Why I Like Opera

I went to La Boheme on Friday night with my usual opera going friend and another friend who hadn't been to an opera before. La Boheme is the most played opera in the US, but I've never seen it live. I like Puccini as much as the next person, and have listened to La Boheme quite a bit, but I'd never realized that 1. parts of it are pretty funny, and 2. parts of it are gut-wrenchingly sad. It also made me quite nostalgic, as I listened to it a lot right before I went to Paris for a few days in the fall of 2007. My friend Jess and I stayed in the sketchiest hotel ever (no, really, she can corroborate this--there were a lot of hijinks that trip, in point of fact) but what mostly stuck with me about the hotel, other than the broken elevator and the winding staircases, was this view, from our tiny bathroom.
As I looked out the window, I remember thinking that this must have been what it was like to be in La Boheme, minus the consumption. I wanted to live in a garret, be a starving artist, and be able to look out at the city every night.

Well, the opera was awesome, as these opera performances tend to be--I'm so, so glad I go to a school with a world-renowned opera program. Almost better than the music, which was great, was the SETS. I've never seen such sets. The sets were such that one of my friends punched me in the arm at one point because we both were so pumped. The sets rotated as they were singing--the balcony of the Parisian garret turned and became the dingy interior of the poor artist and poet's apartment.
Most impressively, this rooftop apartment moved offstage, the lights dimmed, a rumbling could be heard, and a NEW set moved forward. Suddenly there was a cafe scene, complete with a bridge, and a marching band, at least 50 cast-members, and even vendor's carts. The audience burst into applause. Check out more of the sets here.
One of the reasons why I like operas is because they force you to suspend belief. Over the course of 2 1/2 hours, I had to believe that people could fall in love instantly, that hearts could be quickly broken and mended, that bohemians lived together by conning their landlord, and that sometimes things just end in sadness no matter how much we want them not to. When Mimi died, it was unnoticed by the other protagonists for a little while, but the audience knew--the girl behind me hissed, "NO!" And when Ridolfo notices that his friends can't meet his eyes (they've realized she's died) he exclaims in this extraordinary, anguished outburst. My Italian isn't good enough to translate it exactly, but even if you'd never heard Italian before it wouldn't matter, you just know that it sounds like loss, like pain, like anger. And then he stalked outside, and stood in what suddenly had become the chilly Parisian air, with snow falling, and just stood there as the curtain went down. I had chills, one of my friends was crying, and the entire theater was silent.

Other music doesn't have this affect on me, and I don't know what it is about opera that causes me to have a more emotional connection. And I know it's not like this for all people--I've heard the argument that it's too flashy, too substantial, too earthly to really be something transcendent or moving. And I suppose in some ways that is true. I think perhaps there is a corollary between those of us who like Baroque Art and those of us who also like opera--a longing for something so excessively beautiful that it sometimes hurts. You feel too much, if that makes sense. There are parts of Marriage of Figaro that are so stunningly perfect that they make me tear up, not because they're sad, but because they are so lovely that they make you feel something, deeply.

I don't know that much about opera, truth be told. I can tell bad singers from good ones, and I'm getting better at hearing differences in different versions (like I can now--sort of!--do with wine) and different singers approaches. I really can't name any favorite singers, other than Jussi Bjorling, but to me that's not really the important part. The important part is that for 2 1/2 hours, the whole audience was transported to Paris, to a garret full of starving artists and a cafe full of wine and song. To see a relationship come together and fall apart, to hear declarations of love and heartbreak. So much pathos, and so much beauty.

Here are two scenes from movies that evidence my feelings pretty perfectly, Philadelphia and the Shawshank Redemption. I remember once, my sister and I went to see Cosi Fan Tutte, and the old man next to us was so delighted by everything that was happening that he'd laugh for a good 10 seconds longer than everyone else, which was cracking ME up. There was a great set change there too, and he spontaneously started clapping, just like people did this past Friday. I glanced over at him, and his face was so happy. That's why I like opera.

