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tiggymalvern
Yesterday evening I ditched my fleece and wellies and glammed up a little (well, only a little XD) to go and see a really enjoyable production of Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imre_nico and Mr Nico.
The Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecen's been singing Don Giovanni a lot, and I can see why - he injects the role with a real sense of fun and all the energy that it needs to be realistic (ha, ha, yeah, I know, opera, realistic, whatever XD), he's got a nice sense of timing with the comedy, a strong voice and a lovely way of rolling his r's that's hot :-). He even manages to almost pull off wearing a shot silk purple suit with pink waistcoat, though the thigh length leather boots probably help a bit with that ;-) It was only the matching pink gloves that really tipped it over the edge into too much....
Leporello (Eduardo Chama) hammed it up just the right amount without going OTT. Most of the cast were very well sung - Elvira (Marie Plette) had a piercing quality to her voice I didn't personally like, and lost power on her low notes, but that's common enough, but everybody was pretty good overall and very enthusiastic. Zerlina's costumes were unfortunate (so how many sopranos do you know who'd look good in a baby doll dress?), but the rest weren't bad. The set was cheap but innovative, with lots of double doors opening on two levels to keep scene changes of background detail flexible. There were some beautiful effects for the descent to hell that made the whole audience 'ooooh', and that's the big pay-off of the opera that has to work, and it did. And you have to love a Don Giovanni who has rotating erotic nude artworks in his house XD. There were some deft touches in the direction to avoid too much 'everyone stands still and sings' in the sextets, with a lot of background visual jokes. If you get a chance to see this production, go.
Aside: Note to the woman in the red dress - you probably shouldn't be wearing a dress slit well past your navel to the opera, but definitely not if you don't have the cleavage to hold it up. And even more not when you've got a less-than-flat stomach with wrinkles and/or sag lines. 'Kay?
This afternoon was a trip to the cinema withdarthhellokitty and king_chiron to see Curse of the Golden Flower, the latest film by Yimou Zhang, the director of Hero.
It was exactly the visual extravaganza I was expecting - you can really tell it's the same director by the scale of his shots and his framing and the way he says so much with silent scenes and placing the actors. And you can certainly tell a set designer and decorators really got to have fun with his vision! I adore his work. Definitely one to see on the big screen, because the look is so utterly opulent and dramatic that a TV could never carry it.
In some ways, this film is narratively almost the opposite of Hero. Hero's a film about ideals and honour and sacrifice, the things people will do for a land; it takes these enormous, political themes and draws them over the lives of five people. Curse is a film based much more in negative emotions, in the flaws of being human that affect so many people's lives in every world and every time, the story of a family divided and stripped bare by lies, betrayal and jealousies. The film takes narrative developments common to many a soap opera and writes them huge through the lives of people who play out their manipulations and revenge with whole armies to command.
The cast are fabulous, as you'd have to expect from the names involved - Chow Yun-Fat, who I adore, Gong Li who's equally brilliant. Jay Chou and Ye Liu were both new to me but not shown up in any way by their co-stars. It's a film that's harder to love than Hero, because the people in Hero were all driven by what they believed in, whereas everyone's motives in this film are entirely selfish - their defects are out on display, so they're less easy to like and feel for. But not every film can be a Hero, and hey - Chow Yun-Fat vs Gong Li with teams of ninjas - what on earth is there not to like? :-)
Aside: Note to the two people in the row behind with the multiple bags of crisps that they ate throughout, adding much mistimed rattling to the soundtrack - next time I don't just glare, I kill you. 'Kay?
imre_nico and Mr Nico. The Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecen's been singing Don Giovanni a lot, and I can see why - he injects the role with a real sense of fun and all the energy that it needs to be realistic (ha, ha, yeah, I know, opera, realistic, whatever XD), he's got a nice sense of timing with the comedy, a strong voice and a lovely way of rolling his r's that's hot :-). He even manages to almost pull off wearing a shot silk purple suit with pink waistcoat, though the thigh length leather boots probably help a bit with that ;-) It was only the matching pink gloves that really tipped it over the edge into too much....
