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Back from Bloomington! I went down to see the opera Rodelinda with friends; none of us had ever heard of it, so we all went in with no idea what it was about, and were pleasantly surprised by the super gothic German aesthetic that it had going on. Staircases in a bleak black stage lit with candles on each steps! All the male characters with some epic dwarf-like braiding going on! (The king in particular looked like he had stepped right out of The Hobbit. Also, the king and his most loyal servant dude were both played by women. Operas, man.) Men-at-arms clinking with chain mail, and dancing figures of Love and Fate, which honestly worried me when I saw it in the program - it sounded possibly very cheesy - but in actual fact I think they were my favorite thing in the performance.
I was especially taken with Fate's costume, with no skin showing anywhere; black slippers, black gloves, a rough black skirt and wild black hair, everything black but for the white mask sparkling over the face and white candles on the shoulders (electric of course, but positioned in melted candle wax so they looked like real flaming candles). Uncanny.
It was also suuuuper long, which seems to just be how Baroque operas roll. I do tend to prefer the svelter nineteenth-century operettas; they're made for modern people with short attention spans.
We also went to my favorite Bloomington bookstore, where I acquired a copy of The Three Musketeers (it has a helpful comics-style glossary of characters on the front flap where most books have a plot summary; I totally could have used that in The Count of Monte Cristo). Someday the Dumas adventure will continue! Someday.
I was especially taken with Fate's costume, with no skin showing anywhere; black slippers, black gloves, a rough black skirt and wild black hair, everything black but for the white mask sparkling over the face and white candles on the shoulders (electric of course, but positioned in melted candle wax so they looked like real flaming candles). Uncanny.
It was also suuuuper long, which seems to just be how Baroque operas roll. I do tend to prefer the svelter nineteenth-century operettas; they're made for modern people with short attention spans.
We also went to my favorite Bloomington bookstore, where I acquired a copy of The Three Musketeers (it has a helpful comics-style glossary of characters on the front flap where most books have a plot summary; I totally could have used that in The Count of Monte Cristo). Someday the Dumas adventure will continue! Someday.
