(no subject)

[salophile]

Saw Die Fliengen Höllander (English: The Flying Dutchman) at Seattle Opera on Friday night. It was pretty good, on the level of most Seattle Wagner (we are America's Wagner town), and starring Greer Grimsley and Jane Eaglen as the Dutchman and Senta. They were awesome, as usual-- I don't think there's ever been Wagner where they didn't sing together the entire time I've been going to Seattle Opera. What I was really impressed with was the staging of the opera. They updated it so that it was modern, in a sense, but it still felt very quaint and old-fashioned. It's a good opera to modernize, I suppose, because the setting is so understated. It's not like the Ring where the setting is everything or so interwoven with the characters that every tree in Siegfried's forest makes a huge difference; the way this Höllander was done was very Canadian-town-onna-rock. Shipping News-esque. It made a very interesting contrast with the Dutchman's 17th-century naval uniform. The only thing about the opera I didn't like is that I missed talking to my girlfriend. We made up for it later, but nonetheless.

The snake still hasn't shown up, unfortunately. Mom and my Opa are sure that the snake's made it outside, while Oma's sure that she's just huddled up downstairs somewhere. I'm waiting for permission to completely tear the house apart to find her but Mom hasn't agreed yet. I may or may not end up with another-- an adult male snow-- tomorrow. But I really want Constance back. We even invested in live mice in a cage to draw her out, but so far no luck. The mice are named Munch and Bite, partly because they may be fed to the snake when she's found, partly because one of them bit me when I chose them at the pet store.