A night at the opera

(from http://dev.vaopera.org)

Caro was kind enough to invite me to the Virginia Opera's production of Don Giovanni. We had a vegetarian meal at Thai Pot in here in Williamsburg and then dressed up for the trek down to the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk.

There's good news, and there's bad news.

I'll start with the good news.

Caro and I had a decent time. I learned the practical art of pre-ordering your Intermission cocktail (It was so very "Frasier" of me). The temperature was comfortable despite the biting cold outside- I didn't need my coat in the theater itself.

The players were very talented. I was quite impressed (No easy feat). This was also the youngest, best-looking cast I've ever seen at this opera house. As I mentioned in my review of Turandot, often your most accomplished singers are not your most attractive people, making the parts they play a little hard to believe. In this group, Don Giovanni was handsome, the women were lovely (particularly the peasant girl, Zerlina... very striking eyes), and Leporello (Don Giovanni's man-servant) was good-looking, too.

Now, this is Mozart, so, it's not the most challenging music I've ever heard. However, this young cast nailed all the subtle (and not-so-subtle) emotions in this story of love and betrayal. The men especially could boom with vigor or determination as well as croon softly. Fantastic singing, really.

The set was minimalist... just some moving walls here and there... sort of boring, but at least not distracting...

...which leads me to the bad news...

The director chose to open and close the opera with the same silent background scene: A young woman removes her clothing provocatively as a man stands off to the side observing her. Once she's wearing nothing but her under-slip, the man approaches her, and the two embrace. Caro pointed out to me, when I initially complained about this, that the scene was likely meant to symbolize one of Giovanni's favorite activities (while he's not that picky, he does especially enjoy deflowering virgins). A large rose painted on a backdrop glows behind the scene emphasizing her youth and purity about to be corrupted.

Thing is, I don't feel that sorry for her. I mean, the girl undressing for her audience is clearly into this action, desiring her audience of one to look upon her. She is also unlike any of the actual female characters in the opera. The three relevant women who have somehow been wronged by Giovanni all want vengeance. One woman wants him dead for murdering her father (the father challenged him in her defense, but the man was old and no match for Giovanni). Another calls out threats and names, but misses her former lover and really wishes to reform him, to have him as her own. Lastly, the peasant girl wishes to see him punished for misleading her and beating up her fiancé.

Giovanni is a cad, it's true, and each woman is completely entitled to her feelings. He chases women, any and all women, has his way, and disappears. He also mistreats his funny, obliging man-servant.

And this is the actual bad news. Though, like I said, it was a remarkable production, I have never liked this story. It's hard for me to listen to a man I despise sing for three hours. Even when Giovanni is punished for his misdeeds (you watch him as he is swallowed into the fires of hell... very dramatic for a mostly lighthearted opera), no one is really happy in the end. The only exception is the young peasant couple (they just go home and get on with their lives). Donna Anna postpones her wedding another year (she's been stringing her poor fiancé along this whole time saying they can wed once he avenges her father's death, but still finds herself too upset to consider a happy wedding at the end of the tale). Donna Elvira, one of Giovanni's many scorned lovers, decides to join a convent rather than brave falling in love ever again. And Leporello, poor man, who was dragged from beginning to end as an accomplice in all Giovanni's schemes, he seeks out a new master who, from the looks of it, is just as bad as Giovanni. It's not the saddest ending to an opera, but, nonetheless, it's not very satisfying.

All in all, though I don't like the story, it was a good show and not at all a waste of a Saturday night. Though we walked through the cold for a block to get to the opera house (they're doing something weird with parking and we had to park in a neighborhood behind the venue), we enjoyed our evening.

Highlights and Semi-finalist highlights

Another good, but, long day. Woke up tired (I hate that... makes me wonder what the heck I was doing while I thought I was sleeping) and went to to work this evening. Since I have an early morning, I'll simply offer the highlights of my week.

The best moments of my week derived from my friendships and family. I had a chance to talk more with my brothers... my mother understood me... I learned something new about one friend... I was able to rely on something old about my closest friend. It was a decent week.

But the semi-finalist for highlights goes to Gmail Buzz! All the silly things people like about Facebook are now available in Gmail Buzz... and the great perk is that it only applies to people in your gmail circle, not to everyone in all Creation. If you are reading Buzz from someone, it's because you're already friends, not because you haven't seen each other in 10 years and you accept an offer of virtual, trivia-smothering "friendship" to uphold social niceties. I can know what random, goofy things are on my friends' and family's minds whenever they update without being hunted down by strange people from high school or college whose names I barely remember.

