(no subject)

When a performance leaves you animatedly discussing the main characters' personalities and motivations for the entire ride back home, you know they've gotten something right.

Heck, I'd say they got everything right. Nuphy called Lyric's Rigoletto "the first really good opera of the season" and I'd say he's on the money (which is a damned shame considering it's already half over). Everything I disliked about the previous production (the young directors had the "brilliant" idea of setting the action in a Victorian gentlemen's club, an idea so half-baked even they abandoned it two-thirds of the way through and reverted to traditional form for the last act) had been fixed. Two fantastic rotating sets furnished nearly effortless scene-changes, allowing them to present the opera with one intermission (and one "brief pause"); we were finished by 10 p.m.

It's a pretty tight drama to begin with. bunj pointed out that the only time it drags is during the love duet, which is generally the weak point of any 19th century opera. The story is so gripping that I can't believe I forgot it between this viewing and the last (just goes to show how incoherent the previous staging was). There a number of over-the-top contrivances, but only one that really strains my noggin.

But best of all, I was able to get through all of "La donna è mobile" without once thinking of (a) a cheesy Pasta House commercial from the 1980s or (b) Tweetie Bird on a gondola. Lopardo isn't the springest chicken any more (Nuphy pointed out that he was fuzzy on the high notes), but he delivered. Álvarez was wonderfully dark as Rigoletto which wouldn't have worked if Silvestri as Sparafucile didn't have a timbre so powerful and pitch black that when he sang, the lights visibly dimmed. Throw in Kelsey as Monterone delivering the curse like the Devil's mouthpiece and it's just about the creepiest Rigoletto you could care for.

Because I have no shame and an excess of pride

Geeky one-upmanship:
( All Welsh edition! )

Cleaning up

In order not to scare away new colleagues, I've broken down and begun nibbling away at the clutter around me. Among the scribbles on shreds and scraps of paper by my left hand, I found this little gem:

престолик на курьих ножках

Recognise it, princeofcairo? You made an oral agreement to trade it for a sour cream apple pie and then welshed, you Okie rogue. mollpeartree had to beg me for it herself. At the time, of course, I saw no reason to oblige, since (1) it wasn't like I had in any way benefitted from the baking of a sour cream apple pie and (2) I knew that no one would want to see me create a moral hazard when it's princeofcairo's responsibility to secure goods before bartering them away and mollpeartree's to verify their status before contracting to provide services in exchange.

But time and weariness have gotten the better of my resolve and my old bleeding-heart tendencies are reasserting themselves. Y'all may consider this a one-off boon.