Good morning, patient GUSeroos. I missed Sunday because the entire state of Connecticut was black ice and I was still in the town where I saw the opera on Saturday. I'm a nervous nellie driver these days so didn't return until yesterday before noon to an hysterical cat with 700 pounds of food remaining.
I didn't think anything could be worse than AT&T for internet but since they sold their crap to Frontier, I discovered things could actually seem as if operated by incompetent eejits. I can't cut and paste because things are running like molasses so thought it best to get this baby up without all the boilerplate! Sorry!
Ok, so enough about Frontier, let's talk about me and Renee Fleming and Nathan Gunn and a stellar cast for the hilariously funny and lush Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow which was a Susan Stroman production. Silkie and other broadway buffs know more about her than I but it was gorgeous. She produced Oklahoma and The Producers and has a bucket of Tony awards. I was with an 86 year old Viennese woman who said the gowns were perfect -- so colorful!!! The costumes were designed by William Ivey Long --- another huge Tony winner.
The waltzes were lovely, the can can scene astonishing. The movie theater was completely sold out as was the one in my Town which assigns seats. Great news for the simulcast series. Afterwards, the Viennese woman hosted dinner and besides my opera buddy, we were joined by a well known German to English (vice versa) translator and a German retired professor who now teaches young children German with her husband, a retired middle school biology teacher and concert violinist!! What a fun and stimulating day.
If you would like to dip your toes into opera and have never seen one before, I recommend The Merry Widow. It was translated into English -- all the German speakers said it was a great translation. Of course they still had subtitles because it is difficult to get every word -- sort of like Shakespeare. It is a bundle of cuckolding and jealousy and greed and one woman getting what she wants by outsmarting all others. I think it must have been quite scandalous when it first appeared in 1905 or 06. Even in Europe == not because of sexual implications but women and money. One of my favorite lines, sung by Renee Flemming: "Morals lead to quarrels."
So, since I stayed over one more day, I made an onion, mushroom and chard frittata and we had a frisee, radicchio and endive salad for dinner. Then watched the Dallas Buyers Club which I had never seen. Quite a good movie but Matthew McConaughey (whom I never previously liked) and Jared Leto were incredible. I think they both must have lost 50 pounds -- they looked utterly emaciated. Then we watched Zelig which I had never seen before. Quite brilliant -- the "happy times" between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow prior to Allen's completely and obviously going off the rails.
So, talk amongst yourselves and I'll see if things clear up later.