A donation entry called "V-Wags"

I taught three classes back to back and saw my folks tonight... so I'm beat. I have no creativity of my own to bestow, so I'm choosing to share an email someone else wrote that I received today about a car that has meant so much to Anya and me and a handful of other good friends:

Lessons from the V-wags:

-If your car doesn’t start, just wait 10 minutes and try again. It'll probably work.

-Sometimes just opening and closing the hood really does fix the problem.

-Forget coffee. Sometimes a good bloodcurdling shriek from the heating fan is all you need to wake you up in the morning.

-It makes so much more sense to have the door handle vertical in the arm rest.

-The V-wags is slow because it wants you to just relax and enjoy the scenery.

-Sometimes traveling in the V-wags can be a risky and uncertain venture. That's just its way of saying that the journey is as important as the destination and you should be mindful of it!

-Buy fuses in bulk. I think the V-wags thinks they're candy.

-The V-wags doesn't need AC...that's what the windows are for.

-The V-wags doesn't have a CD player because it prefers conversation.

-Sometimes buttons are only there to make you wonder what they do.

-The amount of joy and satisfaction you find in something often has a negatively correlated relationship with how much that object cost.

I beg your pardon...

At dinner this evening, I think I was having a good conversation with the two other people at my table. They're both bright and engaging, so, chances are, we had a good talk.

The reason for my lack of assurance derives from the noise right behind my head. A table of five or six people sat back-to-back with our booth. Every few minutes, someone would laugh loudly- no, very loudly- directly into my ear. This naturally caused this person's dinner companions to laugh and chuckle. One guest had a particularly distinct laugh... it sounded like a long, loud, sucking-in of oxygen after having held one's breath for too long... it was impossible to ignore. Every so often, I'd hear cursing, loud opinions, seemingly intoxicated mumbling, etc. The restaurant was not crowded, so, all of us were included in the conversation at this table... whether we wanted to join or not.

You might think that this must have been a bunch of college students, but they were actually a group of middle aged parents.

It made me think of a time when Daddy would ask me with perfect, slow enunciation to keep my voice down in this restaurant we once frequented. My volume was, apparently, too high to be allowed... the way I laughed, swallowed, asked questions of people at the other end of the table, etc. Of course, I was about 12 at the time...

At the risk of sounding like Daddy, what has happened to this country's sense of common decency? I don't begrudge anyone a spontaneous, good time, but in a quiet restaurant, if you're dominating the other guests' conversations, that's just rude. When I was 12, and in trouble, my defense was my spirited nature. I wanted to be free and alive... and all that's fine. But, (again, I might sound like Daddy), there's a time and place for that. The other people in the restaurant don't want to know what movie you saw or for whom you voted or how terrible you are to your kids. Be free and crazy at the park, at home, at a noisy club, at a party...

When did we become so self-centered? So incapable of seeing anything or anyone past our own noses? We've taken it to a dangerous point... I'm noticing more and more people cutting off other motorists on the highway, not signaling, following too closely. How is it that even grown people think they're invincible?

I could be lazy and blame technology... or the 60s... or the internet. I could try to be more clever than that... I could try to not care about "the how" and see if I could start the movement towards correcting this trend of disintegrating social etiquette... I could worry about how much worse it's all going to get in the next few decades...

Instead, I'm going to think of at least 10 times in the past week or two that people surprised me and did something courteous:

1. I was turning into the shopping center to go to the bank. There's a four-way stop where I tend to be the one to allow all the people who ignore the "right of way rules" through the intersection before I cross my fingers and drive forward. For once, when it would have naturally been my turn, the person to my left waved me to go ahead.

2. During a visit with a friend of mine, her husband walked in from a long night at work while I was preparing to walk out. He had noticed my car had collected a thick sheet of frost due to the cold and picked up his windshield scraper. He cleaned the car off for me so I didn't have to sit and wait for the defroster to do its work... without my asking him to do it.

3. I often allow people into congested traffic. Most of them squeeze into line without so much as a glance in the rear view mirror for my consideration. Just the other week, I let in one of the top culprits of typical driving ingrates... a man in his 30s or 40s in a huge pickup truck. I sighed, made room to let him in, and he both waved and tapped his horn in thanks.

4. I was walking up to a store quite recently in the blustery, cold wind of this unpleasant winter. As I approached the door, a gentleman who was clearly in a rush burst through the door and almost ran into me. But, he looked up just in time, he stopped, backed up, and opened the door for me rather than running on by me.

5. There are at least two people who have written to me recently, despite the fact that I've yet to respond to recent emails or letters, just to check in, to ask how I am, or to send me something that reminded them of me.

