HEH HEH HEH o/`
- 23:00 tinyurl.com/c72daa makes me want to RP Dido or Ariadne or something. Probably Dido; I have book IV. #
- 09:30 Spanish test is NEXT week, not this. I could cry of relief. #
- 11:28 Latin test dreadful. James didn't plan class. "Let's go home." "Let's play Latin hangman." #
- 11:39 note to self: el preterito = perfect tense #
- 22:24 I can't watch the Beads of Courage ads any more without thinking of Kyah and getting sad. ._.; #
So I'm just back from seeing Nimby Opera's production of The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček with ablabsolute at the Salvation Army Citadel. Sort of a birthday present.
The Citadel's a neat place for a show, really. Fantastic acoustics, less formal than, say, the St. James or the Opera House. Arched shape. No orchestra pit, so the band was clumped on stage right. But because the place is, really a church, the company used the aisles really effectively. Performers were coming through the audience to the stage. Unusual and a nice touch.
With a musical group consisting of a grand total of five instruments (violin, cello, clarinet, horn, piano), I'm really impressed with the arrangement commissioned; they managed that full opera sound even against some really stunning operatic singers. There were these moments where the music really captures the sound of the forest, like the violin as a mosquito, heh. And the piano part was really cool.
I loved the set design and the way characters would make the changes in character instead of just pushing stuff on and off. And the background was projected graphics with animated transitions (and no I don't mean "fade in"). That link goes to some of the concept sketches and the design for the promotional materials. Said sketches are really damn close to what was on screen. That said, the anthro fox scares me a bit. Furries are taking over the opera. :|
The costumes were fantastic. Read in the paper the other day that they weren't as much trying to make the performers look like the animals themselves but the ideas of the animals, and that combined with some awesome physicality in their acting and great choreography meant that you still understood perfectly what people were supposed to be. The chickens! The frog! Omg, the frog. The rooster! The mosquito! The dog! It didn't hurt that there were goggles everywhere too. Seems to be a bit of an eyewear theme, actually, the birds all had glasses... Well, actually the vixen on her first scene and her cubs' costumes made me go o.O; a bit; they just looked like...school kids with furry gloves. It was like, what?
Yeah, great voices, the usual. Saddened to find that I am not used enough to opera that I can understand all of it when it's in English, interested in the libretto. Although I really like how the fox is played by a soprano. It adds Les Yay undertones while still being, IC-ly, a heterosexual relationship. Between two foxes.
Most surreal story and staging ever. The Vixen is insane. And seriously, guys, that fox wedding, what was that about
Go see it. :| There's two more shows, the 31st and the 2nd. $25 concession.