Books and other stuff I feel like discussing
By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
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Merci Beaucoup, Monsier Poulenc!
I like opera. For a great many years, I wasn't able to see and absorb live performance for reasons of geography and finance. But also during those years, I worked almost every Saturday enduring the grim pressure of tax season as an accountant with a speciality in taxation, and I got in the habit of listening to the broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera from New York every Saturday. Those broadcasts were my reward to myself for the imposition on my time and energy created by those dreary workhorse Saturdays.
Turning the broadcast on, and listening to whatever was on the air that day turned out to be a marvelous way to learn. Often the opera was unfamiliar and I was skeptical that I would like it, but I always listened anyway. Sometimes I was right, I didn't like it. But more often I discovered a work which intrigued and delighted me.
However, opera is a medium designed to assault a great many senses at once. The music, of course, but also the visual impression, the dramatic tension and/or comic delight, the stage setting, the tug on the heartstrings of the intricacies of the plot all contribute to the experience of seeing live performance.
About 14 years ago the Saturday broadcast was DIALOGUE OF THE CARMELITES by Francis Poulenc. I listened with half an ear, engrossed in my work projects and not really tuned in to an opera which was unfamiliar to me. But about 30 minutes from the end, I discovered that I was hanging on every note and that almost without realizing it, I had begun to give the broadcast my full attention.
Poulenc wrote his opera in the early 1950's. He had become intrigued with the true story of a group of nuns who were caught up in the turmoil of the French revolution in the late 18th century and were sent as a group to the guillotine. They rode through the streets of Paris in the small wooden carts, singing hymns as they were sent to their deaths. The impact on the populace of that scene was a culminating event for the political climate of the time, and for all intents and purposes, the public beheadings stopped, in part in response to the outcry at their deaths.
Within the last ten years I have begun to have more chances to take in opera in person, and a local opera company scheduled DIALOGUE in its annual repetoire. It was my chance to see the opera performed live for the first time, and I was very, very impressed with the dramatic story and the tragic loss of life.
And on Saturday I saw another live performance - it was just superb in every way.
What's interesting to me is the expansion of my own response to this marvelous work of music and theater. The first time, listening only, I was pulled in by the story and at Poulenc's skill in bringing the horror home. His final chorus is for a group of women's voices, singing the praise of the Virgin, while in the orchestra a gruesome repetitive percussion effect portrays the slicing guillotine. As the scene continues, the chorus becomes smaller by one voice, then another, then another, then another until at the conclusion, the last woman to approach the blade sings by herself, with her hymn cut off in mid phrase.
On my second exposure, the first time I saw a live performance, I was wrapped up in the drama of the women, the poignancy of their plight, and the skillful portrayal of the varying responses of the characters to the doom they can see approaching.
And this past weekend, I was simply enraptured by how the entire muscial score supports everything. There are not very many classic operatic arias, the entire score could almost be described as an extended meditation for orchestra and voices. It was a thrilling experience and I was gratified to see the entire audience gather to its feet, and call the performers back for several unscheduled curtain calls.
So I repeat "Merci beaucoup, Monsier Poulenc!"
Turning the broadcast on, and listening to whatever was on the air that day turned out to be a marvelous way to learn. Often the opera was unfamiliar and I was skeptical that I would like it, but I always listened anyway. Sometimes I was right, I didn't like it. But more often I discovered a work which intrigued and delighted me.
However, opera is a medium designed to assault a great many senses at once. The music, of course, but also the visual impression, the dramatic tension and/or comic delight, the stage setting, the tug on the heartstrings of the intricacies of the plot all contribute to the experience of seeing live performance.
About 14 years ago the Saturday broadcast was DIALOGUE OF THE CARMELITES by Francis Poulenc. I listened with half an ear, engrossed in my work projects and not really tuned in to an opera which was unfamiliar to me. But about 30 minutes from the end, I discovered that I was hanging on every note and that almost without realizing it, I had begun to give the broadcast my full attention.
Poulenc wrote his opera in the early 1950's. He had become intrigued with the true story of a group of nuns who were caught up in the turmoil of the French revolution in the late 18th century and were sent as a group to the guillotine. They rode through the streets of Paris in the small wooden carts, singing hymns as they were sent to their deaths. The impact on the populace of that scene was a culminating event for the political climate of the time, and for all intents and purposes, the public beheadings stopped, in part in response to the outcry at their deaths.
Within the last ten years I have begun to have more chances to take in opera in person, and a local opera company scheduled DIALOGUE in its annual repetoire. It was my chance to see the opera performed live for the first time, and I was very, very impressed with the dramatic story and the tragic loss of life.
And on Saturday I saw another live performance - it was just superb in every way.
What's interesting to me is the expansion of my own response to this marvelous work of music and theater. The first time, listening only, I was pulled in by the story and at Poulenc's skill in bringing the horror home. His final chorus is for a group of women's voices, singing the praise of the Virgin, while in the orchestra a gruesome repetitive percussion effect portrays the slicing guillotine. As the scene continues, the chorus becomes smaller by one voice, then another, then another, then another until at the conclusion, the last woman to approach the blade sings by herself, with her hymn cut off in mid phrase.
On my second exposure, the first time I saw a live performance, I was wrapped up in the drama of the women, the poignancy of their plight, and the skillful portrayal of the varying responses of the characters to the doom they can see approaching.
And this past weekend, I was simply enraptured by how the entire muscial score supports everything. There are not very many classic operatic arias, the entire score could almost be described as an extended meditation for orchestra and voices. It was a thrilling experience and I was gratified to see the entire audience gather to its feet, and call the performers back for several unscheduled curtain calls.
So I repeat "Merci beaucoup, Monsier Poulenc!"
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