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Mar. 19th, 2006 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickThe baby shower was delightful and a success, though we missed seeing ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyivy, who was not feeling well. It was good to see everyone and there was not an excessive amount of cutesy, which is a difficult achievement in the world of baby showers.
Happily,not_your_real put me up for the night so that I didn't have to drive back from Philly to my house but could go down the elevated road of certain death (AKA I-95) to Baltimore for the opera the following day. That was a real timesaver and also gave me time to pick on NYR's husband, who was an amazingly good sport about the unexpected houseguest portion of the program. (I need to be more clear about foreshadowing this stuff...) He even made blueberry pancakes (very good) for breakfast on Sunday morning, which was a real treat.
For lunch, Mom made corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and carrots. I ate more of that than I should and will no doubt pay the freight tomorrow when I have fingers that look like sausages. Damn salt thing. She also loaned me music which I have to rip and return. She returned some of the Pratchett that had been borrowed by brother-the-younger AND handed over some new stuff, including Middlemarch. She also delivered unto me the tickets to La Boheme for in May, when I will be attending withsara_merry99 because mom will be in England.
The opera lecture thing was okay, though with more God bits than I personally prefer in my lectures. (The opera, Dead Man Walking, contains a nun as one of the primary characters. With nuns, you really should expect a certain amount of God bits. It's unavoidable. Nuns accessorize in God bits.) The opera itself was delightful, though I was amused to note that the surtitles did not contain profanity that was in the actual dialogue. (The opera is in English, for those who were wondering how I could tell what the words were.) The music was modern, a little dissonant where appropriate, and overall quite good. It suited the actions and moods on stage very well. While the set was a bit more filled with motion than I like (things coming down from above, mostly) the action upon it was well-blocked and exceedingly well-lit. I found the costumes (modern clothes like normal people wear -- very realistic) wonderfully appropriate. The dialogue for the opera was way more perky than I expected and had some pretty good lines. The only difficulty I had with it was that it was weird hearing everyday speech (the dialogue was lifelike) come out sounding like opera and I have to admit that this is more a failing of me than anything wrong with the production.
It was pretty heartrending. We cried. It's not that you think Joe (the murderer) is a good guy. He's not. We got to see him rape and murder the girl at the beginning. We know it was him what done it. But it's still sad... and that, I think is where it's effective. It does not hammer overly on how an eye for an eye makes everyone blind, which I was afraid it might do, and while I'm not certain murderers can be redeemed, I'm willing to accept that *other* people feel that murderers can be redeemed. Turns out, that's enough of a hook for the opera to work.
ladyivy, who was not feeling well. It was good to see everyone and there was not an excessive amount of cutesy, which is a difficult achievement in the world of baby showers.Happily,
not_your_real put me up for the night so that I didn't have to drive back from Philly to my house but could go down the elevated road of certain death (AKA I-95) to Baltimore for the opera the following day. That was a real timesaver and also gave me time to pick on NYR's husband, who was an amazingly good sport about the unexpected houseguest portion of the program. (I need to be more clear about foreshadowing this stuff...) He even made blueberry pancakes (very good) for breakfast on Sunday morning, which was a real treat.For lunch, Mom made corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and carrots. I ate more of that than I should and will no doubt pay the freight tomorrow when I have fingers that look like sausages. Damn salt thing. She also loaned me music which I have to rip and return. She returned some of the Pratchett that had been borrowed by brother-the-younger AND handed over some new stuff, including Middlemarch. She also delivered unto me the tickets to La Boheme for in May, when I will be attending with
sara_merry99 because mom will be in England. The opera lecture thing was okay, though with more God bits than I personally prefer in my lectures. (The opera, Dead Man Walking, contains a nun as one of the primary characters. With nuns, you really should expect a certain amount of God bits. It's unavoidable. Nuns accessorize in God bits.) The opera itself was delightful, though I was amused to note that the surtitles did not contain profanity that was in the actual dialogue. (The opera is in English, for those who were wondering how I could tell what the words were.) The music was modern, a little dissonant where appropriate, and overall quite good. It suited the actions and moods on stage very well. While the set was a bit more filled with motion than I like (things coming down from above, mostly) the action upon it was well-blocked and exceedingly well-lit. I found the costumes (modern clothes like normal people wear -- very realistic) wonderfully appropriate. The dialogue for the opera was way more perky than I expected and had some pretty good lines. The only difficulty I had with it was that it was weird hearing everyday speech (the dialogue was lifelike) come out sounding like opera and I have to admit that this is more a failing of me than anything wrong with the production.
It was pretty heartrending. We cried. It's not that you think Joe (the murderer) is a good guy. He's not. We got to see him rape and murder the girl at the beginning. We know it was him what done it. But it's still sad... and that, I think is where it's effective. It does not hammer overly on how an eye for an eye makes everyone blind, which I was afraid it might do, and while I'm not certain murderers can be redeemed, I'm willing to accept that *other* people feel that murderers can be redeemed. Turns out, that's enough of a hook for the opera to work.
