… on Aida:
MUCH better pictures than mine:
Civic Center
SF Gate Pictures of all the people I DIDN’T see! (where they heck were they?)
More photos of the rich and famous
Last night was San Francisco Opera‘s opening night. Tonight is Opera San José‘s opening night. Last night I was not nervous. So far I’m not nervous about tonight either, but I’m guessing that will change. Last night I dressed up. Tonight I’ll dress in black. Last night I didn’t worry even ONCE about reeds! Tonight? Who knows!?
Below are some somewhat blurry pictures from last night’s event. Enjoy! (click on each to enlarge).
The roses were incredible!
Dan looking spiffy!
Just a selection of dressed up folks here …
And the designer of the opera, Zander Rhodes, who happened to arrive right when we were walking past!
We saw these same two guys last year:
Dan has posted a series of pictures from Così that are mighty nice. Check ‘em out. He’ll have more later, I think.
I hope the event becomes an annual sort of thing. I hope I’m invited back, too. It was such fun.
Of course not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. A friend and colleague (who also says my blog is self-indulgent) thought it was an awful thing … the tweeting, the casualness … ah well. Can’t win ‘em all, eh? I guess I won’t be seeing him at the AT&T ballpark* then, for the Opera in the Ballpark event. I’ll sure be there. I’m already dreaming of those garlic fries.
*I have yet to get to a game this year! Might this be the only day I manage to get to the park this year? Will I not see “my” Giants? That would be weird.
It’s good to have someone around who can take a picture of me that doesn’t make me look too huge. Whew! Here’s proof that I was checking out all those double reeds at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (thanks, Dan!):
He sent me a ton of (huge) files for better photos, since he has a camera that does a bit better job than my little one or my iPhone. But for now I just wanted to put this up. Because. (I’m also hoping he’ll get more pictures from the Cosi event so I can post some of those as well.)
And now I’m hitting the hay … Dan managed to catch a cold while we were in New York. I was smart. I waited until yesterday. But it sure is wiping me out now. With
These have nothing to do with oboe or music … but for some reason this bride caught my attention and I just had to take the pictures. I spotted her as we were walking toward High Line Park. I love the color … and I do get all squishy inside when I see a bride or a wedding. (Of course if you cut me open you’d probably realize I’m always squishy inside.) These are best seen enlarged, I think, so just click on each one to enlarge, or command-click to open in a different tab if you’re on a Mac (not sure how other computers work):
While we were in New York we checked out the instruments at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What an amazing collection! Here are just a few pictures of the western instrument double reed area. (Nothing has been worked on yet, so these are crooked, not-so-great pictures. Dan will, I know, have much better ones eventually, and I do plan on working on these someday. Maybe.)
Click on the photo to enlarge:
This last one … well … I thought the answer to, “What are you playing?!” would be, “Watering can.” (Okay, maybe only I find that funny. Figures.)
… but what is it really?! Here you go:
Mouth Organ, Peter Peckmann, Vienna, ca. 1835
Wood, leather, brass, copper. This instrument, known o…nly by this one example, has the shape of a Baroque-period racket. It speaks with draw and blow, has two-by-five finger buttons and is tuned like a harmonica in D. The arrangement of the buttons, however, allows one to play chords, making the instrument well suited for accompaniment. Another innovation was a large resonance chamber in the form of the hollow wooden cylinder underneath the reeds at the upper end of the instrument. The sound of the instrument has a special tenderness. Peckmann is also known as the maker of music boxes.
Our shuttle picks us up in a short while, and we’ll be back on the west coast this evening. This trip has been incredible, and I’m so glad we were able to make it happen. I so rarely take vacations, but doing something like this reminds me that I do have an awfully good time!
Below are some photos from yesterday. We went down to the Wall Street area. We saw the World Trade Center site (yes, it hurts to see it). We had lunch with Brandon near his current workplace. We walked. And walked. And went halfway over the Brooklyn Bridge and back.
I’d post more, but we have to head on out now! See ya on the other end of the country!
… especially since one of them is my brother?! (Can you guess which one is Timothy?):
I am looking forward to Dan’s photos; I can promise you they will be much much better! The two above were taken from my iPhone, set on that backwards setting. I notice those are grainier than the normal setting. Ah well.
Thank you, Jennifer, for including me in Così fan tutte: Some Assembly Required!
Just a few from my iPhone to share today … remember you can click on them to see them larger:
It was great fun to meet Sarah Loveland-Gill. We were oboe buddies (and tacet buddies as well … there’s a good amount of down time in Così):
Dan was the photographer of the Così evening, and will be again tonight. He has sent me a few “quickies” and have given me permission to post them here for all to see … so here you go!
