Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “Don Carlo” in an archival recording from 1950. Most of the characters in it were real people, although they weren’t much like the way they they are portrayed in it. It’s true that the real Carlos was opposed to the Pope and the Inquisition, and sympathetic to the Protestants in Flanders which was then under Spanish rule, and that his father, King Philip, felt the opposite. It’s also true that Elizabeth of Valois was engaged to Carlos before the politics changed and she married his father instead, And his father may have wanted to kill him, but instead just locked him up. It is almost certainly not true that he and Elzabeth were in love – that was not a thing in royal marriages – and he was physically and mentally deformed – he was one of the last Habsburgs – the most inbred royals since ancient Egypt. The one character who was made up (not by Verdi, but by the playwright from whom Schiller borrowed for his plat “Don Karlos”) is Rodrigo – who gets the best music.
If you ever get a chance to attend one of these, don’t hesitate. Be there. Even just reding about one is revitalizing. Being there is a whole other level.
Even in Florida, there are still good people. (Even in law enforcement.)
And this is another reason why, though I no longer have any furbabies, I always look at Chewy first when I need something for myself that might be useful for an animal – like a white noise generator, or a broom that basically picks up hair, or a high powered laundry additive. Chewy is not your normal corporation. Chewy actually cares.
