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Nov. 19th, 2005 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickWell, the opera outing (time-shifted from the usual Sunday matinee because someone wound up with two events for the same day and clearly needs a day planner...) went less well than expected. We had dinner reservations for Germano's, which serves excellent Italian food at fairly reasonable prices but unfortunately, there was a huge wreck on Braddock Mountain outside of Frederick and I sat in traffic for an hour and fifteen minutes, thereby ass-fucking the reservations. I would like to point out that I wore a dress and shaved my legs and put on nylons (well, actually, tights) and so forth. I was making an effort to do the grown-up dress up outing, here. Fuck. I hate it when the world conspires against me.
The opera (a Bellini, La Sonnambula) had good voices, but the acting was limited to stand at the front of the stage and belt it out. At least they sounded good. The lighting was exceptional. Sometimes the lighting you get in operas is gratuitous use of gels because they're there. This was actually useful and attractive, lighting that added to the production. Interestingly, La Sonnambula is supposed to take place in the alps, but this production had a very beach-house feel for me, reminded me of nothing more than The Great Gatsby. I'm probably doing one or the other some disservice here, but the people in the opera dressed and looked like the Gatsby-ites do in my mind. Musically, it was very measured and deliberate. I would have rather he had more than two tempos, but what the hell. (This might also be a bel canto problem. We've done other bel canto and it just doesn't fucking pump my 'nads.)
Basic plot outline, for those of you who want to be clueful in case this comes up in casual conversation... (Okay, that's not very damn likely. Casual conversation only includes operas people have heard of, like La Boheme and Carmen and The Barber of Seville and The Magic Flute and stuff. Casual conversation does not generally include shit like Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk or Tannhäuser (though it rates a mention in Prince of Tennis) or Il Puritani or whatever. Normal humans are not going to talk to you about fucking La Sonnambula.) Right, then. Plot outline because I like to hear myself talk. Wotcha.
There's this chick Amina, who sleepwalks. She's supposed to be marrying Elvino. There's an innkeeper chick, Lisa, who wants Elvino. Rodolfo is the local nobleman dude who's staying at Lisa's inn. So anyway, Amina is supposed to marry Elvino but she sleepwalks accidentally into the bedroom Rodolfo's staying in at Lisa's inn. Lisa, who's busily handing Roldolfo her shopworn self when Amina comes in, runs off to get The Villagers so's to discredit Amina and spoil her wedding with Elvino. Amina, in her sleepwalky state, thinks Roldolfo is actually Elvino and she puts the moves on him. Rodolfo, unlike MOST opera nobledudes, resists Amina's charms even though he's a womanizer (as we saw vis a vis the fairly enthusiastic Lisa) who thinks Amina is a hottie. He's actually noble, instead of being a raging hard-on in a pair of velveteen trousers. (This is actually somewhat original for opera. Normally in these situations, the nobleman ravishes the simple country maiden, though, due to the fact that they're opera people, that part usually happens offstage because some things are better imagined than seen.) Anyway, The Villagers (tm) show up and are all horrified that Amina is sleeping on Roldolfo's sofa. Elvino finds out (because the whole fucking village knows) and you'd think he'd call off the wedding but instead he's decides he's just going to go marry Lisa instead. I guess he had the hall rented and the catering all lined up and he'd already sent out the invitations. Needless to say, this doesn't go over well with Amina and she goes mad, which is a popular pasttime for opera heroines. Roldolfo, though, tries to explain things to Elvino. Elvino starts off not buying the sleepwalker thing but then suddenly Amina starts sleepwalking (in broad daylight) over a suspension bridge that just magically appeared above the stage. Interestingly, nobody says anything about the damn bridge coming out of nowhere because they're all too busy watching Amina toddle across it in her white nightie (it's the only outfit she wears, throughout the opera) and heels. I don't know ANYONE ELSE who wears heels with her nightie, but Amina does. Anyway, seeing Amina on the bridge, Elvino is convinced and he wakes her up and they get married and live happily ever after.
