I knew it was going to be a long day today. I was up at 2:30 for an hour. I was thinking about my morning guy showing up and couldn’t sleep. I finally got back to sleep around 3:30 and slept for 2 hours. I finally just got up around 5:30 and started getting ready. I was really glad to see him when he showed up. I left the house whistling.
Work was more frustrating than usual today. I got there to find out that the system was down with no ETA. To we sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. I did what I could, but basically just ended up wasting most of the day. I couldn’t even surf the web effectively – we were connected back with a temporary line through the Canadian office, so many websites weren’t accessible. The computers finally came back up around 3:45. Fortunately I had a fairly light day planned today, but I wasn’t able to turn the presentation in on time. I didn’t get the rest of the stuff from my boss, though I had already assembled everything else. Well at least I was prepared. The lateness is on him.
I did have time to talk to a guy at the office I’ve been meaning to get to know better. He is a nice guy, but is deathly allergic to cats, which of course means I can’t invite him to the cat hair nest that is my home. But I enjoyed talking to him for a while today, and he invited me over to his place this Sunday to meet some other friends of his and hang out. That should be cool.
I didn’t hear back from Robert about The Magic Flute tonight, but I had plenty of time to talk to Nancy, a friend at work, about going. She was up for it. I really debated about skipping the gym tonight. On the one hand, the show started at 7, and I knew it was going to be tight to hit the gym, get home, clean up, change, eat, and get there in an hour and a half. In the end though, I just decided I didn’t want to skip. Today was weight day. I am increasingly unhappy about my chest, and I’ve been doing some pecs work I didn’t want to skip. Plus the bear pool party is this weekend. Would one night at the gym make any difference? Of course not. But if I’m going to appear in a bathing suit in public, I want to make sure I've done everything I can. It’s not so much that it makes me look better – my weight continues to hover around ten pounds down from last winter, and I seem unable to lose any more – but when I have exercised I feel better about the way I look. I don’t really look any different. I just feel more confident.
I was tight on time though. I flew through the work out as fast as I could (sigh, another purty guy in the locker room tonight – fortunately I didn’t have time to be the creepy guy, or think much about the fact that he seemed to be putting off stripping down until I left the locker room), jumped in the car, fed the cats, freshened up a bit, changed clothes, and then flew right back to the car. There was no time for dinner so I just grabbed some peanuts and ate them on the way. I made it in the nick of time. Nancy was waiting for me, and by the time we waited through the surprisingly long line and got inside, the show was starting. Pretty much perfect timing. I was surprised to find that the tickets were $15, not $5 as I had apparently mis-interpreted from the website. But that is still fairly cheap for a cultural experience.
The version we saw tonight was done by the Metropolitan Opera in December 2006 as the first of the Met’s Live in HD series. It was sung in English, which I was a bit apprehensive about, but it turned out not to be an issue at all. The translation was pretty well done, and the dialogue was sung in a stylized enough manner that they still had sub-titles, but a lot of the time I found I didn’t need them. The main part I thought might be distracting was during the Queen of the Night’s vengeance aria – one of the most famous of all soprano arias in opera, and one of my personal favorites which I have listened to many, many times. But the performer, Erika Miklosa, was pitch-perfect and excellent – the language was not a distraction at all. I was unsurprised to find out that the role was a specialty of hers, and that she had sung the part in both the original German and English. In short, this was the best outcome for an English translation of an opera – I found it to make the work more accessible, while still offering what felt very much to me an authentic performance.
Julie Taymor (of “The Lion King” fame) directed, and I have to say that the King flavor did bleed through in places, most notably during Papageno’s encounter with the dancing bears; I found it a bit distracting there. But when he later dances with the stylized birds I was enchanted. That was lovely. Far more distracting to me were the stage settings, costumes, and makeup. They were highly stylized, and seemed to be some kind of attempt at a modern Asian art flavor. The costumes frankly seemed much more suitable to Ming the Merciless than to a Mozart fairy tale. The princess’s costume in particular was most unflattering. Also, despite the 2006 performance date, I found the costumes and sets to have a very 80’s music video feel.