6. I was in the grocery store on one of the nights when the whole city was out getting supplies in anticipation of the snow storm. I only needed a handful of things. Another shopper arrived at the same time as me to the back of the checkout line. After reviewing the small number of items in my hand basket, this person nodded and stepped back to allow me to go first into the line.

7. I have one morning class that I teach on the weekends. This class is tough on me. I'm not myself until after 11am... and, honestly, I tend to be pretty crabby when I walk into the studio. There is one teacher in particular who always smiles, asks how I am, and if I feel okay, no matter how grumpy I am, no matter if I just grunt or can't even look her in the eye. You'd think a morning glory like me would cause a person to leave me alone in the morning from now on, but this teacher chooses to be kind to me no matter what... I'll repay her someday, for her friendly consideration.

8. For my candlelit yoga class, I used to have trouble lighting the candles. All the lighters at the studio had just the smallest drop of fuel left in them. I struggled with lighters, even developed a tiny blister on my thumb. Finally, one client starting coming in early and to help me light the candles and, one night recently, she bought me a brand new lighter, just to be nice.

9. When I had that nasty stomach flu a couple weeks ago, Anya made some soup and a fresh loaf of raisin bread for me. She drove it all the way up to my place at the end of her own long day.

10. Rather than allow me to pay the price for picking the wrong shoes for moving around snow, David picked me up over a nasty pile of ice and cold and placed me safely in the car, dry feet and all.

Remember when people are kind to you better than you remember when people are jerks. It's better for your health, I'm sure.

Any recent displays of social grace in your lives?

The sound of my day

Click Me

Frogs and Fretting

It was already a strange day. I went about my late morning uncomfortably and suddenly felt... well, weird. My guess, now that the day is gone, is that I'm feeling yet another wintry low pressure system coming through the area. I rearranged my plans to take advantage of my day off to regroup and work through the odd feeling.

While I was trying to be quiet and rest, an old Muppet movie lodged its songs in my head. I have not thought about nor seen Jim Henson's The Frog Prince in ages. The sounds of Kermit and the frog choir bring me back to weekends with my sisters... memorizing songs together and playing out our own fairy tale theatricals...

...but, it's not my sisters that seemed to correspond to my weirdness today.

I looked up the movie on YouTube (you can watch this short film in five parts online). As I reviewed the scenes and heard the songs, I thought about how the protagonists are bound together by a need to be taken seriously. The Frog Prince, played by Kermit's nephew, Robin, has some trouble convincing the other frogs that he's not a frog at all, but rather a prince with a spell cast over him. The Princess, Melora, was cursed by the same witch, only her spell caused an odd speech impediment. No one can understand her backwards talk. What causes the frog and the princess to feel such affection for one another is the fact that they are the only ones who try to see the truth in the their stories. Kermit doesn't believe Robin is a prince until he sees the witch taunt Robin, threatening to make him her ogre's breakfast. Princess Melora feels all her talk is in vain until this little frog demonstrates that he can unwind her awkward language and understand what she's saying. While the princess is skeptical, she trusts her new frog pal, and tries to help him out.

So, why on earth is this silly story stuck in my head?

I've recently been met with unexpected cynicism concerning my decision to become a vegetarian. I've watched eyebrows raise with concern and jaws drop. The most FAQs of late include, "What do you eat?" "You don't even eat fish?" "Don't you think maybe your sources are brainwash?" and "Why are you being so difficult?"

I'm having trouble not answering these questions with some resentment. When asked, "What do you eat?" I want to huff at the common ignorance that if there's not a hunk of steak on your plate, then all you have for dinner are potatoes and green salad. My pen pal once told me about people asking her this question. Before I make my own answer, I try to remember her beautiful, youthful face when she told me she answers, "Well, everything else! There's so much I love to eat!" She takes these things in her stride better than I can at the moment (though I've only been a vegetarian for, what, three weeks now?).

I don't understand the fish question... I mean, I have enjoyed fish in the past, but I have issues with how we over-fish, so I'm choosing to refrain from that form of meat as well. I don't appreciate being made to feel like I'm crazy for making, what I consider to be, a moral decision... especially when I'm not audacious enough to be the evangelical form of vegetarian. I've not attempted something as ridiculous as convincing my family and friends to make the same choice I have. It's not my place. This is what I feel is best for me... so why am I met with these cockeyed glares that adults tend to give seven year old children who think they're SuperMan?

