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It's hard on a highly respectable man
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 ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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.
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It made me happy!
(2) Just your few words here about the opera Susannah made me very curious, so I read the story synopsis, the description of its Appalachian-based music, and its relation to the Biblical story of Susannah and the Elders--wow, just fascinating.
I recommend the recording I mentioned in the post; it's live, so there are coughs from the audience and pickup issues and occasional flubs from the pit, but Phyllis Curtin and Norman Treigle are amazing.
(3) Coppelia was the first ballet I ever saw performed.
It seems to be the first ballet for almost everyone except me; mine was The Nutcracker in 1987. But one of the dancers who spoke before the show was talking about putting Coppélia into repertory as the spring ballet in the same way as The Nutcracker is performed every winter, and I think that would be a wonderful idea.
(4) Happy birthday-observed to your father!
I shall tell him you say so!