Michael of MMmusing (@mmmusing on twitter) was the “twhistorian”):
Jennifer (@gaspsiagore / @operamission) conducted, played harpsichord, talked, cleaned the bathrooms … oh … wait … not the last one …:
Singers Jennifer Berkebile (Dorabella) and Caroline Worra (Fiordiligi):
Singers James Bobick (Guglielmo), Brian Anderson (Ferrando) and Dennis Blackwell (Don Alfonso):
Some of the orchestra:
Yours truly (and the back of my brother’s head, along with his bassoon):
We were allowed to drink on the job … that was a first!
Monday was a much more lazy day than we’ve had so far. At least for me. I actually woke up before Dan, and I took a photo of the Monday morning crowd:
Dan woke up with a cold (rats!), but he still headed over to B&H Photo for his own special private tour of the place. From the sound of it it was one big tour, too. He took quite a while to get back, so I had some time to be lazy and then headed out for a short walk. I’ve been posting “where’s Patty?” kinds of things at Facebook and Twitter, and the first looked like this:
Where’s Patty?
I helped folks out with this hint, though (remember if you can’t see a photo well, you can click on it and it will take you to a full view):
My back was killing me, so rather than actually shop at Macy’s (heck, we have those at home, right?) I headed back to the hotel to put my feet up:
When Dan returned we went down to a little place to pick up a light lunch (we really NEED light after all we’ve been eating!). After relaxing a bit, we headed out, passing this pretty church, Saint Francis of Assisi. It sits there so sweetly, surrounded by huge buildings:
We took a rather lengthy trip (long story about a wrong train) to Greenwich Village, and we hit Washington Square, of course:
Walking around a lot, we saw the house that, from what I read, was where John Wilkes Booth planned the assassination of Lincoln.
Walking some more we spotted a cool church with this plaque at the top (you have to click on this photo to read it):
We met up with Brandon for some excellent Cuban food at Havana Alma de Cuba … yum!
All in all, a less busy day. I guess we need those every so often, right?
Tuesday (today for some readers, tomorrow for others!) I’m thinking we might get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and tomorrow night is the first Così event which not only means I get to enjoy Mozart, but I finally get to see my brother Timothy, and meet some of the Twitterfolk and Facebook Friends I’ve never actually met in person!
So Sunday was another full day here. We ate at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. We saw the Children’s Sculpture Garden, Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine (heard some incredible organ music there too), enjoyed a pretzel (too salty and we were ripped off like good tourists should be), visited B&H Photo, had a fabulous cup of coffee at La Colombe in Tribeca, shopped at UNIQLO …
And yes, it rained! It was warm — still no sweater needed — and I do like me some rain.
After doing a bit ‘o shopping in Tribeca we headed over the Brooklyn. We were going to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, but the rain told us this wasn’t the day. We took a train instead, and after a bit of a detour (oops, express train!) we went to Lia’s, and then out to The General Greene for dinner. Yummy!
So now that the story has been told … here are some pictures! (Click on a photo to enlarge.)
Breakfast at around 11:00 (so much for adjusting to the time!):
Sculpture Garden:
St. John the Divine Cathedral:
Coffee!:
Walking a Brooklyn Street:
Love me some beet salad for dinner:
Here are are a few pictures from Saturday. Anyone on Facebook or Twitter saw more, but for now these’ll have to do for the website:
In the morning we met up with Jennifer Peterson:
Then it was to the American Museum of Natural History:
Where we took a jaunt to another continent …:
… we finally did get over the the park! Really.
Today I headed over to the Willow Glen Public Library to hear some Opera San José singers. First we met the singers and pianist. In this photo I think Larry is introducing the pianist, the wonderful Veronika Agranov-Dafoe:
Here is our new soprano, Jouvanca Jean-Baptist Llorca. (I’m sorry to say I didn’t get a picture of her singing Vissi d’arte … I was afraid I might be too distracting!)
Silas Elash sang a Dr. Bartolo aria from Barber of Seville:
Tenor Michael Dailey sang an aria from Barber of Seville as well:
And to top off the Barber music, the very entertaining (and new) baritone Torlef Borsting sang Lacto factotum from Barber of Seville:
Silas came out again to sing the “adios coat” aria from Bohemè, and following that Jouvanca and Michael returned to sing the end of act 1 from La Bohemè.
I really enjoyed hearing the singers, and I was happy to finally hear the new singers. (Jouvanca and I have communicated a good amount on Facebook, so I feel as if I know her!)
Larry Hancock then spoke about each opera. Man, that guy knows his stuff.
The singers sounded great! What a joy to hear them. If I had a better income you can bet I’d be at tomorrow’s event at Cetrella!
I’m no photographer, so I do apologize for the rather amateur photos above. I was, though, pretty happy when I accidentally hit the “stitch” option for the Bohemè picture of Jouvanca and Michael. I realize it’s really for stitching together a bigger scenic sort of picture, but I like how it worked! I’m going to remember that one.
Sometimes you see reeds and you just KNOW they aren’t anything you’d want to try.
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