errantember (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
errantember) wrote2006-11-17 02:41 am
errantember) wrote2006-11-17 02:41 am
Entry tags:
Puccini funny, but needs more ninjas.
I went to see the Austin Lyric Opera's dress rehearsal of Madame Butterfly this evening with Kat. I think it's possible we were laughing at parts that weren't intended to be funny. We were very tactful about it. No one else heard my suggestion that it's too bad Divine died before she could audition for Madame Butterfly.
Like most operas, it's about a bunch of egocentric drama queens who do stupid thing for love and then whine artfully about their failure to own their emotions. I have to wonder if there are any poly opera fans. The singing was great, although the actors were often "marking" to save themselves for the "real audience" during the actual run this week. This might have upset me if I'd paid for the tickets, which I didn't. Paying for the experience would also have motivated me to get my damn glasses, since I was in the fourth level balcony and can't legally drive without corrective lenses. I did a lot of squinting, and then made an interesting discovery. If you hold your hands in front of your eyes like you have a pair of binoculars and move your hands outward so that your fingers just BARELY cut into your field of vision, it actually causes your eyes to focus more clearly on distant objects. I have no idea why, but I spent a large portion of the production looking like I was making faces at a newborn when all I really doing was trying to see. There was a newborn at the play, but unfortunately no one was brave enough to take it away from it's mother and chuck it over the railing when a) it wouldn't stop crying and b) the mother was insufficiently considerate to take the baby out into the hallway. Note to parents with babies: You do *not* have a constitutional right to bring your infant's whininess into a fucking opera. Get a babysitter, leave one parent at home, or miss out on cultured experiences until your child is old enough to shut the fuck up for at least most of the show. I know parenting is hard. I'm willing to cut you slack almost anywhere else. At the opera, no crying babies allowed, period.
You have been warned.
The stupid thing Madame Butterfly is doing for love before whining about it is waiting for her two-timing idiot husband to return from the US, where he's married someone else three years ago. To drive this point home, they have a scene where the audience actually has to wait for the whole three years while Madame Butterfly stares out the door waiting for her husband's boat to come in. This is why they have the intermission after act one, because having to wait three years PLUS all of act one to go to the bathroom would be more than than the bladder of even a heroic opera goer could stand. About two years into act two, I realize that there is a finite amount of time I can stare at any shoji-screened wall before the desire to see some kind of ninja or kung fu master leap through it brandishing a sword becomes so overwhelming I can't sit still anymore. If this was when the baby had started crying, I might have been more understanding. Unfortunately Puccini lived in the entertainment dark ages before Hong Kong cinema, so I ended act two hugely frustrated. The story was partially redeemed when a sword later had a cameo inside Madame Butterfly's neck.
We then went to a local college bar to get burgers and discussed relationships and sex. On the way out I had my very first opportunity to try out the all-wheel-drive of my new CR-V because someone had blocked us in. I was able to drive handily over two curbs to escape without damaging anyone else's vehicle. I did get a burning coolant smell at one point, either because I tipped the radiator too far over or possibly just because I was goosing the engine to make it over the bumps.
Hopefully nothing is broken.
No babies were harmed during the production of this entry.
Like most operas, it's about a bunch of egocentric drama queens who do stupid thing for love and then whine artfully about their failure to own their emotions. I have to wonder if there are any poly opera fans. The singing was great, although the actors were often "marking" to save themselves for the "real audience" during the actual run this week. This might have upset me if I'd paid for the tickets, which I didn't. Paying for the experience would also have motivated me to get my damn glasses, since I was in the fourth level balcony and can't legally drive without corrective lenses. I did a lot of squinting, and then made an interesting discovery. If you hold your hands in front of your eyes like you have a pair of binoculars and move your hands outward so that your fingers just BARELY cut into your field of vision, it actually causes your eyes to focus more clearly on distant objects. I have no idea why, but I spent a large portion of the production looking like I was making faces at a newborn when all I really doing was trying to see. There was a newborn at the play, but unfortunately no one was brave enough to take it away from it's mother and chuck it over the railing when a) it wouldn't stop crying and b) the mother was insufficiently considerate to take the baby out into the hallway. Note to parents with babies: You do *not* have a constitutional right to bring your infant's whininess into a fucking opera. Get a babysitter, leave one parent at home, or miss out on cultured experiences until your child is old enough to shut the fuck up for at least most of the show. I know parenting is hard. I'm willing to cut you slack almost anywhere else. At the opera, no crying babies allowed, period.
You have been warned.
The stupid thing Madame Butterfly is doing for love before whining about it is waiting for her two-timing idiot husband to return from the US, where he's married someone else three years ago. To drive this point home, they have a scene where the audience actually has to wait for the whole three years while Madame Butterfly stares out the door waiting for her husband's boat to come in. This is why they have the intermission after act one, because having to wait three years PLUS all of act one to go to the bathroom would be more than than the bladder of even a heroic opera goer could stand. About two years into act two, I realize that there is a finite amount of time I can stare at any shoji-screened wall before the desire to see some kind of ninja or kung fu master leap through it brandishing a sword becomes so overwhelming I can't sit still anymore. If this was when the baby had started crying, I might have been more understanding. Unfortunately Puccini lived in the entertainment dark ages before Hong Kong cinema, so I ended act two hugely frustrated. The story was partially redeemed when a sword later had a cameo inside Madame Butterfly's neck.
We then went to a local college bar to get burgers and discussed relationships and sex. On the way out I had my very first opportunity to try out the all-wheel-drive of my new CR-V because someone had blocked us in. I was able to drive handily over two curbs to escape without damaging anyone else's vehicle. I did get a burning coolant smell at one point, either because I tipped the radiator too far over or possibly just because I was goosing the engine to make it over the bumps.
Hopefully nothing is broken.
No babies were harmed during the production of this entry.