It's hard on a highly respectable man

[sovay]

Apparently it is culture weekend. On Thursday, I heard Susan Cooper read a remembrance of John Langstaff and the Revels at the Cambridge Public Library. (The reading was for Cambridge Voices, but she was gracious enough to sign my old trade paperback of The Grey King.) Last night I met fleurdelis28 at the BU Theatre for Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, with a pre-show talk by the composer and Phyllis Curtin. (It is one of my favorite operas, an Appalachian murder ballad with apocryphal roots; I've had the 1962 recording with Curtin and Norman Treigle since I was a junior at Brandeis, but I'd never seen a production.) And tonight, thanks to the magic of the half-price ticket kiosk in Copley Square, we're going to see Coppélia at the Boston Ballet. (It's a comic ballet based on "Der Sandmann." I can't even figure out how that should work, but you expect me not to see it?) Right, and it's also my father's birthday observed. Just in case there wasn't enough going on.

And someone on WERS just finished singing Irving Berlin's "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," which I can respect very much. I was standing in the rain at ten in the morning to ask about ballet tickets. I felt like the opening scenes of The Red Shoes, or possibly Elizabeth Enright's The Saturdays. I'll go with the latter; it decreases my chances of ending up folklorically dead.

Comments

[zdenka]

Oh hey, I just got back from the afternoon performance of Coppelia. There are a few things I could criticize, but on the whole I enjoyed it very much. I'll be curious to hear what you think of it. I hope you aren't disappointed; the ballet is much less sinister than any story by Hoffman or that act of the Offenbach opera would lead one to believe.

[sovay]

Oh hey, I just got back from the afternoon performance of Coppelia.

Heh. That means you saw the Coppélius I was sorry not to have seen—not that I knew Sabi Varga from Spalanzani before this evening, but he was half of the pre-show discussion (the other half being a former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet whose name I didn't catch, although I think she might have directed the children's chorus) and spoke passionately about "falling in love" with the character; I was curious if he would have made the inventor a more pathetic figure as well as a comic one. Robert Kretz was quite good, but I have no idea how he personally feels about the role!

I hope you aren't disappointed; the ballet is much less sinister than any story by Hoffman or that act of the Offenbach opera would lead one to believe.

I wasn't disappointed; I was sorry only that their T-shirts for Coppélia were pink and in design devoid of automata, because otherwise I would totally have bought one.

[zdenka]

Interesting. I certainly felt some sympathy for Coppelius, though I don't know how their performances compare. I would have liked him to be a little more dangerous, I think.

And I'm pleased to have now seen the source for two Princess Tutu references.

T-shirts that were not-pink and with automata would certainly be preferable. I would say this is true of most things . . .