And why assume that I'm making an uninformed decision? That I'm not mature enough to filter through my sources and pull out what makes sense to me? I wanted to cry when I was told that my information was mere "brainwash" by someone who I thought saw me as an adult who can make her own sound choices. As I've mentioned in earlier entries, I've considered my position on food and animal cruelty for some time... it took more and more information and a very personal epiphany before I made my decision. I'm not a high school teeny-bopper who met a weird bald man and decided she just had to drink the KoolAid under a passing comet. Not to mention, people who approach me with this attitude tend not to have sources of their own to counter any of my arguments. I welcome a discussion with anyone who has more information than I do (and I'm positive those people are out there and have something to offer to this topic), but this lashing cynicism, this feeling that I'm "being difficult," is thoughtless and needlessly hurtful.

It meant so much for Princess Melora to be taken seriously- that this little frog took out the time to listen and move her consonants around to understand her words. I don't care so much if strangers want to call me a "hippie" or judge my decisions... but I would hope those closer to me would try to unravel whatever it is I'm saying that's hard to understand and make some sense of it with some research, some imagination, and some faith in me.

I can't help but wonder if I've done this to someone. Even if I've alienated a perfect stranger, I can't begin to explain my guilt for causing someone to feel that he or she is "crazy" for being passionate about something good (I'm not talking about menaces to society who are passionate about killing people or destroying personal property... I speak of environmentalists, animal rights activists, equal opportunity fighters in the workplace, etc). As I've discussed with some bright women, there is a general understanding in Native American culture that, if someone sees a ghost, rather than call that person crazy, you help him or her work through the experience. It was real to that person, so treat him or her with respect and allow for the possibilities.

I was quite unprepared for this challenge, but I feel lucky to be close to some vegetarians who might be able to guide me through these early stages of allowing people to get used to the idea that I've made a change. In the meantime, I'll be minding how I view my loved ones' experiences that are not included in my realm of reality and try to understand rather than cast spells of discontent. I'll aim to be like my frog friend and see things from the bottom of the well and all the way into the palace...

(from www.surlalunefairytales.com)

I want to look like that...

(fromhttp://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04)

I went to see Bernadette Peters last night in Norfolk... and I absolutely have to say that I want to look that good when I'm in my 60s... I mean, WOW.

Not to mention, she is still adorable and remarkably charming. Her performance value has not decreased in the slightest. While it seems she needs to limit the amount of time she spends actually singing (the first half of the concert was just the Virginia Symphony Orchestra... made a handful of us in the audience pretty cranky to sit through a feature of the concert we didn't realize we had purchased), she still gives it her all.

She has the most striking stage presence. Her concert has a cabaret sort of set-up... she tells humorous stories between songs. For our concert, she brought up the housing market and kept throwing out hints that she was selling one of her summerhouse... It has a pool... It has six bedrooms and five bathrooms... and she'd throw out these details right after a song or a comment that was completely unrelated. You probably had to be there... and I love it when I have to say that. If you had to be there, that meant the stars aligned for one moment in time to make an esoteric funny for just us, those who braved the elements (Please, someone ask The Carpenter if those seven maids with seven mops could clear away all this pesky snow...) to see a great show.

Watch this clip: One of my favorite songs. This video comes from a different concert Peters gave pretty recently. While she did not sing this song during our performance, she sang another sultry tune from on top of the piano. She pulls off this great, slinky, flirty persona for this song... did I mention she's in her 60s!?

Sadly, she never sang what I was hoping most to hear... Sunday in the Park with George. I've always been so jealous of her for landing that part. Dot has always reminded me of myself... and the love one may have for an artist that inevitably breaks a woman in two. She mentioned her process for selecting her material during the concert and it specifically includes songs from musicals in which she did not perform. She did do a piece or two from Gypsy, but the majority of her repertoire derives from Sondheim and Rogers & Hammerstein musicals.

She pulled tunes more than once from Into The Woods (I did have the chance to hear her sing Children Will Listen... one of the wisest, most moving songs I've ever heard). She has a terrific rewrite of There is Nothing Like a Dame from South Pacific that was hilariously bawdy. Surprisingly, she sings a remarkably lovely version of Johanna (yes, that creepy song from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street). I definitely teared up... she produced this strong emotion with the song as though to say a lost little girl could be saved by the love of a mother, sister, friend.

Peters also supports a cause close to my heart. She has written books and donated funds from her book and cd sales to animal shelters. She sang a lullaby as her encore from a children's book she has written... and, while I didn't leave humming it, I found the tune and sentiments sweet and worthy of learning.

I'm even more jealous of this woman in her 60s than I was as a young girl wishing I was Dot. She's still beautiful (even if she's had "work done," she's done good work), still active in her art-form of choice, and is both in a position to help innocent animals and actually helps. She's kind of become my new hero...