Les Mis - Reprieve

Reprieve I am not one to say no if an offer is put on the table like, Let’s go see Les Mis again tonight. The price of the ticket was doubled – from the matinee $5 to the evening performance -- $9. Still I can go 10 times and not approach the cost of seeing the musical live. Now I have 7 more times to go and I will still break even. On the way home I was telling Bonnie that I would like to see the second half of the show when I am fresh because the first half takes so much energy. I would like to approach the second half with that a fresh power of analysis, since so much is happening in that second segment. I can feel myself wishing for an intermission or a small walk up and down some stairs but intermissions just don’t work in theatres ... at least usually.

Last night, I figured out where that eye-of-god, that one stylized eye comes from that can be seen in the upper left hand part of the screen during one of Javert’s songs. The set is stylized for the rebellion scene, a road that forks and buildings on both sides of the main road. The same is true on either side of the two secondary avenues. Inns are sketched in and that eye appears on of them -- a sign above the inn. In those days there was a picture on the sign of inns for the illiterate. That sign appears again through a window which made sense to me as to why it was there on the third viewing, but I didn’t get it before.

On the third viewing, the costumes do not loose their charm. The diction is perfect. The close-ups are still done during the duets, trios, and quartets – not a technique that is used at The Met in HD, which we are going to see this morning. Nothing changes in that respect.

For today?  At this end of the continent, Saturday Afternoon at the Opera begins at 9 am. Les Troyens is the show. I haven’t done any internet homework – unusual for me. Kelvin thinks it is the story of the Trojan war. He may remember from one of the previews of the show.

Arta