Ogres

Some friends and I went to see Shrek: The Musical tonight, and before you judge me, let me just say that it was so fun. Yes, the songs were fairly forgettable, and if you've never seen the movie you'd probably not like it, but the message is really good: not judging people based on their appearance and knowing that being different is ok, and people will still love you. If you're in your mid-20s or younger, you probably grew up knowing about Shrek. It's never been one of my favorite movies, but it does have its moments. The audience was a mix of parents with young kids and college kids--we were next to a couple frat-y looking guys who had a great time.

And the special effects! The dragon was a 25 foot long PUPPET, there were strobe lights and awesome make-up and suits of armor and all sorts of fun things. There were quite a few "adult" jokes, and some sneaky broadway references--I caught ones to Gypsy, West Side Story and Wicked, and the BEST one: Donkey and Shrek are walking along and the background is moving behind them, and suddenly the Lion King music started and a giraffe and some birds popped out for a bit and then ran off. Awesome.

For 2 hours, I didn't think about all my reading, lesson planning, or non-written statements of purpose, and just enjoyed feeling like a kid and looking at really amazing set designs. I love art history, but without occasional bouts of music (musicals, symphonies, operas) I really do think I would lose my sanity.

As one of my friends summed it up during intermission: "today is a great day. You got a giant fake check [sidenote: I did. It's not that giant, but it is bigger than a notebook. I do not know what to do with this, it's laminated and has the museum as the background. The suggestions so far are: frame it, stick a bunch of magnets on the back to make a big magnet, or turn it into the world's largest coaster.] L brought Nerds for us to eat, and A is texting a boy. And we just saw a giant singing dragon." And that pretty much sums it up!

La Boheme tomorrow night! Maybe I will remain sane after all...

Survived!

Talks are over, and I did pretty well! I didn't get that many questions, and I can't tell if that is good or bad, but in any case, it's over! This is a cool competition, endowed by some long-ago fund at the museum. You apply to present research, and so four of us got it this year. The topics were on a Hellenic krater, a portrait of Mrs Chinnery by Elizabeth Vigee le Brun, one of John Marin's etchings of the Brooklyn Bridge, and Howard Chandler Christy's book illustrations (me!). I was in really good company--everyone else did a great job. Whoever wins gets $600, and everyone else gets a $125 gift certificate to the fine arts bookstore. And let me tell you, there are some CUTE earrings in that bookstore! There are four judges, and you are judged based on your scholarliness (a real word?), originality of research, and presentation. My friends brought both cookies AND cupcakes, so there were treats involved--I'm glad I'm with such collegial people!

I'm in the process of making butternut squash soup, the best around--the recipe is courtesy of one of my ex-professors (Dunbar! for those of you who know him) and it's got orange rind and curry and lots of amazingness in it. The last time I made it I exploded it out of my blender and burned myself, but I now have an immersion blender, so maybe fewer injuries this time around. I might even go crazy and make a bacon and grilled cheese sandwich. Then I'm going to read my current fun book (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court) and The Grinch is on (the old, good one) then a Masterpiece Theater with the divine Emma Thompson and the even more divine Alan Rickman. Tomorrow it's back to business as usual, although oddly I do have dinner invites or shows planned for almost every night next week. A social life?! Me?! Sweet. Two phone interviews in there, too, so it'll be the usual busy time, too. But for now--whew. One thing over.

Jitters

I'm giving a presentation tomorrow on a few early 20th-century illustrations from our collection and how they present a nostalgic, idealized view of women (and the implications of this), so it's rather ironic that I just spent the last 20 minutes plucking my eyebrows. I'll probably wear mascara tomorrow, too. And heels. Idealization of women, alive and well.

The paper is written, the images are picked, I've thought a bit about some questions that may arise (that is the scariest part!), and I've got my outfit chosen--purple tights, of course, though I'm not sure on a scarf.

It's odd the rituals we have when something kind of big is coming up, and I've actually gotten tremendously better at dealing with talking in front of people--teaching and seminars are making that a lot less scary. Still nervous, but I'm not pacing. Yet. I'm going to reward myself for doing this with Ethiopian food next week and seeing Shrek the Musical with some friends. I'll cook a big breakfast tomorrow morning, listen to some show tunes, and try to distract myself as much as possible.

