Okay, now that I've calmed down from last night's excitement, I'll talk about what I did this weekend.

Friday night we went to see Carmen at Lyric Opera. Carmen was "meh", Don Jose got better in the second act, and Escamillo was excellent ( Read more... )

I went over to Betty C.'s house to help stamp/address postcard invitations Teatro Vista's benefit on April 12. About halfway through, we realized that a whole slew of the address labels didn't have zip codes! So rather than risk them not being delivered, we split up the pile and I've spent a fair bit of the evening looking up zip codes and making ( Read more... )

Well, a week and a half anyway.

No traumatic or terrible reasons for it, just a bit lazy, and trying to catch up with reviews over at my other blogI've been busy with Teatro Vista board/committee meetings. We're planning a benefit in April and I'm on that committee (though it unfortunately falls during the time I'll be in Europe ( Read more... )

I was watching RAI-International, which is broadcast here for several hours on Sunday mornings. When I turned it on, they were showing a soccer match. Italian soccer players are adorable! That was followed by a segment about a production of Zelmira at Pesaro's Rossini Opera Festival, starring Juan Diego Flórez, one of the hottest tenors around ( Read more... )

The partying and overeating, that is ( Read more... )

Thursday evening was the first in what will (I hope) become a regular series at the Chicago Cultural Center: Chicago under the Dome. Preston Bradley Hall is often used for concerts, but these events have some cabaret seating in addition to the regular rows of chairs, and beer and wine! This concert was Jim Gailloreto's Jazz String Quintet, with ( Read more... )

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The weather has been absolutely beautiful this weekend, particularly yesterday. I went to the 61st Street Farmers' Market mid-morning, rather than earlier, because Mary Mastricola, the chef-owner of La Petite Folie, one of the nicest restaurants in the area, was doing a demo. She talked about food sanitation, knife work, and how to make a nice ( Read more... )

Saw Tom Stoppard's play, Rock 'n' Roll, at the Goodman the other day. It got rave reviews, but I don't see it. Not that it was bad, but it wasn't that great, either. It didn't help that it was difficult to understand the actors who used a Czech accent; I don't know if that was a result of bad diction or bad acoustics. A deep knowledge of 60s- ( Read more... )