# Dido & Aeneas



## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Well, the show was last night, and all I can say is, Mark Morris is a national treasure. If it had been a thousand dollars a seat it would have been worth it. (I wouldn't have been able to go, but still.) Once again the scale of my folly at not getting tickets for every performance gnaws at my heart. Ah, it burns. I'll go down there this afternoon about three and stand in line for a couple hours and see if anybody cancels for this evening's performance. And the lack of preparation - I never would have failed to prepare for a new opera that I anticipated this much. Gosh what an idiot I am. I missed a lot on that account, not really following what was going on.

What was it that was so wonderful? I dunno. Talking about dancing etc etc. Compared to the Paris Opera Ballet - and their Orfeo et Eurydice was memorable - it glistened. There was no pointless formalism. There was no pseudointellectualness. The range of expression was broad, and the style was unified across the range. And quite a punch at the end too. Sadness well expressed is always affecting I guess. I know, that makes no sense if you haven't seen it, and maybe not if you have. Sorry.

I had good seatmates too, which makes a difference. We chattered and chaffed each other and had a grand time.

I know, this is an opera forum. Well, it is an opera, after all, and it was sung. I do hope that if I discuss the occasional ballet you all will bear with me. It is a musical theater art, and opera and ballet are probably more closely related than you may realize. Stephanie Blythe, I am sorry to say, was not in fine voice. Deep, powerful, but rough edged. She looked very unhappy (of course, I was at quite a distance), and it struck me that if I were to read in the paper a week from now that she had suddenly died of a heart attack, I would not be at all surprised. And she's really much too heavy. Well, well.

So the question is, the same as a question I had when I first started here: what are you looking forward to, in opera?

I'm looking forward unfortunately to a lot less opera than I was, due to reduced circumstances. I do still have my tickets to the San Francisco opera next June, but not much else between then and now at this point. Still, the Met is doing its free Live in HD re-screenings now and I think I'll go to about three of those next week - Faust, La Cenerentola and Il Trovatore. I've been listening a lot to Trovatore and Macbeth, and I think I'm much better posed to enjoy it than I was. And tomorrow Ballet in Cinema is showing La Source, by the Paris Opera Ballet, and that may be good. We'll see.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

What a lovely review, your reactions and thoughts have come across so well. I don't know this opera but after reading this, I want to. 

I do hope you'll be able to get a return, I can perfectly understand your longing.

I hope your circumstances change for the better & soon & you'll be able to see some more live opera. It's like balm for a weary soul. The free public screenings aren't the same as sitting in the theatre but they're better than nothing.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Thanks. Well, I'll start looking for a job next week, and who knows, maybe something will turn up. I do find that taking time off really improves your ability to enjoy life - didn't realize how much I was missing with the daily routine I had got into. The pedestrians here are all beautiful. You don't see that if you don't have the time. And apparently the fox I saw - I blogged about it some time ago - actually moved in to my neighborhood, and I hear him or her at night sometimes, foraging around looking for some garbage (which I'm careful never to leave out). And that's kind of awesome, to me. Some people are used to them I know, but to me a fox is a wild thing. So my life in some respects is better than it was.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Had a red fox in my back yard - I lived near the country then, and my property backed onto fields and large stands of undeveloped forests and fields. I thew the kitchen scraps over the deck several times a week at dusk and would catch a glimpse of him from time to time. I thought it a bit surreal and looked forward to his visits.

Opera for me, or the opera that i like says timeless things about the human situation - not pretentiously so but in the goodness, or evil or confusion that life can bring and how the characters deal with it. Much of opera has a great deal of symbolism and by extension, philosophy wrapped inside its elaborate exterior, especially Wagner - and though I'm not a Wagnerite, I do respond strongly to several of his operas (Parsifal, most of all). And I like that aspect; that there is beautiful music and thrilling vocals but there is also something to think about regarding the story, the character's actions, something to talk about or argue over coffee with a friend. Don't know if I've even touched on your question, or missed the point entirely, but the question made me think, and so, echoing *sospiro's* post, Thanks.

In no particular order, a short list of Operas I respond strongly to: those mentioned above, plus Mozart 'Don Giovanni', Lully 'Armide', Verdi 'Otello', Gluck 'Iphigenia in Aulos' and 'Iphigenia in Tauride', Monteverdi 'The Coronation of Poppea', Berg 'Wozzeck', Handel 'Julius Caesar', Bartok 'Bluebeard's Castle', and especially Debussy 'Pelleas et Melisande'.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Loved your response - I'm sure if we were to accidentally sit next to each other at an opera we'd have a wonderful time! 

It is funny how different people have different lists of favorites - some of yours are favorites of mine as well (Iphigenie en Tauride, Parsifal), and others I just probably haven't seen the right performance yet (Don Giovanni, Pelleas et Melisande). Well, I keep working at it.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

@*guythegreg* I used to live in NYC, 6 blocks north of Lincoln Center (W.72nd St. between B'way and Columbus) loved it so much...the city, the art, the food!