This isn't really an important post, but this paper and archival research are the main things that I've accomplished this week. So I should have more exciting things to report in the next few days, but for now: a view into the scarier aspects of academia! Send me good vibes tomorrow at about 1 pm, and I'm going to go back to watching Iron Jawed Angels. I get to talk about suffrage, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Mad Men in this paper--and really, what is better than that?

Don't Stop Me Now

Tonight, for the first time in about a month, I didn't have any specific work to do. There is so much on the horizon that I could start on, but really, nights off need to happen. They haven't been happening lately, and I miss 'em. In the past two weeks I have: written a 13 page seminar paper and presented it to my class, written a 15 page paper to be presented on Sunday at a lecture competition thing (more on that later, maybe, if I survive. Since my advisor is looking over it now I have a few days of not dealing with it), had two phone chat/interviews with two professors that I would like to work with in different PhD programs, emailed three other professors to see if they'd like to set up interviews, went out for Halloween, graded 40 quizzes, lesson planned, had my teaching observed by my supervising professor (which went well, I was very happy about it), co-planned our biennial art history association (AHA) booksale, re-dyed part of my hair purple, and slept, but not enough.

So what did I do tonight? Well, as I'm typing this, I have a giant pot of applesauce cookin' on the stove, and cooked up a bunch of cabbage and bacon for dinner. I haven't bought meat in probably 9 months, but I just really wanted bacon today, so I got some! Wonderful comfort-y food. I plan to have so much brinner this week. I dealt with some old receipts, cleaned my purse(s), although my desk is still a disaster, and submitted all the payment requests for AHA (I'm the treasurer, despite genuinely being godawful at math). I'm planning to watch a few episodes of Twin Peaks (SO GOOD, I'm a tiny bit obsessed) and head to bed.

But for the moment I am confident that I will get everything done this semester. Yes, I may be writing my theory paper ON Thanksgiving (not-going-to-think-about-it) and I have yet to write any personal statements or request transcripts or GRE scores or...the list goes on. And on. But in the words of the great Freddie Mercury, Don't Stop Me Now!

Eating, Fall Style

I love Fall for so many reasons: the smell of leaves, getting to wear sweaters, cider, the acceptability of putting pumpkin in everything, the approach of Christmas, SCARVES, warm blankets, and the list goes on (and on). Food and drinks are a major part of all this--I love making pumpkin bread, drinking lots of tea, mulling hot cider (or wine!), and comfort food in all its guises, usually involving cheese. Here are three recipes that I've been making a lot recently. I tend to modify everything I make, because I either don't like an ingredient (lima beans) or don't have an ingredient (nutmeg, usually), so take these recipes with a grain of salt!

Carolina Vegetable Soup
--I like this recipe because you don't have to buy stock, and the bbq sauce and Tabasco make it jazzy. I am really picky about soup--it either has to be pureed with no chunks, or something very thick like a stew, chowder, gazpacho, or chili. I don't like soup with noodles. I don't like soup with chicken (usually). I look at soups more as an excuse to eat bread. However--I have a really excellent soup book, compiled of recipes from friends, and this is a great one, courtesy of my father, via Moosewood. My college friends dubbed this the Caravaggio Soup, because two of us made it for our seminar once and then we had SO MUCH LEFT that our whole house ended up eating it for a week. And I just had a bowl for lunch!

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

2 cups chopped onions

3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 cup peeled and chopped carrots

1 cup peeled and cubed sweet potatoes (1 whole one)

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 1/2 cups chopped zucchini (if you can find one)

1 cup fresh, frozen, or canned lima beans

3/4 cup frozen corn kernels

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (1 can -14 oz or so - of crushed tomatoes would work)

1/2 tsp fresh thyme (1/4 tsp dried)

1/4 cup barbeque sauce

4 cups water

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Tabasco sauce or other hot pepper sauce to taste

2 Tbsp shopped fresh basil (optional)

chopped scallions

--In a large soup pot, warm the oil on medium heat and sauté the onions and garlic until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.

