A night at the opera

For those of you interested in my mom's take on the opera, she had a great time and tried to comment on it, but messed it up. So I will sum up here for the both of us.


On Friday I took my mom, 74 years old, to her FIRST opera..."Cosi Fan Tutte" by Mozart. What a fabulous production.

The staging, lighting, orchestra, and cast were all TOP NOTCH. Of particular note were soprano Karin Wolverton who played the role of "Fiordiligi" and Mezzo-sporano Janine Hawley who played "Dorabella". Wolverton had the best scored arias and Hawley had the most opportunity to ham it up for comedy.

The part of "Don Alfonso" was played by Stephen Eisenhard. During some of his parts I was reminded of a DVD of Donizetti's "L'elisir d'Amore" that I watched not long ago, and the role of "Dulcamara". I said to my mom that I thought he would make an excellent Dulcamara. Well, looking at his bio-information in the program I found that he has indeed played Dulcamara. Hopefully they will bring that here one day with him in the role.

Next season (October 2007) will bring Giuseppe Verdi's (Joe Green to you) "La Traviata", "Amahl and the Night Visitors" in December (If you've seen [Don Giovanni] "Juan" you've seen Amahl), and in March of 2008 will be Strauss's "Die Fledermaus" !! Yippee!

General update

Howdy,

I haven't updated in a while because I've been rather down. My ex played a nasty trick and I ended up in court 2 weeks ago fighting to retain the secondary custody of my son. I was successful, but I just know that she will never stop.

My mom and sister Cheryl came to stay with me through the court proceeding. Cheryl needed to go home shortly after and my mom has stayed for awhile. She is currently painting my kitchen cabinets and I will post some before and after pictures when they are done. There was a trash compactor that I removed and will fill in that space with a cabinet. This is phase 2 of a kitchen remodel. Phase 1 was painting a while back. Phase 3 will be redoing the floor and phase 4 will be replacing the countertop.

I haven't done any work on the boat bookcase since before the court stuff, but will resume once my mom goes back to Atlanta.

Tomorrow night we're going to the opera, "Cosi Fan Tutte" by Mozart. My mom, in her 70s, has never been to an opera. We're looking forward to it.

Guess that's all for now. If you like reading my posts, thanks for checking in, and I will be back up to speed soon.