04 June, 2010

Opera 'n stuff

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been mostly reading about crafting. And watching My Neighbour Totoro which is the most amazingly wonderful movie EVER. Rent it, buy it, watch it with your kids and your significant other(s). This clip is in the original sub-titled Japanese, but the English version that we've been watching is extremely well done.



Last night Mat and I went to see the Marriage of Figaro.



I enjoy opera though I suspect I probably wouldn't go if he wasn't keen and organising it. Personally I prefer the more modern operas like Verdi's because they don't sing the same thing over and over again ad nauseum - you know, snappy plot lines, everyone dead at the end :) But I was thinking as the lights went down that opera really is a cultural connection with the past. I mean, you can sit in an opera house and listen to the rustlings and coughs, clap when the conductor comes out, dash for the refreshments at interval, people watch, admire shoes and dresses, gossip about fellow attendees, run into friends and generally do things that people have been doing for hundreds of years. Pretty cool. Oh, and if you've had a long day you can doze off too. Ahem.

7 comments:

  1. Recently we went to the ballet (a modern interpretive Romeo + Juliet, where we all kept waiting for some Shakespeare words that weren't going to happen, as it was ballet!). The fun part of it was dressing up for the matinee session, and then people spotting during interval. Sitting in our seats and looking around waiting for the show to start was lovely too.

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  2. Another killer header image! I just keep seeing beaUUUuutiful exemples of creative folk running along the top tonight! Your entire blog is pretty slick actually...kudos!

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  3. my kids love totoro too. what am i saying... it is one of the few cartoon movies that they have that i will actually sit through over and over again! i am lucky. i love japanese anime and they do to so it is sweet that we get to watch these really cool cartoons.

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  4. We ADORE Totoro, and all the rest of the Miyazaki films! (Well, the happy ones at least :)

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  5. I confess I've never been to the opera, though I do love the ballet...D is more than a little delighted that here in the back blocks there is a positive dearth of performances compared to when we lived in Wellington...I don't think the enthusiasm ever quite rubbed off!
    ...off to find a copy of Totoro for my 2...

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  6. Opera can be pretty tedious I have to say, but if you pick the right one
    it's great fun. I'm really looking forward to taking Hazel to the ballet
    for the first time though, hoping to find a performance of the Nutcracker at
    Xmas. My husband has declined to attend already ;)

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  7. The people-watching is the absolute best part of the opera for me. I enjoy
    it enormously! Last night I spent a lot of time looking at all the lovely
    shoes on display. There was a woman with the most gorgeous red suede half
    boots with black tights on and as she wandered by you could just see the
    womens' eyes following them along admiringly. The other thing that I like
    is that there are guys in tuxedos and other guys in jeans and tshirts. It's
    amazing the diversity of what people judge appropriate to wear to the Opera,
    and what their personal taste tells them is 'dressing up'.

    I remember matinees from my childhood very fondly, they were so exciting!

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