Carmen

My wife and I went to the KC Lyric Opera production of Bizet's Carmen Wednesday night. What a great opera. I was thoroughly impressed by the tenor who played Don Jose. Carmen was pretty good, too (and just about as lusty as the character should be without becoming pornographic). I'd never heard the show before so it was a lot of fun. THE MUSIC! Holy cow the music for the opera is incredible. I had forgotten just how much music from that show has made its way into popular culture.

The staging left something to be desired, though, in many respects because the director was hired at the last minute. I have some friends in the chorus that said that rehearsals were attrocious because she spent so much time blocking then reblocking. They said that rehearsals got so bad at one point that the principals basically started blocking their roles themselves and opening questioning the director's capabilities. Ouch!!! The problem, though, is that the director should have known what she was doing because she's directed Carmen before in (Florence!) so it wasn't like she didn't know the show.

Anyway, the show came together and was great. As a bonus the house was nearly packed which is unheard of for the KC Lyric Opera on a Wednesday night. It's rare that 3 hours flies by so quickly.

Language

Item # 13 on today's list of self-improvement. Don't ask what the first 12 are.

I've come to a decision. I swear too much (one of the pitfalls of working in retail). I think that my command of the English language is too good (rare though not unheard of among my generation) to use excessively these words. To this end I am going to attempt to limit the usage of certain 4-letter words in my vocabulary.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Life's Not Fair

Sometimes life can be terribly cruel.

I posted a few weeks ago about my wife's aunt's funeral. If you'll remember she died of lung cancer at 39 having never smoked.

I recently received more bad news. This time about a good friend of mine from college. Her brother had been battling cancer for some time now. Well, 4 years actually. Two weeks ago he lost. He was in his early 20s, I think. After college my friend and I sort of lost track of each other. She was a great friend, though. A thoughtful person, wonderful thespian and even directed yours truly in his stage debut. I'm incredibly saddened for her by the loss of her brother because I know that the two of them were very close.

All I can feel is a great sadness for my family and my friend. It's just painful because I know how much suffering this causes my family and my friend. I know, though, that if God does indeed have a plan, none of us is meant to understand what it is.

Professor Robocop

My wife and I just finished watching the special on the History Channel about Roman engineering. It was really fascinating (yes, we're nerds for all things Greek and Roman). Anyway, like we've come to expect, they have their certain panel of experts that they continually go to throughout in order to give their information "scholarly accuracy". Who should happen to grace the screen as one of their "experts"? None other than Robocop himself, Mr. Peter Weller. I was shocked. At first I thought to myself, "Self (because that's what I call myself) this has to be nothing other than a happy coincidence. That cannot possibly be...Holy Crap!!! It is him!!!" That's right the star of such acclaimed films as Robocop 2 and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai is a Roman scholar!!! Apparently he's affiliated with Syracuse University somehow, but I couldn't find any references to him as an instructor.

I suppose there's hope afterall for those of us that want to live in both entertainment and academia.

The Things I Miss

So as any of you that know my wife left her job at a local music store to become a staff accompanist for a local school district. Now that she has this job I can no longer just somewhat randomly call her up at the store and let her know that I'm bored or that I've scored us Cardinals tickets (of the St. Louis variety) or that I've gotten comps to one of the local shows. I miss talking to her for practically no reason at all in the middle of the day. Just calling her to tell her I love her. I guess that's not no reason.

The Brothers Grimm

Die Frau and I went and saw Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm this weekend. It was a lot of fun but there were times where I couldn't figure out if Terry Gilliam wanted to make a great movie and tell a great story or try to create camp and cater to ever-shrinking legion of fans who have come to expect weird touches in his films. Now I like weird just as much as the next guy. And there's no mistake that most of his films are brilliant. But in this case it actually detracted from the story. It seemed like every time I started to get wrapped up in the story (which was convoluted but not unmanageable) Gilliam would pull a Monty Pythonesque stunt which would yank the viewer right out of the story (like Kubrick, only funny) and remind them that this is only a movie. Jonathan Pryce is golden, though, in his over-the-top portrayal of a French general but Peter Stormare (of Fargo, Armageddon and Chocolat notoriety) begins to grate on one's nerves afterwhile despite the fact that he's a terrific actor (one of the pitfalls of his character).

One undeniably terrific aspect of the film was the cinematography. This was one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen.

As a composer of film and concert hall I have to say that the score was incredibly distracting. The composer, Dario Marinelli, who I've never heard of changed one note of Jerry Goldsmith's score to Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man. Distracting and offputting. Overall I thought that the movie was generally entertaining despite its shortcomings but certainly not overly memorable.