Recognition – Politics Plus

Yesterday, the radio opera was Johann Strauss Jr’s “Die Fledermaus” (“The Bat”) There is no (visible) bat in it, but it is filled with absurdities. It’s a comedic takeoff on the “revenge tragedy” form, but but the revenge is for making the “injured” person look silly by leaving him in the public park dead drunk and still in his bat costume from the party they both attended, so that when the rest of the city woke up, he became a laughingstock. It’s an opera I’m very familiar with, having costumed it for Adams State College when I was working for the the theatre department more than 40 years ago. You can make up your own mind how funny it is, but the Viennese to this day think it is a hoot. It is staged there every New Year. (I don’t know how they managed that during the two World Wars, and perhaps they didn’t, but if not, that was another huge grievance against the Germans.) Austria, and particularly Vienna, takes its light music seriously.) The broadcast [erformance was recorded at the Vienna State Opera, and it was in fact recorded last New Year’s Eve.

This sure sounds like good news to me. A pricey crop that doesn’t require rivers for irrigation is just what Colorado need right now.

Not news – but a whole lot of fun for those of us into medieval history. At one time I thought of joining – I only got as far as picking a name, which was Fontaine d’Artois. (There are – or used to be -a respectable number of Artesian wells in the San Luis Valley, where Alamosa is located.)

Lima

Mike

I’m always ewluctant to say “The kids are all right,” because there are always some who aren’t. But clearly these young women in Alaska are just fine, thank you.

Yesterday, the radio opera was Shostakovich’s “Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk.” It was quite popular, including internationally, until Stalin saw it and didn’t like it, and officially condemned it. After Stalin’s death, Schostakovich revised it under the title of “Katerina Izmailova.” The protagoniste isn’t much like Lady MacBeth. She does kill – two people by herself and one with assistance -but she has no remorse, and at least Lady MacBeth had a marriage where they apparently cared about each other. Katerina is in one kind of prison or another through the entire opera. A husband with zero libido, an abusive live-in father in law, then a lover who treats women like beer cans (why keep one around when the beer is gone?), and who, when they are in a group of other convicts doing a forced march to Siberia, tricks her into helping him seduce another woman. Normally, life has its ups and downs – but this is a story with no ups at all. It is supposed to have satirical aspects, but I don’t hear them. Maybe you need to understand Russian. Or maybe you need to be male and privileged. I just hear cringe. Which is not to denigrate the brilliance of the music. In the scene in which the jerk lover comes to her room, where she intends to flirt, but he rapes her, one criic described the music as “pornophony.” And I certainly cannot dispute that.

I may not follow any sports – but I’m not so distanced from those who do as not to recognize a rare achievement when I see one. As is generally true of the American ABC, it’s a video on loop, and may need to be unmuted.

For a change, an ABC (US) video that’s not on loop. But if you want to play it again, refreshing the page will do the trick.

When I was in high school and college, I did a little baby sitting on the side. This kind of sitting doesn’t compensate the siters monetarily, but I’ll bet it’s also a lot less work. And very rewarding emotionally.