Saturday afternoon facebook updates, real and (mostly) imagined:
Timothy is hanging with 400 old people in Arlington VA, hoping for some met opera fireworks. 11:37am
…..hasn’t seen so many old people in a movie theater since Driving Miss Daisy. 12:03pm
…..feels nervous for Susan Graham, who looks uncomfortable as broadcast host and has the sexy and confident Natalie Dessay from last week to compete with. 12:31pm
…..just moved to the front row of the cinema to escape a bank of misbehaving speakers. 12.45pm
…..is crushing on Deb Voigt and her well-oiled (if steely and a bit inflexible) vocal machine. 1.15pm
…..wow, did everything just go split-screen? How very 1960s! 1.20pm
…..fell asleep during Isolde’s “I saved his life and now he disses me” monologue. Clearly 3 hours of sleep and a 4-hour commute isn’t good preparation for 5 hours of Wagner. 1.45pm
…..can’t believe that, at the height of passion, Tristan and Isolde didn’t even kiss on the lips. Come on! 2:26pm
……Michelle DeYoung is a striking stage presence, using her height (”a bit tall”) to her advantage, but everything above the stave sounds effortful. 2.35pm
…..is drinking Starbucks and resenting mall cinemas and their crap sound and lack of sound-proofing (esp when action movies are playing next door). 3:00pm
…..thinks someone gave Suzie-G a drink before the first intermission, cause she is smiling (and touching Jimmy Levine) a lot. 3:05pm
…..can read Met-virgin Robert Dean Smith’s mind: “smile; walk five steps downstage (or was that upstage); grimace; look passionately at Debbie; Christ she’s got a huge voice; can anyone out there hear me at all!?” 3:45pm
…..always finds King Mark’s “aria” just so bloody moving. God bless you, Matti Salminen. 4:15pm
…..loves the glowing beauty of the set’s tent-like background and the fantastic use of lighting, but the war-like “children’s toys” scattered around the stage during Act III seem a bit much. 4:45pm
……aaaaaaagh! broadcast director, please stop fiddling - no more split-screens! All we need during the Liebestod is a bloody great close-up! 5:20pm
…..perfectly tuned final chord! What an orchestra! 5:30pm
…..thanks the met for a fabulous 5 hours in the cinema and bloody great crick in his neck. 5:49pm
……is gonna sleep very well, once the caffeine has worn off. 10:21pm
Comments 2
I burst out laughing at “never seen so many old people in a movie theatre”… I saw Peter Grimes last week. It was the first Met broadcast I’d made it to, and I was stunned at the fact that there were *literally* six people under 50 present, myself included. It was actually a bit sad… there are always young-ish folks at live opera, why not at the broadcasts?
Posted 23 Mar 2008 at 12:00 pm ¶You’ve created an entirely new paradigm of music criticism. ;-)
PS: is “effortful” a word?
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 3:14 pm ¶Post a Comment