One of the big deal parts of 2015 for me is that it was a year full of "firsts." As we get older, "firsts" tend to trickle away into nothingness. Part of that is just part of the dynamic of being older. I mean, it's easy to have first events when you're a kid, because everything is new, so it just gets to be more difficult to "find" things you haven't done before. Or so it would seem to our "logical" minds. You can't have pizza for the first time if you've been eating it for 40 years, and throwing some broccoli on it hardly counts as making it a "first."
That said, there are so many things under the sun that, mostly, it's just because we get used to how things are and the way we do things and quit trying to try and do new things. As I said back at the beginning of all of this, change is uncomfortable and most people don't like to do it. But I set out in 2015 to do new things; I just didn't know some of the ways that was going to happen. So, in no particular order, things I did for the first time in 2015:
1. I fixed a toilet!
This is actually a big deal. I'm not the handy guy around the house. I don't really fix things beyond clogged toilets (Yes, I know how to wield a plunger.) and things of about that level. We don't have one of those people in our household. We lived in an apartment complex for nearly 10 years, and that was fine when we lived there, because we could just call maintenance if there was a problem with anything.
But, when you can hear your toilet leaking, you need to fix it or call a plumber. Or, well, lie awake all night listening to it. Yes, the door was closed. I have good ears and am a light sleeper.
Now, I'm not going to get into the details of this, but, actually, this should have been a pretty easy fix. Should have been. But... Let's just say things deteriorated. One thing of note: Our house is full of the DIY projects of the previous occupants, none of them done well or with any kind of materials you'd call "quality." So what should have been an easy fix turned into something much more... complicated... and took most of a week and three or four trips to Home Depot to accomplish.
But, hey! I fixed the toilet!
No, I don't care if you're not impressed.
2. Opera!
My wife has loved the opera since she was in high school. It was a field trip that did it. And the spectacle. And the costumes. And the singing. Maybe if I'd been to the same performance that she went to, I would have developed a love for opera, too.
Instead, my first experience with opera was during college and was with a travelling opera company that came to my college. It was less spectacle and more foreign film, and I didn't love it. Or even like it. Seriously, it was like watching a French film with no subtitles. One of those where the people only sit around and talk. Maybe the talk is fascinating but, if you don't know French, you'll never know.
So, due to my stated dislike of opera, my wife decided that we would just not ever go to the opera rather than go and have a bad experience of it with me. Through the years, I've tried to change her mind about trying it out with me, but she has been resistant to that. Finally, last year, I changed her mind (I think I said something like "You could continue to never go to the opera and never get to go to the opera, or you could, at least, just give it a try with me."), and we went to the opera! Four times!
Yes, it's safe to say that I like it.
We have one more coming up in June, and we're looking at next season, right now, trying to decide what we're going to see.
3. Camping
Despite the fact that we go camping in the Trinity Alps every year, I have traditionally not been a fan of camping. You can blame that on some childhood traumas, things like being hit in the face with a fishing pole and getting a fishhook in my eye during a trip with a friend's family and having my tent flooded due to bad instructions from my scout master on my one and only boy scout camping trip. Plus there's the fact that I hate not having access to a bathroom. The compromise to get me to go willingly to Trinity was that we rent cabins for that trip (which is awesome!).
My wife, though, likes camping. She grew up camping with her family and has positive memories of it from her childhood. You know, we actually sort of went camping on our honeymoon, but I look at that as more of just sleeping in a tent, because we were at a music festival and didn't cook or anything. We just bought food at the event.
I think this might have been the most surprising thing I did last year from my wife's perspective: I told her, "I want to go camping with you." To say the least, there was some amount of discussion after that one as my wife tried to figure out if either I'd gone crazy, been kicked in the head by a horse, or been replaced by an alien or replicant life form.
The problem, then, was that we didn't have any camping gear because why own camping gear if you don't camp, right? Also, you don't want to spend a bunch of money on something that you might never use again so buying a bunch of new camping gear wasn't exactly practical. We decided on a method of car camping which is actually pretty nice. Set up is quick and easy and the car is quite cozy. Of course, you have to have the right kind of car.
It was a great trip, even the night it rained. Many of the pictures I've been posting recently are from that trip, in fact. We plan to do more car camping, at least a couple of trips a year. Car camping allows us to be more mobile and spend more time doing things other than making and breaking camp. And, of course, there is no tent to clean out and store when you get home. I did actually intend to do a post about the trip but, at this point, that probably won't actually happen, so you'll just have to enjoy the photos.
Showing posts with label singing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label singing. Show all posts
Monday, February 29, 2016
Monday, November 16, 2015
We Went to the Opera! (a local color post)
This is a view from the very top of the balcony down to the stage during the intermission and set change. Yes, it is a long way down.
(Sorry, this is the only picture that came out well enough to post it. There just wasn't enough light to get good shots.)
We went to the opera, my wife and I. Twice, actually (and have a third trip coming up next week). When I say we went to the opera, I don't mean that we went to just some opera performance, I mean that we went to the San Francisco Opera. It's the second largest opera company in the States, so it's not some two-bit production. As we learned last time, the full stage area (including backstage) is more than 10 times the size of our house!
Yeah, that's not small. Our house is, but that stage is still pretty ginormous.