--Add the carrots, sweet potatoes, and celery and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, lima beans, corn, tomatoes, thyme, and barbeque sauce. Stir for a minute and then add the water, salt, and black pepper.

--Cover and bring to a boil; then reduce the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes. About 5 minutes before serving, add the parsley, Tabasco sauce, and, if you wish, the basil.

--Serve topped with chopped scallions.

Pumpkin Mac & Cheese

This is good. This is really, really good. Not really helping my joint obsession with pumpkin and with cheese, but there we are. I made it once with sweet potatoes, and that is also good--but better with pumpkin, I think.

8 oz uncooked macaroni or other pasta, preferably whole wheat or whole wheat blend pasta

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 cup 1% low-fat milk

2 oz (about 4 Tbsp) 1/3-less-fat neufchatel creamcheese

1 cup freshly grated 50% reduced fat sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup freshly grated gruyere cheese (can sub in any good melting cheese, such as monterey jack)

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 – 1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper, or more depending on heat preference

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

--Cook pasta according to package directions.

--Meanwhile, whisk together and heat pumpkin puree and milk in a medium saucepan over medium heat until hot.

--Reduce stove heat to low. Whisk in cheeses until fully melted.

--Stir in nutmeg and cayenne. Season with salt and pepper.

--Stir drained pasta into the pumpkin-cheese sauce and mix until thoroughly combined.

--At this point, the mac & cheese might appear a bit soupy. If this is the case, let the mixture sit off of the heat for a few minutes. The cheese sauce will firm up as it slightly cools.

--Serve with an extra dusting of nutmeg, if desired.

Roasted Corn with Manchego and Lime (courtesy of Epicurious)

I usually half this recipe, and replace the jalapeno with a bell pepper, the chives with scallions, and the Manchego with a little mayonnaise. This makes it resemble street corn, which I would get in Brooklyn whenever humanly possible. Also, I never have red pepper flakes on hand, so I either use chili powder or omit it. This is a good recipe for corn country--and roasting makes corn REALLY easy to peel.

6 ears of sweet yellow corn, unhusked
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
Kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 jalapeño, seeded, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 lime, cut into 4 wedges
1 cup finely grated Manchego cheese
1/4 cup thinly sliced chives
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest

Preheat oven to 450°. Roast unhusked corn on a baking sheet, turning occasionally, until heated through and crisp-tender, about 15 minutes. Let cool. Shuck corn and cut kernels from cobs. Discard cobs.

Heat oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add corn kernels and sauté until heated through and light-golden in spots, 3–5 minutes. Add butter; stir until melted.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer corn to a large wide bowl or deep platter; sprinkle jalapeño and crushed red pepper flakes over. Squeeze lime wedges over; sprinkle with cheese, chives, and lime zest.

A View From the Bridge

Sometimes, I really miss Brooklyn. I lived there for a little over a year, and sometimes there is nothing I want more than to people-watch in Prospect Park, wander Brighton Beach, eat falafels in the Slope while ambling by the brownstones, read a book on the promenade, visit with the guys at the corner-store, hear Eye of the Storm screaming by on their firetruck, and most of all get Thai food and curl up with a quilt with my cousin and watch Mad Men. I even sometimes miss the guy who played the guitar on the street by our place who would always serenade us, yelling about how our beauty was like the stars in the sky, the meth addicts loitering in front of our place with their stories (we lived next door to a methadone clinic), and the shenanigans that transpired on the buses. And sometimes I do not miss it at all--the compressed feeling, like sardines in a can, that you get when you are surrounded by people ALL THE TIME, the noise, the poverty that is always around you and that you can't ignore (and shouldn't, actually), the grumpiness, and how packed the subways are at rush hour.

