali is now a dictionary term everyone knows, and so it's interesting to go back to the source and see what created such a stir. I'm about halfway through, just before Trilby actually appears to sing under Svengali's power, and even though the authorial voice can be rather Victorian in the negative sense (condescending toward Jews and imperious toward women, and generally very sure of the insightfulness of his observations), nevertheless, it's also a cracking good read thus far. I haven't been bored yet. The beginning, with bohemian artists in fin-de-siecle Paris, is colorful and fun, and the characters actually are quite believable. Trilby herself is a great character, except for the fact that she's got to fill the typical, annoying, 19th-century tragic heroine plot. But even with the melodramatic stuff, I'm invested in the characters and interested to see how they all end up.
Also made an attempt to watch the Metropolitan Opera's complete Ring Cycle when it aired on TV, but really I just think the human body wasn't meant to sit for that long! Gotterdamerung alone is like five hours long! I had to turn it off every now and then and go do other stuff throughout most of them, just to keep the circulation in my legs going! Also I always find it a bit of a slog to watch anything with subtitles, no matter how good it is. And all the talk about the sets was just hoopla, it didn't look that different or exciting (at least the parts I saw; I missed Siegfried forging the sword and slaying Fafner, and I would have liked to see their dragon! But I saw all the finales, which were pretty cool. The Ride of the Valkeries, on the other hand, was singularly lame. It just looked ridiculous, like they were little kids sitting on giant seesaws on a playground. When you've got such epic music, you just gotta have a more striking visual to live up to it). But it was still a fabulous production, thanks to the fact that the Niebelungenlied is just an awesome story for an opera (and would have made a much better series of movies than it's better known rip-off by Tolkien! Just sayin'.) and the great cast, who were all really wonderful. Deborah Voigt in particular, was an amazing Brunhilde. (The image of Brunhilde as a stodgy fat lady in a horned helmet is forever put to rest by her, I think!) She was just radiant. She really managed to bring out every side of the character, from the commanding yet vivacious goddess, to the conflicted daughter, to the beautiful, sexy paramour, to the wronged, but still noble, human being. You couldn't ask for more. And she and Jay Hunter Morris (who was also amazing! Where does he get that boundless energy??) as Siegfried had really great chemistry too, which I find is rarer to come by in opera, where they obviously have to cast roles based on voice before all other considerations. So that was a lucky strike. The whole cycle is on DVD, and I think I might actually have to go back and watch all the parts I missed someday. It was that good!
And I've listened to a ton of cast albums, so reviews will be forthcoming when I get more time!