Done!

Just a quick post to say that the first Feather and Fan Cardigan is complete! And a lot of progress has been made on the second one for my daughter. I have finished the sleeves and upper bodice and am now working on the very long rows of the lower bodice in boring stockinette stitch. But not having to think about what I am doing or count anything, gives me time to listen to audio books while I knit. I have listened to Emma by Jane Austin as read by Prunella Scales and am now thoroughly enjoying Sense and Sensibility as read by Juliet Stevenson. Both of these actresses do a marvelous job of changing their voices to represent the different characters. Makes for delightful listening! I signed up for a subscription with Audible.com after recommending audio books to my cousin. Audible lets you sample the voices before you buy which is very important for me. And there are hundreds of books that I would like to listen to which should keep me knitting long enough to get all those unfinished projects done!

Das RheinGOLD

I got a chance to see the dress rehearsal for Wagner's 1869 opera Das Rheingold last night. It is the first of the cycle of four operas that the L.A. Opera is putting on over the next two years, culminating with the complete cycle in May and June of 2010. It is a milestone for Los Angeles and for L.A. Opera that they have decided to take on this gargantuan task. It's a very expensive undertaking at a time when expenses are difficult to meet for everyone. But boy, is the topic ever timely!

The story of Das Rheingold concerns Wotan's foolish desire to build himself a MacMansion (Valhalla) and how he goes about paying for it. Sound familiar? He has promised his builders, two giants, that he will give them his sister-in-law Freia as payment. That may not be familiar, but many people have in a sense sold their family's future in order to have a nice home now. His wife, Fricka, is outraged, naturally, but Wotan assures her he never meant to make the payment anyway. That sounds familiar, too. I'm thinking of those adjustable rate mortgages that when ballooned left their holders without the ability to pay them. The excuse I heard many times was that people never intended to hold the original mortgage to term and expected the banks to re-finance at that point. In the opera, there is a lot of haggling with the builders, but the giants finally agree to accept the gold that was stolen from the Rheinmaidens in payment instead.

This would be a very good deal indeed in today's market with gold selling at over $1000 an ounce. The newspapers are calling this a "flight to safety." One wonders where people are putting this gold and how they intend to sell it once things stabilize again. As with today's bubble economies, the Nibelung dwarf who stole the gold, Alberich, has used it to seek out even more gold and has forced his fellow Nibelungens to do the dirty work of mining for him. One thing that he forges from the gold is the ring which is the object that ties all these operas together and from whence they get the collective name Der Ring des Nibelungen. Yes, there was a ring before Frodo. This ring will give the wearer untold powers, the power to win all the world's wealth. By the end of the opera, Alberich has put a curse on the ring that it will bring only misery and death to the wearer. 'Nuff said.

Putting on the Ring Cycle has become a rite of passage for opera companies and the cities that support them. People travel from all over the world to see the latest production. But it seems to me that the sets, costumes, and design of the production has overshadowed the music and the singing. This was certainly true of last night's performance. I think I got most of the symbolism behind the stage setting: heaven above where the gods reside, the earth in the middle, and the fire pits below. But I spent a lot of my time trying to figure out what those long ropes were supposed to signify, and the light sabers were laughable, like the one I bought my grandson at Disneyland. The opening was very effective with the solo horns and the stage covered with billowing black cloth to represent the river. But the costumes were clumsy and awkward and seemed just to get in the singers' way. And I wonder why none of the females in the cast were allowed to show their hair and instead wore ghastly white skull caps. They looked bald.

I have to keep reminding myself that this was a rehearsal after all, and that the company will not pull out all the stops until opening night on Saturday. But I think the $11m (out of a $32m budget) for the design and staging could have been better spent. Just like in our present world, things have become more important than the message.

Welcome Rain

It rained last night! It not only rained, it poured! That's big news here in LA where we have been having a severe drought. I was awakened at 4 a.m. by the lovely sound of raindrops on the bricks outside my window. You'll think I am crazy, but I actually got up to take pictures!

I love the smell of rain, the creosote odor before the rain starts and the fresh wet smell after it is over. The downpour only lasted about 10 minutes and that was it. This morning's sky was full of beautiful billowy clouds, something we don't see very often in LA either where the sky is almost perpetually blue, or alternatively, gray.

This was a nice gentle rain with no wind or lightning. But how do you take pictures of rain? I managed to catch the drops of water that were cascading off the roof of my house and the picture below shows my snowbush (Breynia nivosa) with raindrops on the window of my atrium.

Le Cirque

swirls of blue and yellow... Le Grand Chapiteau... "Mesdames et Messieurs!"... Corteo... no barker to announce the acts, just a choreographed flow from one act to the next... a funeral cortege... a touch of the Phantom, organ music, chandeliers... angels, lots of angels, floating angels (what better way to get props to someone on a highwire?)... adult children jumping on trampoline beds with brass headboards and footboards... pillow fights... rings and circles everywhere, tossed, swung, juggled... belly-dancing with hoola hoops on a highwire... walking a tightrope upside down... human-powered horses... chickens raining from the sky, swept up into a hole in the middle of the stage (a clever way to clean the stage after a fake snowfall)... a midget floating out over the audience from six huge helium-filled balloons... audience participation to push her back to the stage... a concerto for violin and glass harmonica... whistling Mozart and Verdi... very, very strong men swinging 100-plus pound women... clowns playing golf with a human head for a ball... a cast that comes from Russia, the US, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Japan, Belarus, Romania, France, Armenia, Bulgaria, Moldavia, Argentina, Poland, Australia, and Canada... music that is sometimes jazz, sometimes Italian, sometimes Spanish, sometimes Scottish, but always very French...

ticket price $50 (with discount)... parking at the Inglewood Forum $22!!!!...