Dove sono i bei momenti

Today has been such a slog. Why do sleep hangovers always hit me worse on the following day? Yesterday I was positively perky despite being up past one on Monday, today I can barely drag myself along. Is it just the grey weather? Spring cold is so much more palatable when doused in golden sunlight.

I had good reason for being up so late, mind you, namely our last opera of the season, Le nozze di Figaro.Well worth it. Two bars into the overture, I suddenly thought of a good friend's dislike of Mozart and said to myself How could anyone not enjoy the hell out of this music? Perhaps I was just especially well-rested, but I was so absorbed by the score that for once I hardly took any notice of audience. Perhaps they were just as rapt as I was?

It's going to sound like damnation when I say that the cast was good enough to occasionally drown out my memories of the last time I heard the opera sung. However, once you consider that the previous cast was led by Terfel, Fleming, Graham, and Futral and that performance is at the apex of my all-time favourites, you'll realise how that can honestly be meant as praise. I was very disappointed to hear Schwanewilms was too ill to perform but impressed with how well Cabell handled a part she obviously wasn't very experienced singing.

The production was identical to last time, which didn't exactly help when it came to evading comparisons, but the blocking was if anything worse. Act I abounded with strange choices, from Marcellina keeping her ear to the door for no apparent reason through the entirety of Don Basilio's vengeance aria to her being nowhere near a door for her "after you" duet with Susanna. Of course, I'm so well acquainted with the plot by now that such things are easily overlooked.

Since it was our final opera of the season, we decided to get a little spendy and go to The Gage beforehand. (I'll admit it: It was the prospect of a properly-poured Guinness that induced me to suggest it, knowing full well Nuphy would take up the call.) We stumbled into a bargain: a three-course prix fix for $30/head. We were particularly impressed by the "fresh pea soup", which really did taste like it'd gone straight from vine to cooking pot. And service was faultless; we told the nice men we needed to be out of there in 45 minutes and, by Jayzus, we were.

Even the ride back home turned out to be more pleasant than expected. CTA cuts have curtailed express bus hours, which left me cast down to the vestibule of hell. I consoled myself with the thought that they must be done with track repairs by now. HA! When our four-car train finally showed, the conductor announced a wait of several minutes due to construction at Grand. The car was extra crowded due to some idiot's inspired choice to drag his bicycle on board, which left me mashed up against a couple of punkish young ones.

I tried to stayed out of their convo for as long as I could, but when they started discussing ciders, I could no longer restrain myself. Mr Mohawk works in a pub near my house which, has it turns out, has three of the on tap. When I quizzed him about the food and found that the meat for the burgers comes fresh from the butcher next door, I decided I'd have to pay a visit some time. His companion, meanwhile, did her best to recruit me as a spectator for her next fire-dancing gig. So if you mosey down to the beach next week, rollick, tell the funky chick with the dreads and the fire poi that Da sends his sincere regrets!