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

NightHawk said:


> @*guythegreg* I used to live in NYC, 6 blocks north of Lincoln Center (W.72nd St. between B'way and Columbus) loved it so much...the city, the art, the food!


Wow - you must have had a great time. Dakota used to live here as well. Even if I didn't love opera I can't imagine leaving, although I suppose it could happen. The pedestrian culture here is so open - I wanted to have a T-shirt made, when I first got here: if the weather is fine, and the traffic is mild, and the pedestrians are friendly, congratulations - you're in NYC! lol


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

Great post! 

I got a half-subscription to the Chicago Lyric Opera this season, esp looking forward to Simon Boccanegra with Ferruccio Furlanetto and Thomas Hampson. And in March, La Boheme with Anna Netrebko. Rounding it out with Werther and Meistersinger (first experience of both of these operas for me). And, for a little less than my orchestra-rear-balance seats at the Lyric, I've got front row center for Chicago Opera Theater's interesting 2013 season: Phillip Glass - Fall of the House of Usher, Astor Piazzolla's tango opera (!?!) María de Buenos Aires, and Verdi's early Giovanna d'Arco.

BTW, I saw the Paris Opera Ballet's Giselle on tour here in June. Magnificent dancing, though the production was seriously dated. (But what do you expect from a company that traces it roots to Louis XIV?) 

Also, a warning about the Opera in Cinema's recent release of Anna Bolena from the Maggio Musicale: the orchestra called a strike the day of the recording, so it's performed with piano accompaniment. We saw it a few weeks ago, made the best of it and stuck it out - but it's definitely an odd experience.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Cavaradossi said:


> Also, a warning about the Opera in Cinema's recent release of Anna Bolena from the Maggio Musicale: the orchestra called a strike the day of the recording, so it's performed with piano accompaniment. We saw it a few weeks ago, made the best of it and stuck it out - but it's definitely an odd experience.


Pretty much the second word you learn when you work in Italy: sciopero.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> Great post!
> 
> I got a half-subscription to the Chicago Lyric Opera this season, esp looking forward to Simon Boccanegra with Ferruccio Furlanetto and Thomas Hampson. And in March, La Boheme with Anna Netrebko. Rounding it out with Werther and Meistersinger (first experience of both of these operas for me). And, for a little less than my orchestra-rear-balance seats at the Lyric, I've got front row center for Chicago Opera Theater's interesting 2013 season: Phillip Glass - Fall of the House of Usher, Astor Piazzolla's tango opera (!?!) María de Buenos Aires, and Verdi's early Giovanna d'Arco.


Woah - are YOU in for some opera!



> BTW, I saw the Paris Opera Ballet's Giselle on tour here in June. Magnificent dancing, though the production was seriously dated. (But what do you expect from a company that traces it roots to Louis XIV?)


I saw the same production a month or two ago. These historical ballets leave me cold. The dancing was fine, but to me the emotional range is so much lower than with other dancing - and the stories don't move me.



> Also, a warning about the Opera in Cinema's recent release of Anna Bolena from the Maggio Musicale: the orchestra called a strike the day of the recording, so it's performed with piano accompaniment. We saw it a few weeks ago, made the best of it and stuck it out - but it's definitely an odd experience.


That does sound odd. Well, I've tried Anna Bolena a few times and never been happy with it, so wasn't planning to see that performance anyway. You know what else is odd: opera in cinema's Norma, a couple of weeks ago, wasn't the advertised version: it was the DVD that was published some time ago, with Daniela Dessi! Now, I had not been planning to get the DVD and now I am, so there was that benefit; but really, it was pretty strange. I hope they arranged with the copyright holder that that was going to be OK ... lol


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

mamascarlatti said:


> Pretty much the second word you learn when you work in Italy: sciopero.


Tell me about it! We were in Milan for just two nights last year, and I had booked the last two seats available for Turandot at La Scala months in advance. (By far the most expensive seats I've ever purchased, but worth every Euro.) A 24 hour general strike was called just three days before our arrival and the preceeding Turandot performance was cancelled. We weren't effected, but that was a scare nonetheless.


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## Cavaradossi (Aug 2, 2012)

guythegreg said:


> I saw the same production a month or two ago. These historical ballets leave me cold. The dancing was fine, but to me the emotional range is so much lower than with other dancing - and the stories don't move me.


Yep. I would have liked to have seen the mixed rep show with Bolero etc, but the Giselle was a last-minute seat-filler bargain I couldn't pass up. My seatmate classified the Giselle as the equivalent of a matinee Nutcracker production that grandmothers take their granddaughters to see, which I thought was about right.


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## guythegreg (Jun 15, 2012)

Cavaradossi said:


> My seatmate classified the Giselle as the equivalent of a matinee Nutcracker production that grandmothers take their granddaughters to see, which I thought was about right.


Funny! Passing the foolishness on ... well, that's not fair. Never mind. I'm sure kids love it, and so they should.


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