So the staging wasn’t what I would have chosen, but the performances were very good. Rene Pape (as Sarastro), had a particularly rich and beautiful bass voice. I don’t usually enjoy listening to men sing as much, but I enjoyed his voice (albeit I wished he had had more songs to sing and less exposition – of course, that was Mozart’s call). I always want the sopranos to sing more. The queen only had two real songs, both during the first half. The princess Pamina, (Ying Huang), had an excellent voice, but the part consists mostly of duets with Tamino. It just isn’t a meaty part that a diva can really sink her teeth into. Matthew Polenzani played Tamino. He has a good tenor voice, but I just couldn’t warm up to him; although that wasn’t because of any lack of talent or technical prowess of his performance. I just found the heavy Asian drag distracting. Plus of course it’s easy for the prince here to be over-shadowed by Papageno, played ably here by Nathan Gunn. If his performance was a bit Disney-esque for me (with topical asides and wisecracks), that probably has more to do with my being a traditionalist about some things. He was perfectly within the flavor of Papageno, and did a good job of stealing every scene he was in. I found the suicide attempt to be fairly disingenuous, but then that may have been as it was intended. Next to this Papageno, though, Tamino seemed like a stick in the mud; a distraction. Every scene centered on Tamino seemed to slow the pace.
Interestingly, in another Disney-esque turn, Monostatos (another villain of the piece) is portrayed in an effeminate fashion here – in stylized high heels that are half hooves. When he comes under the influence of the magic bells, he and his henchmen (notably shirtless in a cast swathed in elaborate costumes) dance around and become fey under the influence. Of course the Disney penchant for the portrayal of villains as gay (think Jeremy Irons’ performance of Scar in The Lion King) is well established, and has for years been a matter of debate in the gay community. I found it interesting to read that Monostatos is usually described as a ‘moor’, and was traditionally played by a black actor, or a white actor in blackface. Yet another brick in the wall of my belief that gay people and smokers are the last minorities that society at large sees as acceptable targets for discrimination/derision. Even more interesting to see a character we meet as he attempts to rape the fair Pamina presented as stereotypically gay. But I digress.
My other prior concern was how a simulcast would stack up to a live performance. I have to say that, on big screen as it was, it really just felt pretty much as if we had really good seats to a live performance. I felt it was well worth the $15. Maybe it was because there was an audience there, but I did feel energy in the room, albeit not the energy of the performers actually being in the room, but really being able to see the expressions of the performers (through close-ups and camera work) was a fair trade-off.
Of course in the end, everyone ends up happy and in a relationship with their soul-mate. I like things that end that way, I guess because I’m hoping it works out for me. Overall, I enjoyed it. It was good that I finally got to see The Magic Flute, as I had been wanting to for years.
We got out at 9, and I was pretty much starving. It was really too late to get home and try to cook something, so I ran through Taco Hell, came home, did a few little domestic things, and hit the hay. It was a good evening. I feel that I broadened my horizons a bit.
Work was more frustrating than usual today. I got there to find out that the system was down with no ETA. To we sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. I did what I could, but basically just ended up wasting most of the day. I couldn’t even surf the web effectively – we were connected back with a temporary line through the Canadian office, so many websites weren’t accessible. The computers finally came back up around 3:45. Fortunately I had a fairly light day planned today, but I wasn’t able to turn the presentation in on time. I didn’t get the rest of the stuff from my boss, though I had already assembled everything else. Well at least I was prepared. The lateness is on him.
I did have time to talk to a guy at the office I’ve been meaning to get to know better. He is a nice guy, but is deathly allergic to cats, which of course means I can’t invite him to the cat hair nest that is my home. But I enjoyed talking to him for a while today, and he invited me over to his place this Sunday to meet some other friends of his and hang out. That should be cool.
I didn’t hear back from Robert about The Magic Flute tonight, but I had plenty of time to talk to Nancy, a friend at work, about going. She was up for it. I really debated about skipping the gym tonight. On the one hand, the show started at 7, and I knew it was going to be tight to hit the gym, get home, clean up, change, eat, and get there in an hour and a half. In the end though, I just decided I didn’t want to skip. Today was weight day. I am increasingly unhappy about my chest, and I’ve been doing some pecs work I didn’t want to skip. Plus the bear pool party is this weekend. Would one night at the gym make any difference? Of course not. But if I’m going to appear in a bathing suit in public, I want to make sure I've done everything I can. It’s not so much that it makes me look better – my weight continues to hover around ten pounds down from last winter, and I seem unable to lose any more – but when I have exercised I feel better about the way I look. I don’t really look any different. I just feel more confident.
I was tight on time though. I flew through the work out as fast as I could (sigh, another purty guy in the locker room tonight – fortunately I didn’t have time to be the creepy guy, or think much about the fact that he seemed to be putting off stripping down until I left the locker room), jumped in the car, fed the cats, freshened up a bit, changed clothes, and then flew right back to the car. There was no time for dinner so I just grabbed some peanuts and ate them on the way. I made it in the nick of time. Nancy was waiting for me, and by the time we waited through the surprisingly long line and got inside, the show was starting. Pretty much perfect timing. I was surprised to find that the tickets were $15, not $5 as I had apparently mis-interpreted from the website. But that is still fairly cheap for a cultural experience.
