(no subject)

[seekingferret]

The Enchanted Island at the Met last night. I made plans with Mark, but he bailed on me the morning of the show, so I lined up my old college classmate Roger to go with me. And then I realized that I'd somehow bought four tickets instead of two, so there was more frantic calling to find other people to go with me, but that failed.

Luckily, it was a completely sold out show and I had little trouble scalping them outside the Met to two nice, older Russian ladies who spent the whole show giving Roger candy.

The show itself was lovely, beautifully sung, lots of great Handel arias, familiar characters, and a really, really stupid plot with a lame libretto failing to support it. Prospero tries to do his thing, but Sycorax disrupts Ariel's spell so that she summons the wrong ship to the island- a ship that instead carries the four lovers from A Midsummer Night's Dream on their honeymoon. So now, instead of Puck and Oberon fucking with their minds for inexplicable reasons, Prospero and Ariel (And Prospero was sung by David Daniels, who of course has sung Oberon many times) fuck with their minds for inexplicable reasons. And then Neptune (sung by Placido Domingo, in a small role that nevertheless filled me with pleasure) deliver the Duke and Ferdinand to Prospero already repentant, so all of the drama of forgiveness that drives The Tempest was neutered. The one good thing in the plot is a scene where Prospero tries to boss around Sycorax and Neptune shows up, to great cheers from the audience, and tells Prospero to give the damned island back to Sycorax and Caliban and he'd damned well better apologize, too. That was awesome.

Um... I kind of want all of the Ariel/Prospero fic now? Does that make me a bad person? I know the power dynamic is fucked up to all hell, but Danielle DiNiese and David Daniels played off each other wonderfully. I also want Miranda/Caliban, which I'm pretty sure doesn't make me a bad person, and which apparently already exists on AO3! And I think I'd love stories about Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius working through the emotional traumas of getting their minds fucked with again and again by supernatural beings.

Comments

[mithrigil]

FUCK IT I should have answered my phone, Puel and I were planning to go there for Rush but got waylaid by work.

[seekingferret]

Oh, I'm sorry. That'll teach me to only figure out who's coming to the show with me the day of the performance.

I'm pretty damned sure you'd like the Enchanted Island, in the same way I did where it made me ragey a lot but was also really enchanting and well-done.

[kindness_says]

I looooooooooooooooooove Midsummer.

[kindness_says]

And I get the Ariel/Prospero thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Damn chorus sectional! I'm glad it was good!

-Noah

[anotherusedpage]

So, I got this: http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/31/genesis.html for yuletide one year. It remains just about my favourite yuletide gift ever. Gentle, aware Prospero/Ariel. Thought you might like. :)

[seekingferret]

Thanks for the recommendation! I'll check it out later.

[seekingferret]

Oh, that was really nice. I mean, it's fahye, of course it's amazing.

[zopyrus]

The one good thing in the plot is a scene where Prospero tries to boss around Sycorax and Neptune shows up, to great cheers from the audience, and tells Prospero to give the damned island back to Sycorax and Caliban and he'd damned well better apologize, too. That was awesome.

That was my favorite part, too! And the script was bad, but the badness of it was funny enough to make my mostly-non-opera-going friend crack up a lot, which I think was part of what the Met was going for.

[seekingferret]

Yeah, I brought a mostly non-opera fan friend and he had a really great time, and the house was as full as I've seen it, so they definitely achieved what they set out to achieve. But... as someone who is drawn to difficult operas, this could have been so much more.