mmoa_writes

I'm quite enjoying myself thus far. Started practising my recorder again, and I was impressed (mostly pleased, tbh) to find that apart from a few of the sharps of the higher notes, I'm still pretty good. Hopefully the same will hold true for the violin if I can still afford to get a new one...

Also started re-learning some card/magic tricks at which I am... terrible. If you don't keep practising, you just lose it. Finding 'it' is incredibly tricky.

Also been pretty cultural, without having stepped out of my house. That's right, part of our Sky package comes with Sky Arts which is great. I watched a bit of HMS Pinafore a few days ago (missed Trial by Jury) and La Finta Simplice yesterday, which I loved to pieces (staged a la moderne by a German company, which meant some of the adaptions were a little odd, but didn't subtract anything from the piece itself... though, it did confuse).

Watching the Gilbert and Sullivan piece made me all the more aware of why so few young people these days watch opera: you cannot understand a word they are 'saying'. For pieces in English, and for writers like WS Gilbert who are funny, but have librettos that must be listened to (or just read, half the time) properly in order to be truly funny, that's incredibly important. Maybe it's because like so many of the arts, opera is stagnating and is full of performers who, although passionate, are nonetheless a tad unimaginative in their approach and thoroughly uninteresting. Vibretto en extremis does not a good opera singer make. Especially in a G&S piece! *growls

It's much like what 'Mademoiselle Non' said in an interview I watched last year. So often, we get these traditional poses and gestures that don't actually mean anything and have become part of the cliche, and yet, the dancers don't seem at all willing to give them up, as if they can't think of anything else to do with their hands. Just because it's traditional, doesn't mean that you can't ask questions and try different approaches. After all, what is traditional now, was once upon a time avant-garde. There's no reason to continually perpetuate traditions that were never intended, or at least, do not have to be, perpetuated.

The same goes for opera. I know vibretto is awesome, but if you can't hear the word, or if it gets to the point where you're actually wavering between flats and sharps, then you've got to stop. It's like slapping on tonnes of make-up when a light foundation, brown eyeliner and vaseline will do.

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Reading Harry Potter and tGoF again...

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