Opera a Firenze!

Last Thursday I went to see an opera in Florence. The opera was Verdi's "Rigoletto" - this opera was adapted from Victor Hugo's "Le roi s'amuse" original play. While I had never heard of this opera, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had already heard a few of the songs from it. "Rigoletto" contains the song "La Donna E Mobile", which I have heard as performed by Pavarotti.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoyed dressing up and sipping on wine before the opera began, I have to say that I was thoroughly disappointed in the performance that I saw. Perhaps the most off-putting aspect of this production of "Rigoletto" was the set that was used. It did not look like a Duke's court with jesters and nobles as the time period of the story would have you imagine. Instead, the set consisted of a fake Rolls Royce that the Duke rode around in, a dog house that the main character (Rigoletto) and his daughter (Gilda) lived in, a boat, and a giant rotating black wall that didn't seem to serve much of any purpose. It is possible that the director was going for a modern spin on the antiquated story of Rigoletto, but it appeared as though the set was thrown together using leftover props from previous productions.

Aside from the aesthetics, I was not moved by the singing. While the singing was not bad, it was not what I would expect from a professional opera in Italy. But in all fairness, I had listened to Pavarotti's rendition of "Questa o Quella" earlier and the day, and Pavarotti sets a pretty high bar.

Luckily, the music itself was amazing - I really do have a lot of respect for the orchestra that performed that evening.

Aside from the opera, not much else is new. Except that it is now COLD here. Fa freddo! It literally happened overnight. Luckily it has been sunny and clear - though the locals tell me it will only get colder over the next few months, and you can bet it will start raining more frequently. I've had to go out and buy new sweaters and boots so that I don't freeze to death on the ten minute walk to class in the morning.
Today I could see my breath, despite the shining sun and bright blue sky. This did not sit well with me. I am a southern Californian girl - I am not familiar with cold weather.
This will be an adventure...albeit, a very cold one.

Stuck in the middle with you...

I'm very, very excited because tomorrow I'm flying to Northern California to visit someone very special! I will be there for about 10 days and can't wait!

So today has been a pretty laid back day, just packing and lounging around the pool.

I did go to the store today to pick up a few items... on my way back home, as I was about to pull into my driveway, The song "Stuck In The Middle With You" came on the radio. I really had no other choice than to pass my house and take an extra lap around the block with the volume turned all the way up so that I could enjoy the song. It put me in such a good mood. And now I'm on a Beatles kick and have been listening to their music all afternoon.

Ah, dinner time! Au revoir! I'll blog from Nor Cal soon!

Who knew Tuesday nights could be so fun?

Yesterday I made sure to get my paper edited and printed out before 6 and all my assigned reading for the evening had already been completed. Now if you should know anything about me, it is this: I hate the majority of school work and am an expert at procrastination.

While I felt somewhat dirty finishing work with time to spare, it was for a good purpose. Death Cab for Cutie was playing here (RaRa Riot was opening), I had a wristband to get in, and I was going to sing and dance so much that I knew I would not be able to properly function afterwards.

Have you ever been to a concert and, in a soul-crushing moment of clarity, realize that the band doesn’t sound nearly as good as they do on their CD? Well, that wasn’t the case with DCFC. The concert was amazing. They played a good amount of my favorite songs (Summer Skin, Soul meets Body, Crooked Teeth, etc) and did justice to some of their bigger hits – especially “I will possess your heart”.

I have a problem when it comes to going to concerts –I’m short. At concerts such as this where there is a large crowd between me and the band, it is always a struggle for me to see the concert. Girls, this is where having three extremely tall guy friends comes in handy. The three guys I went to the concert with are all at least a good 8 inches taller than me (one of them is over a foot taller than me). This was such a blessing because they were able to lift me up to better see the stage from time to time.

One thing I don’t understand about people at concerts is how they can just stand still, arms crossed, and only listen to the music. I remember looking around the crowd and seeing very few people even tapping their toes or nodding their head along to the music. I screamed over the music to my friend “HOW CAN THESE PEOPLE STAND STILL?” as I danced, probably looking like a complete idiot, but loving every second of it. Albeit, some of DCFC’s tunes are a little slow and depressing, so I excuse people from not dancing to those. But come on people! How can you not want to dance with all the energy on stage when the band is playing “No Sunlight”? Do you know how ridiculous you look when you just stand there? What are you doing? Absorbing the music? Try FEELING it!

One really surprising thing about the concert was the crowd that it drew. Of course, more of the emo and indie kids were there, but I was pleasantly surprised at how very few people were smoking weed. At almost every huge concert I’ve been to, there has been an ample amount of ganja going around – so the fact that very few people attempted to smuggle in some pot was a point of interest for me. Its more than likely that many of them drank and/or smoked before coming to the concert, but I was glad to see that a good amount of people were there to actually enjoy the music and could do so while being sober.

I think my favorite thing about going to concerts is the connection you feel with a band’s music after hearing them perform it live. I felt this way after seeing Aerosmith a few years back – all their songs are much more appealing and meaningful to me. The same goes for Cake, Jon McLaughlin, Hellogoodbye, and all the other bands I’ve seen. Now I most definitely feel that way about Death Cab for Cutie. Before the concert I wasn’t very partial to their sadder sounding stuff (which is the majority of their music), often skipping over tracks such as “Transatlanticism”, in favor of songs like “All is Full of Love”. But now all of their stuff sounds amazing and all day I’ve been delving into all their music with enthusiasm.

Alright, this post has gone on for too long – I’m going to go chill out to some DCFC. :)