opera, snow

Il Trovatore was good. The performers were superb. Conceptually, the set was interesting, but the finishing seemed hurried, slapdash. From where we sat, in the upper nosebleed, you could see the spider veins of blocking tape covering the stage. Red, white, green. For each reconfiguration of the set they dropped the curtain and there was much noise coming from behind. It brought to mind the image of a Laurel and Hardy sort of scene going on behind the red curtain and the supertitle -Pause-. To leave the curtain up for the audience to see the set changes take place would have been interesting, but I think it likely that they have to have the stage lights on bright in order to see all their directional tape. Even with all the noise during set change, they can pretend to preserve the illusion.

If this were the first performance I'd seen by the Atlanta Opera, I would wonder just what caliber is their artistic director, their stage director and their set designer. We won't go into the costumes.

That said, if you like Il Trovatore, go see. The music will not disappoint.

Sunday we had snow. Lots of snow. It snowed all day. I went to the High to see the First Emperor exhibit of terracotta warriors. It was interesting and crowded. I think I'm still processing. That these figures were made more than 2,000 years ago is amazing. The hubris of the man behind the terracotta army. Mind boggling.

On the way to the museum it started snowing. Heavy, misshapen clumps of wet snow rather than hard, cold flakes. By the time we left the exhibit, there was a layer of slushy snow. Our yearly snow.