The version we saw tonight was done by the Metropolitan Opera in December 2006 as the first of the Met’s Live in HD series. It was sung in English, which I was a bit apprehensive about, but it turned out not to be an issue at all. The translation was pretty well done, and the dialogue was sung in a stylized enough manner that they still had sub-titles, but a lot of the time I found I didn’t need them. The main part I thought might be distracting was during the Queen of the Night’s vengeance aria – one of the most famous of all soprano arias in opera, and one of my personal favorites which I have listened to many, many times. But the performer, Erika Miklosa, was pitch-perfect and excellent – the language was not a distraction at all. I was unsurprised to find out that the role was a specialty of hers, and that she had sung the part in both the original German and English. In short, this was the best outcome for an English translation of an opera – I found it to make the work more accessible, while still offering what felt very much to me an authentic performance.
Julie Taymor (of “The Lion King” fame) directed, and I have to say that the King flavor did bleed through in places, most notably during Papageno’s encounter with the dancing bears; I found it a bit distracting there. But when he later dances with the stylized birds I was enchanted. That was lovely. Far more distracting to me were the stage settings, costumes, and makeup. They were highly stylized, and seemed to be some kind of attempt at a modern Asian art flavor. The costumes frankly seemed much more suitable to Ming the Merciless than to a Mozart fairy tale. The princess’s costume in particular was most unflattering. Also, despite the 2006 performance date, I found the costumes and sets to have a very 80’s music video feel.
So the staging wasn’t what I would have chosen, but the performances were very good. Rene Pape (as Sarastro), had a particularly rich and beautiful bass voice. I don’t usually enjoy listening to men sing as much, but I enjoyed his voice (albeit I wished he had had more songs to sing and less exposition – of course, that was Mozart’s call). I always want the sopranos to sing more. The queen only had two real songs, both during the first half. The princess Pamina, (Ying Huang), had an excellent voice, but the part consists mostly of duets with Tamino. It just isn’t a meaty part that a diva can really sink her teeth into. Matthew Polenzani played Tamino. He has a good tenor voice, but I just couldn’t warm up to him; although that wasn’t because of any lack of talent or technical prowess of his performance. I just found the heavy Asian drag distracting. Plus of course it’s easy for the prince here to be over-shadowed by Papageno, played ably here by Nathan Gunn. If his performance was a bit Disney-esque for me (with topical asides and wisecracks), that probably has more to do with my being a traditionalist about some things. He was perfectly within the flavor of Papageno, and did a good job of stealing every scene he was in. I found the suicide attempt to be fairly disingenuous, but then that may have been as it was intended. Next to this Papageno, though, Tamino seemed like a stick in the mud; a distraction. Every scene centered on Tamino seemed to slow the pace.
Interestingly, in another Disney-esque turn, Monostatos (another villain of the piece) is portrayed in an effeminate fashion here – in stylized high heels that are half hooves. When he comes under the influence of the magic bells, he and his henchmen (notably shirtless in a cast swathed in elaborate costumes) dance around and become fey under the influence. Of course the Disney penchant for the portrayal of villains as gay (think Jeremy Irons’ performance of Scar in The Lion King) is well established, and has for years been a matter of debate in the gay community. I found it interesting to read that Monostatos is usually described as a ‘moor’, and was traditionally played by a black actor, or a white actor in blackface. Yet another brick in the wall of my belief that gay people and smokers are the last minorities that society at large sees as acceptable targets for discrimination/derision. Even more interesting to see a character we meet as he attempts to rape the fair Pamina presented as stereotypically gay. But I digress.
My other prior concern was how a simulcast would stack up to a live performance. I have to say that, on big screen as it was, it really just felt pretty much as if we had really good seats to a live performance. I felt it was well worth the $15. Maybe it was because there was an audience there, but I did feel energy in the room, albeit not the energy of the performers actually being in the room, but really being able to see the expressions of the performers (through close-ups and camera work) was a fair trade-off.
Of course in the end, everyone ends up happy and in a relationship with their soul-mate. I like things that end that way, I guess because I’m hoping it works out for me. Overall, I enjoyed it. It was good that I finally got to see The Magic Flute, as I had been wanting to for years.
We got out at 9, and I was pretty much starving. It was really too late to get home and try to cook something, so I ran through Taco Hell, came home, did a few little domestic things, and hit the hay. It was a good evening. I feel that I broadened my horizons a bit.
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