Leporello (Eduardo Chama) hammed it up just the right amount without going OTT. Most of the cast were very well sung - Elvira (Marie Plette) had a piercing quality to her voice I didn't personally like, and lost power on her low notes, but that's common enough, but everybody was pretty good overall and very enthusiastic. Zerlina's costumes were unfortunate (so how many sopranos do you know who'd look good in a baby doll dress?), but the rest weren't bad. The set was cheap but innovative, with lots of double doors opening on two levels to keep scene changes of background detail flexible. There were some beautiful effects for the descent to hell that made the whole audience 'ooooh', and that's the big pay-off of the opera that has to work, and it did. And you have to love a Don Giovanni who has rotating erotic nude artworks in his house XD. There were some deft touches in the direction to avoid too much 'everyone stands still and sings' in the sextets, with a lot of background visual jokes. If you get a chance to see this production, go.
Aside: Note to the woman in the red dress - you probably shouldn't be wearing a dress slit well past your navel to the opera, but definitely not if you don't have the cleavage to hold it up. And even more not when you've got a less-than-flat stomach with wrinkles and/or sag lines. 'Kay?
This afternoon was a trip to the cinema with
darthhellokitty and king_chiron to see Curse of the Golden Flower, the latest film by Yimou Zhang, the director of Hero. It was exactly the visual extravaganza I was expecting - you can really tell it's the same director by the scale of his shots and his framing and the way he says so much with silent scenes and placing the actors. And you can certainly tell a set designer and decorators really got to have fun with his vision! I adore his work. Definitely one to see on the big screen, because the look is so utterly opulent and dramatic that a TV could never carry it.
In some ways, this film is narratively almost the opposite of Hero. Hero's a film about ideals and honour and sacrifice, the things people will do for a land; it takes these enormous, political themes and draws them over the lives of five people. Curse is a film based much more in negative emotions, in the flaws of being human that affect so many people's lives in every world and every time, the story of a family divided and stripped bare by lies, betrayal and jealousies. The film takes narrative developments common to many a soap opera and writes them huge through the lives of people who play out their manipulations and revenge with whole armies to command.
The cast are fabulous, as you'd have to expect from the names involved - Chow Yun-Fat, who I adore, Gong Li who's equally brilliant. Jay Chou and Ye Liu were both new to me but not shown up in any way by their co-stars. It's a film that's harder to love than Hero, because the people in Hero were all driven by what they believed in, whereas everyone's motives in this film are entirely selfish - their defects are out on display, so they're less easy to like and feel for. But not every film can be a Hero, and hey - Chow Yun-Fat vs Gong Li with teams of ninjas - what on earth is there not to like? :-)
Aside: Note to the two people in the row behind with the multiple bags of crisps that they ate throughout, adding much mistimed rattling to the soundtrack - next time I don't just glare, I kill you. 'Kay?
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 08:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 04:06 pm (UTC)Entirely off topic. . .
Date: 2007-01-29 09:30 am (UTC)Re: Entirely off topic. . .
Date: 2007-01-29 04:09 pm (UTC)Re: Entirely off topic. . .
Date: 2007-01-30 11:02 am (UTC)Yeah, I want a new layout myself. ^_^ Finding one's pretty hard though: I've been looking through some of the layout communities and the official layouts, and finding what I want exactly (S2 support, normal-size fonts, no icon squishing, colors that look somewhat good) hasn't happened yet. For now, I just settled on one that doesn't squish my icons (why did my old one have to do that? I liked it until it did. >_<)
Re: Entirely off topic. . .
Date: 2007-01-31 04:58 pm (UTC)Re: Entirely off topic. . .
Date: 2007-01-31 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-29 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 06:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-30 06:29 am (UTC)