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| Photo Credit: Met Website
... the Wanderer and Siegfried ...
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The only downside to filling my evenings this way is that I am noticing it is a time bite of 3 to 4 ½ hours out of every day.
Thank goodness I don’t have travel time to add in, or dressing-up-for-the-opera time, or time buying tickets on-line.
And thank goodness I can begin by tuning in any time in the early afternoon, evening, or even the next day. No having to stand out in the lobby and missing the first act because I was late.
I listened to “Die Walküre” last night, a repeat for me, well worth a second look. I enjoyed every minute even though I knew what was coming next. I just love that first act, the story of Siegfried and Sigmunde.
I started to watch “Siegfried” earlier this evening than I have been starting in the past, and that was the right move. Having never seen “Siegfried” before, I was listening to new Wagnerian strains for me. Part of the gift of watching earlier in the evening is that I can eat my supper, have my triple decker Chapman’s cherry ice cream cone, do the exercises for my hip, and lift some weights as I watch the opera. Oh yes, I take notes as well.
I wondered where my energy was coming from and why I was able to stay awake. My best guess is that it was from the walk in the fresh air I took today, my first time outside in 11 days. The temperature was 9 Celsius and there was a strong Chinook wind blowing, one that was unravelling the scarf around my neck so that it was flying Isadora Duncan like in the wind. No chance that it would wrap in the wheels of the walker and strangle me. I wasn’t going that fast.
Richard bought a new used-car for me this month. I hadn’t seen it, so I walked to the parking stalls in his back yard to check out the colour of the car: green – which isn’t all that important to me. I just wanted to know. When I saw the iridescence of the colour I thought, good, I will be able to find that car in a parking lot. I looked at the front end of the car to check the make: a Nissan. No sign of its age. Licencing will come later when there is a place for me to go in the car.
Right now, I am content to spend my time at home, watching the opera every night. If someone had suggested that doing 6 nights a week listening to opera would be possible, I would have been suspicious of the suggestion. But it is working for me.
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| Photo Credit: Met Website
Mime and Siegfried
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His glasses were a focal point – maybe a metaphor for both his dullness and the evil he personified.
There was a loupe clip-on device on his spectacles.
He moved that off of the lens, then back on, swinging it out a number of times with good effect.
And at times he would just take a finger or a knuckle and adjust the glasses.
Such little touches that those close-ups in the film give us, which we would never get if the opera were live. As well, I laughed out loud one time when Mime snapped his head and the glasses that had been resting above his forehead just fell back on his nose. I watched the interviews at the end of the opera, wishing that I could have heard more from Seigal. Sweet that he thanked the people at the Met for saving his life when he had experienced a heart attack while doing one of the roles there, I think he said in 2009.
As I was writing down notes, I was wanting to capture Mime’s thinking about the uselessness of spending time learning. He said, “Many hoard useless knowledge. I know all I need to know.” I have never heard anyone articulate that position before. I am curious why Wagner put that piece of dialogue into his opera.
The show was really easy to watch today. I think it is because I have that note book with all of the characters and am now able to follow them as I easily as I can follow the characters in a Net Flicks series, for example. At one point in today’s story I was wondering if I were watching opera, or a German fairy tale aimed at a 17century family gathering around a flickering fire.
Either way, enchanting.
Arta
The streets here are so quiet, at least in my neighborhood. On the drive to work I only saw 3 people, each on a different block, each out walking their dog. I love the image of you out walking, enjoying the Chinook. I almost feel I saw you, and your scarf, after reading your vivid description.
ReplyDeleteI want to talk about the wind. Even though I grew up in Alberta, I always had the hope that tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that, the wind would die down. I had this hope until I was about 70 years old. I didn't know that there could be completely calm days, even calm weeks until I lived near Shuswap lake.
ReplyDeleteRe the image of the scarf being whipped off of my neck?
This might be why I usually only wear winter scarves, the kind that I can really secure onto my neck and even stick my nose into. A nice scarf in the springtime is likely to be whipped off of my neck, just standing at the corner of 24th and Crowchild.
24th avenue is quiet as well. I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. There was no one on either side of the street. Usually people are walking down the street, since this is one of the avenues they might use to get to the university. Now 20,000 people who study and work there stay home. So yes, a quiet street where we live as well.
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