There's a lot I could say about the two trips, too much, now, for one post. For instance, we had car picnics on the way down both times so that we could make it on time. Finger foods, good finger foods, like bits of cheese and apple and olives and tri-tip. My wife fed me (and herself), and I drove, and we talked and had a lot of fun. The second trip, we were also invited to a wine and cheese tasting before the performance with a talk from the chorus master. That's the guy who teaches the chorus their parts. He's been there at the San Francisco Opera for quite a long time.
I could also tell you about the completely rude guy with OWDS who interrupted the presenter during the pre-show presentation about the opera. It was actually the dude (and, yes, he was an old, rich, white dude) and two women, and all three of them had flaming cases of OWDS, though the dude had it the worst. I suppose, though, the San Francisco Opera is a common meeting ground of people with OWDS. That guy really deserves his own post, although I probably won't actually get around to doing that.
There's a short review of the first opera we saw below. I'll do a different post for the other show.
Before I get to that, though, I want to make one specific general opera comment:
The problem with opera is that it is often just people standing and singing. As my wife says, it's difficult to do a lot of movement when you're trying to sing, especially the kind of singing that opera singers do. And, yet, this is not a problem for all opera performers. And, I think, it probably didn't used to be a thing at all. Opera, once upon a time, was performance for the common man. It was the equivalent of going to the movies. I'm pretty sure that opera used to be much more lively and performative, but gentrification has made it much more accepted to just stand and sing.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Gaetano Donizetti
This opera suffered much from the stand-and-sing issue, especially among the male performers. Mostly, they didn't even bother to summon up any facial expressions. Nicolas Teste as Raimondo was the worst. He was about as flat as a piece of paper. He's one of the main characters and, yet, he often felt like he belonged in the chorus, because he had about as much animation as them. He could certainly sing, but there was no emotion in it, and he rarely moved at all. Nadine Sierra, the female lead, however, was the exact opposite. She was expressive and animated. A performer in all senses of the word. She made the show worth watching, especially how creepy she was in the post-murder scene where she goes off the deep end. Sierra is what more opera performers should aspire to. Opera is not just singing; it's also acting.
The issue with this particular production of this opera was the director. His interpretation of it was to "modernize" it, which would be fine... if he had actually done that. What he actually did, though, was to produce the same period piece that it's supposed to be (with the women wearing big period dresses and all of that and the whole thing in a castle-ish setting) except that the men get to wear suits and some of them wave guns around. It creates a horrible muddle. It did not give the "near future" vibe it was supposed to give at all. Not even close.
Still, it was an enjoyable experience. overall. The singing was, as to be expected, amazing, and, actually, Nadine Sierra was good enough on her own to make the show worth watching even with the other issues of this production.
Yeah, that's not small. Our house is, but that stage is still pretty ginormous.
There's a lot I could say about the two trips, too much, now, for one post. For instance, we had car picnics on the way down both times so that we could make it on time. Finger foods, good finger foods, like bits of cheese and apple and olives and tri-tip. My wife fed me (and herself), and I drove, and we talked and had a lot of fun. The second trip, we were also invited to a wine and cheese tasting before the performance with a talk from the chorus master. That's the guy who teaches the chorus their parts. He's been there at the San Francisco Opera for quite a long time.
I could also tell you about the completely rude guy with OWDS who interrupted the presenter during the pre-show presentation about the opera. It was actually the dude (and, yes, he was an old, rich, white dude) and two women, and all three of them had flaming cases of OWDS, though the dude had it the worst. I suppose, though, the San Francisco Opera is a common meeting ground of people with OWDS. That guy really deserves his own post, although I probably won't actually get around to doing that.
There's a short review of the first opera we saw below. I'll do a different post for the other show.
Before I get to that, though, I want to make one specific general opera comment:
The problem with opera is that it is often just people standing and singing. As my wife says, it's difficult to do a lot of movement when you're trying to sing, especially the kind of singing that opera singers do. And, yet, this is not a problem for all opera performers. And, I think, it probably didn't used to be a thing at all. Opera, once upon a time, was performance for the common man. It was the equivalent of going to the movies. I'm pretty sure that opera used to be much more lively and performative, but gentrification has made it much more accepted to just stand and sing.
Lucia di Lammermoor
Gaetano Donizetti
This opera suffered much from the stand-and-sing issue, especially among the male performers. Mostly, they didn't even bother to summon up any facial expressions. Nicolas Teste as Raimondo was the worst. He was about as flat as a piece of paper. He's one of the main characters and, yet, he often felt like he belonged in the chorus, because he had about as much animation as them. He could certainly sing, but there was no emotion in it, and he rarely moved at all. Nadine Sierra, the female lead, however, was the exact opposite. She was expressive and animated. A performer in all senses of the word. She made the show worth watching, especially how creepy she was in the post-murder scene where she goes off the deep end. Sierra is what more opera performers should aspire to. Opera is not just singing; it's also acting.
The issue with this particular production of this opera was the director. His interpretation of it was to "modernize" it, which would be fine... if he had actually done that. What he actually did, though, was to produce the same period piece that it's supposed to be (with the women wearing big period dresses and all of that and the whole thing in a castle-ish setting) except that the men get to wear suits and some of them wave guns around. It creates a horrible muddle. It did not give the "near future" vibe it was supposed to give at all. Not even close.
Still, it was an enjoyable experience. overall. The singing was, as to be expected, amazing, and, actually, Nadine Sierra was good enough on her own to make the show worth watching even with the other issues of this production.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)