Tonight, I went and saw A View From the Bridge, which is what prompted these Brooklyn musings. I was not that excited about this opera going in, for two major reasons:

1. I am a snob and am not that fond of modern and/or English-language operas. This one was first written and performed in 1999, so it was quite new, and I had doubts. Things just don't *sound* as good in English. Which is biased, because if you were fluent in Italian, more traditional opera dialogue would be just as dumb, but in English it just seems so banal. "Eddie, what are you doing?" "You can never have her", etc. Of course, my favorite duet from The Marriage of Figaro is about two women writing a letter, but it's different because I don't *really* know what they are saying. Modern operas try really hard to be dissonant sometimes, too, so it's not something I'd want to listen to for fun.

2. A View From the Bridge was originally an Arthur Miller play, which was adapted into an opera. I can't handle Arthur Miller. I cry every time. We had to read The Crucible and Death of a Salesman in high school, and if that wasn't bad enough, in my sophomore year in college, I took an intro to sociology class with mandatory movies every Sunday night [most work I'd done up to that point, worst grade I ever got in college. One of the most important, wonderful classes I've every taken], and we had to watch Death of a Salesman. With Dustin Hoffman in it. I cried, WAY too much. (because how many Willy Loman's do you know, people who defer and defer the American Dream until it's too late? It's heartbreaking.) ANYWAY, I swore that I was not dealing with Miller again, but got tricked into this opera.

And I have to now eat my words, because it was stupendous. Yes, the music was not my favorite. Yes, I will never be a huge cheerleader for modern operas, but I have never witnessed a musical, play, or opera, that was as suspenseful as this one was. I didn't know the plot beforehand, which helped a lot. It was all crazy and Sicilian, with incest (not sure if that's as explicit in the play), and kiss of death and spitting, and having to defend your honor. Very mob-heavy, depressing yet interesting. As someone who find displays of machismo completely unattractive (in fact, the exact opposite of the men I usually am interested in), for some reason I have an odd fascination with the mob. It was a very good adaptation of the play, and some of the music was actually really good--an aria about New York, and the very dramatic crowd scene, in particular. It was sad that the theater was so empty--it's homecoming weekend and Halloween weekend, so that might help explain it, but I think people often don't want to give modern opera a chance. This opera opened my eyes to how good modern opera can be, so I'd definitely encourage people to check them out when they can!

A View From the Bridge is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where I don't think you can actually see the Brooklyn Bridge (slight problem with the title!) but still. Red Hook is an enigma. You can't get there by subway, so you have to take the bus. It's full of trendy-ish coffee places and dilapidated warehouses. It's the site of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and the only place in Brooklyn where you can see the Statue of Liberty head on. I worked in Red Hook for about six weeks, doing arguably the weirdest job I've ever had. I was scanning 1950's military plans from France, as well as preparing documents from doctors offices to get them ready to be scanned. So basically, I spent 8 hours a day at $10 an hour taking staples out of things and listening to NPR. One of my friends referred to this as my "Bartleby the Scrivener phase" and she was so not wrong. I also re-designed their website for a few days, and wrote copy for the owner's father's business, which was in personalizing things like golf-balls and leather satchels. Totally weird.

The best part about working in Red Hook was that there was a great grocery store across from my warehouse, so I would go over there and get a pecan roll to have after my lunch. I was working there through May and June, so it was just becoming warm, and I would go sit on the dock, my back on the warm brick building, eat my roll and look at Lady Liberty. At the end of the day, I'd take the bus to Borough Hall, and walk through downtown to my subway stop, passing the street vendors with their used books and wooden bracelets, the Bubble Man--who used bubble wands the size of my face to blow giant bubbles, the nurses and businesspeople, the deli where I used to grab a bagel sometimes, and the musicians outside Borough Hall. I miss that, sometimes.

Best song about Red Hook (I think) is Joey, by Bob Dylan, about Crazy Joe Gallo, mobster and murder-victim. The mob-culture of honor and respect is central to A View From the Bridge, and I think it was central to Red Hook at one time, too. Dylan's song ends after Joey has been shot down in Little Italy, and summarizes a lot of these themes well:

The sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born
And someday if God’s in heaven overlookin’ His preserve
I know the men that shot him down will get what they deserve

Joey, Joey
King of the streets, child of clay
Joey, Joey
What made them want to come and blow you away?