#THE OPERA

[unspokengrief]

If there is a god, he knows I’m coming. If there is a god, he’s familiar with my screams. Silence is not something I am privilege to. Every molecule of my ache hissed. Every rip of my skin, the crack of my bones, it was all familiar. A lamb waiting for slaughter. A girl in a dark alleyway. The bitter taste of my fury. It was all too familiar. My body, an echo chamber for my screams. I do not have enough time to tell you my story. Listen for the screams. Silence is a privilege.

— Hannah Green, ‘The Opera’.

[clouds-of-wings]

Broke: Ugly modern minimalist Wagner staging

Woke: Beautiful old-fashioned Wagner staging

Bespoke: FUTURISTIC PSYCHEDELIC SPACE WAGNER

I have slowly watched the Ring Cycle in the 2008 Valencia production over the last weekends. (It's also on YT, but without subtitles.) First time I watched the whole thing! I wanted something more traditional at first, but I happened upon an excerpt of this version and it just somehow appealed to me, so I watched this instead.

(I still agree with what I said on the topic earlier - if I didn't know anything about the source material, the Nibelungen and Norse mythology, I would have found this staging very confusing.)

Anyway, here's some pictures because it just looks so damn cool. Sorry the quality is not so great. DON'T click to enlarge! Believe me, you'll regret it.

THE NORNS:

Fricka argues with Wotan:

THE VALKYRIES:

A talking bird:

This is what the inside of a dragon lair looks like:

The scheming nobles / corrupt elite are investment bankers or something. First picture: Gutrune and Gunther. Second picture: Hagen and his men.

Alberich visits his son Hagen:

Brünnhilde in her wedding dress, having the worst day of her life in front of Rhine-waves made from empty plastic bottles:

Mime in his chemistry lab (this must be REALLY confusing to anyone who doesn't know the story - why does he have an isolated chemistry lab in the forest? Originally he's a smith.):

Wotan and Mime talk about giants, which are visualized as battle mechs, I was so delighted!

Wotan, who was intensely dramatic for 16 hours straight:

The wall of fire around Brünnhilde's rock bed:

Gutrune always travels in her personal miniature death star:

Finally, Ragnarök:

And those are the 30 pictures per post that I'm allowed.

[lunatunafish]

Los Campeinos! As Lucerne / The Low from my 3DS (headphone warning - it sounds really bad)

Toronto, Canada June 20, 2024

[musicaltheatregirlsandsongs]

Musical Theatre Song Contest: Round One C

Submitter’s propaganda under the cut

Another National Anthem

I just love the part at the beginning where every assassin is giving their reasoning

You know why I did it ? Cause there isn’t any Santa Claus !

The Opera

Someone tell Natasha about suspension of disbelief

[mote-historie]

Jules René Hervé, The Opera, Ballerinas at the Opera Garnier, 1940.

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[raddagher]

hello google chrome refugees

don't use any of these browsers, they're also chrome

Here are my favorite firefox plugins for security/anti-tracking/anti-ad that I recommend you get

please get off chrome google is currently being investigated for being an Illegal Monopoly so get outta there okay love you bye

[gwenthebard]

Not enough jobs are willing to do training anymore, no matter what the situation. Grocery stores won't teach you to work a cash register, businesses won't teach you how to use their programs, even the arts won't teach you anything

Everyone wants a triple threat, expects you to just have those skills. In the old days? you could show up to a random theater barely able to dance and they'd teach you, and then the incel living in the walls would make you a world class singer and actor and you'd be headlining your own show in a few years

[medievalthymes]

"Kill them with kindness" WRONG. drop the opera house chandelier on them.

[skipppppy]

The life of Stanford Pines must be so bizarre from the perspective of a random townsperson who doesn’t know him. Imagine you live in a sleepy lumber town, where the most interesting thing you’ve heard this week is that a plot of land on the outskirts of the woods was sold and someone has started constructing a cabin on there.

You later learn by word of mouth that he’s a phd student doing some kind of long-term research project. You don’t see his face until one night he comes blasting down the street on a trail of destruction, eyes yellow and glazed over, trashing public property, inflicting gruesome injuries on himself, and laughing like he’s on an erratic, drug-fuelled bender. He then goes home and locks himself in his cabin again. This becomes a cycle; he stays isolated for weeks, then comes out once in a blue moon to wreak havoc and be a nuisance to the authorities.

Then one day it stops. He doesn’t come back out. The next time you see him he’s at a grocery store looking completely different to how you remember; his hair is grown out, he’s put on weight, his clothes are completely different and he’s stopped wearing glasses. Some townsfolk finally work up the nerve to talk to him and you learn that he invited them to his cabin on a tour. His home is apparently FULL of dangerous research equipment and the scientist, who had allegedly been very quiet and level-headed on the days he wasn’t having his “episodes,” has had a complete personality change, he’s loud and confident and less than honest and a little sleazy but a damn good salesman and entertainer.

He hosts tours out of his home for the next 30 years. Over time he’d changed it into a museum of sorts that sells overpriced knickknacks to unsuspecting tourists, but aside from his shady business practices he’s a well known member of his community. He changes up the exhibits every few months, brings his niece and nephew to stay one summer and they become town darlings, and even exposes a beloved public figure for running a spyware scheme.

One day you hear he got visited by the FBI. They start going round town asking about him. A week or so later he gets arrested. The town goes CRAZY theorising why but then there’s a massive earthquake and in the chaos of that you forget what happened to him. One minute you hear that the feds were surrounding his house and the next they’re all leaving like they forgot what they came for. Another week later he resurfaces and announces he’s going to run for Mayor, dominated the polls, wins the popular vote, but loses his position immediately due to an extensive criminal record.

Then there’s gossip that he completely changed his appearance again. He’s lost his fez and is walking around in a coat and cable knit turtleneck in the middle of the July heat. Then you hear from someone else that he looks the exact same and didn’t change anything. Then you see two identical men walking down the street, one matching the description you saw. People are BUZZING to know what happened and you eventually learn that the “new guy” was actually the same Scientist and the guy that had been running the museum was his twin brother who stole his identity after he went missing. Then the apocalypse happens

[doctorsiren]

Day 20 of Sirentober / Doctober

Hands / Journal

You can tell who never made a deal

Available as a print on my Etsy Shop

[clouds-of-wings]

The people in charge of my local opera house be like, you all saw this opera as children, right? Your parents took you to see it of course. Being taken to opera screenings as children is definitely a universal experience, isn't it? It is among my friends, who are all from the upper middle class and have professors as parents, so it must be universal. So the only reason why anyone might want to see a screening of this 18th century work that's true to the original is that they're nostalgia-poisoned conservatives who hate creativity and originality. Yes. That must be the reason.

[haunthtml]

[musicaltheatregirlsandsongs]

Musical Theatre Song Contest: Round Two C

Submitter’s propaganda under the cut

The Opera

Someone tell Natasha about suspension of disbelief

If I Were A Rich Man

I’m learning the melody on the flute! Very fun song!

"I realise of course that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honour either"

[hyperrbole]