When the Devil is too busy and Death's a bit too much

I didn't have time to mention before I ran for the trains yesterday, but the mail brought two very welcome gifts: Projekt Presents: A Dark Cabaret,* the compilation that caught my penniless attention last week and which oldcharliebrown most thoughtfully procured for me (IOU fiction), and erzebet's Vertebrate Dreams, a tiny and beautifully detailed collection of images and text from her bone panels. So far, I love the CD—and now I'm eyeing other bands on their site, if for no other reason that some of the names intrigue me. (Android Lust? Voltaire? Faith & Disease?) I think I'm still getting over at least the surface likeness of Revue Noir to the Dresden Dolls, although I will acknowledge that Nicki Jaine's voice is closer to Marlene Dietrich than Amanda Palmer, but I've imprinted on Black Tape for a Blue Girl already and I'm getting there with Katzenjammer Kabarett and Pretty Balanced. I need more music. I always need more music. I can't afford it, but there are worse habits . . .**

In the realm of something completely different, I was in New York City last night to see Rigoletto with a dear someone who does not have a livejournal (and would never remember to update it if he did) and incidentally meet up with shirei_shibolim, whom I hadn't seen since 2003. We had dinner at Pizza Cave, where I was informed that the frum-rock from the overhead speakers was not part of the customary ambience—as indeed no speeded-up pop version of "Chiribim, Chiribom" with synthesized horn should ever be—and found out that technically we had gotten these tickets as part of a singles event at the Met. Well, so long as we got free champagne . . . I also had the rather curious experience of seeing for the first time an opera whose story I knew from a much later adaptation: the film Rick, which updates the plot of Rigoletto to a slightly Kafkaesque corporate world and plays up the blackly comedic aspects (to wrenching effect in the last act). I suppose I'll have the same slight dissonance if I ever see Madama Butterfly—thank you, Miss Saigon—but at least that's a case of opera converted to musical, not opera converted to twisted Christmas morality play with accordion soundtrack. I found myself cataloguing the differences as the opera progressed—and occasionally finding the film preferable. That said, I liked Rigoletto very much: particularly Rolando Villazón as the Duke and Eric Halfvarson as Sparafucile; fine actors as well as singers, and that's a dimension of operatic performance that matters to me. I should like to be in more operas when I have time in my life again.

I caught the train back this morning; consequently, I am a little short on sleep. I should get to bed before I download the entirety of Projekt's online MP3s, anyway. We'll see what this does to my dreams.

*I was surprised and rather pleased to realize that Projekt is the label responsible for This Ascension, whom I previously knew only from a sort of ethereal-rock version of "Personent Hodie" that VikingZen once put on a writing mix for me. If you're curious, it's available here. Excuse me while I download the rest.

**Perhaps. Exhibit A: I've just downloaded Voltaire's "When You're Evil." Even if I weren't honor-bound to respect someone who titles an album The Devil's Bris, I'd fall in love with this corrosive klezmer anyway. Now it'll be stuck in my head all night and I'll lie awake wondering if there's any way I could ever contrive to get on the crew of a film version of The Master and Margarita so I could slip this in over the credits. And hope that my books sell, so I can afford the rest of the album . . .