Go to the opera more

THE EDMONTON OPERA SEASON:

Daughter of the Regiment
Gaetano Donizetti
February 7, 10 and 12, 2009

La Traviata
Giuseppe Verdi
April 25, 28, and 30, 2009

The Pearl Fishers
Georges Bizet
March 12 and 14, 2009

My favorite operas are Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann. I haven’t seen either of them live yet. A few years ago I got to see a production of Carlyle Floyd’s Susannah, which was absolutely lovely. A close friend of mine recently saw Die Zauberflöte at the Metropolitan Opera House. Insanely jealous. :)

I have loved the opera my entire life. It was a love my grandmother, that fiesty wild thing from the 1920’s fostered, something we shared uniquely.

So Saturday, our opera did a “selections” piece, with one of the world’s best mezzo sopranos. I bought 2nd row seats, since one of them was free, and took my son.

My girl was in the children’s chorus, singing on their own, a piece from Carmen. She was grand, just grand, marching away, singing in French, tossing her hair back, and smiling like she was having the time of her life.

I was gloriously, amazingly happy, watching her in her element—a newly discovered element. Who would know that this daughter of mine would be born with a voice when I can’t sing a note?

And my grandmother, my blessed grandmother, was right there with me somehow, saying “See! See who she is!”

It is an amazing thing to watch your children unfold and become the people they were born to be!

My youngest is going to be in the chorus for a production soon!! How cool!

So I’m taking it off the list.

had planned to go, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, there was another uproar at work, and I was wasted from the conflict. At home, I felt literally ill, and we began to consider other options. This is just not working. I HATE being in the center of horrible conflict so often. I can hold my own, don’t misunderstand me—but I don’t want to have to. Life is too short to be within firing range of people with small, angry minds.

So, I recently went to see Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice at Lyric, which I’ve been hoping they’d put on for, like, ten years now. (I love the Orpheus myth; I’ve seen Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Jean Cocteau’s Orphee, Black Orpheus, etc.)

It was good, though the countertenor and Italian were unsettling – I’m used to the CD recording I’ve played so many times, which is the more common arrangement, with a tenor, in French.

So anyway, a couple of weeks later, I went to see Wicked. Which I liked, though I usually don’t like Broadway stuff.

But that night, I dreamed I was watching the most beautiful part of the most beautiful aria. Orfeo sings to Eurydice, who has just died a second time, je te suis, in the tenderest, delicate, sweetest possible tones. “Je te suis” means “I am following you” – he plans to follow her into death – but it also, literally, means “I am you”. Makes me verklemt every time. Most lachrygenic.

So anyway, in my dream, I’m watching this part breathlessly, and what happens but the cast of Wicked comes on stage and starts dancing around and singing. It was so awful.

Don Giovanni, that is. Young one and I dressed up and had a fine time. I was not even tempted to sleep. It is a wonderful thing to be able to hear fine music and FEEL it all the way to your bones. I am so grateful to my grandmother for surrounding me with music until my soul soaked it up.

show for this weekend….

written in my palm pilot thingy. Now—all I have to do is get tickets, find someone to go with me (entirely optional—I’m capable of going it alone), and GO.