The next opera will be in March of 2006. It'll be Dead Man Walking, after the book and the movie of the same title, a new American opera in English commissioned by the San Francisco Opera and first performed in 2000. If you didn't know that they were still making operas, well, they are still making operas. It's been well-reviewed. It's been *very* well-reviewed. I'm looking forward to it.
The opera (a Bellini, La Sonnambula) had good voices, but the acting was limited to stand at the front of the stage and belt it out. At least they sounded good. The lighting was exceptional. Sometimes the lighting you get in operas is gratuitous use of gels because they're there. This was actually useful and attractive, lighting that added to the production. Interestingly, La Sonnambula is supposed to take place in the alps, but this production had a very beach-house feel for me, reminded me of nothing more than The Great Gatsby. I'm probably doing one or the other some disservice here, but the people in the opera dressed and looked like the Gatsby-ites do in my mind. Musically, it was very measured and deliberate. I would have rather he had more than two tempos, but what the hell. (This might also be a bel canto problem. We've done other bel canto and it just doesn't fucking pump my 'nads.)
Basic plot outline, for those of you who want to be clueful in case this comes up in casual conversation... (Okay, that's not very damn likely. Casual conversation only includes operas people have heard of, like La Boheme and Carmen and The Barber of Seville and The Magic Flute and stuff. Casual conversation does not generally include shit like Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk or Tannhäuser (though it rates a mention in Prince of Tennis) or Il Puritani or whatever. Normal humans are not going to talk to you about fucking La Sonnambula.) Right, then. Plot outline because I like to hear myself talk. Wotcha.
There's this chick Amina, who sleepwalks. She's supposed to be marrying Elvino. There's an innkeeper chick, Lisa, who wants Elvino. Rodolfo is the local nobleman dude who's staying at Lisa's inn. So anyway, Amina is supposed to marry Elvino but she sleepwalks accidentally into the bedroom Rodolfo's staying in at Lisa's inn. Lisa, who's busily handing Roldolfo her shopworn self when Amina comes in, runs off to get The Villagers so's to discredit Amina and spoil her wedding with Elvino. Amina, in her sleepwalky state, thinks Roldolfo is actually Elvino and she puts the moves on him. Rodolfo, unlike MOST opera nobledudes, resists Amina's charms even though he's a womanizer (as we saw vis a vis the fairly enthusiastic Lisa) who thinks Amina is a hottie. He's actually noble, instead of being a raging hard-on in a pair of velveteen trousers. (This is actually somewhat original for opera. Normally in these situations, the nobleman ravishes the simple country maiden, though, due to the fact that they're opera people, that part usually happens offstage because some things are better imagined than seen.) Anyway, The Villagers (tm) show up and are all horrified that Amina is sleeping on Roldolfo's sofa. Elvino finds out (because the whole fucking village knows) and you'd think he'd call off the wedding but instead he's decides he's just going to go marry Lisa instead. I guess he had the hall rented and the catering all lined up and he'd already sent out the invitations. Needless to say, this doesn't go over well with Amina and she goes mad, which is a popular pasttime for opera heroines. Roldolfo, though, tries to explain things to Elvino. Elvino starts off not buying the sleepwalker thing but then suddenly Amina starts sleepwalking (in broad daylight) over a suspension bridge that just magically appeared above the stage. Interestingly, nobody says anything about the damn bridge coming out of nowhere because they're all too busy watching Amina toddle across it in her white nightie (it's the only outfit she wears, throughout the opera) and heels. I don't know ANYONE ELSE who wears heels with her nightie, but Amina does. Anyway, seeing Amina on the bridge, Elvino is convinced and he wakes her up and they get married and live happily ever after.
The next opera will be in March of 2006. It'll be Dead Man Walking, after the book and the movie of the same title, a new American opera in English commissioned by the San Francisco Opera and first performed in 2000. If you didn't know that they were still making operas, well, they are still making operas. It's been well-reviewed. It's been *very* well-reviewed. I'm looking forward to it.
