Götterdämmerung and HILARIOUS Costumes (oh, and the German midterm)
Total price for Götterdämmerung: €8.40
Rotsturm at the Heuriger: €3
Seeing Duné (sp?) in drag: Priceless
First things first: German midterm. Ridiculously easy. I mean, it was so easy partially because I've been speaking a lot more German lately, and I've come to that point where a lot of things that aren't grammatically correct don't 'sound right'. (I think Hofstadter mentions something in GEB....something about AI chess programs and "chunking"....but I digress) So, a lot of the adjective ending stuff and certainly the vocab came much easier. Mike and I were the first ones done, having finished in about 40 minutes, and after finishing the test I headed straight for the library. I knew that everyone at IES had their German midterm at 10:00 that morning, and I also knew that I was the first one done with probably one of the easier midterms, so I went straight for the library, banking on the fact that whoever was working would not be done with their midterm, and I could staff the library until they got there. As I suspected, no-one showed up until about 11:30, when Reb came down from her midterm. I clocked in an hour, patting myself on the back for just earning €5, and headed home.
I met Mike at his place for a quick lunch of pasta before camping out for standing room tickets for Götterdämmerung. We sat next to these nice Americans: Emmy and Natasha, who were studying here for...something, I didn't catch what. Emmy is a percussionist from Seattle who loves the opera (perhaps she'll become a director someday! she should, with all the good ideas that she has), and we had some great conversations with her. As for the opera....good! I mean, everyone who could have died died. It was incredible. I mean, I expected Siegfried and Brünnhilde to die, but I mean EVERYONE died.....the brother and sister, Alberich's son (I suppose Alberich was already dead) all the Gods, everyone. Incredible. The music was good, too....I probably enjoyed the music the most in this one out of all the four. The orchestra pulled it together, unlike in Die Walküre, when they were just sort of terrible. And Brünnhilde! Amazing! Incredible! Siegfried was OK....he's VERY short, and came off a bit to spunky and precocious, not big and strong and heroic. The impresario (or whatever) came out after the second intermission and said something about something about Siegfried in the third act and we appreciate your understanding......I thought maybe they had replaced him, but he sang in the third act! Of course, once he died, they replaced him with this RIDICULOUS body double who was maybe a head taller than him, much skinnier, and had this ridiculous beard which the other Siegfried most certainly did not have....he also had the worst corpse make-up on I've ever seen....but other than that, the production was very good. Certainly the best of the four.
After the opera Mike and I went back to his place and he changed into his costume for the costume party down at Hietzing. (I did not wear a costume, as I could not think up anything good) For more specific costume details, check out the pictures on Smugmug. The party was really fun, lots of cool people there in cool costumes. Since there was a bit of a SNAFU with the cover charge (i.e. people came and drank and didn't pay, so the Hietzing residents had to foot the extra €40 themselves....), Mike and I got our own drinks from the bar. I had a glass of Rotsturm which was very, very good, and unfortunately might be the last Sturm I'll have, as it's on it's way out of season. Soon we'll get the Eis- and Glühwein, though, and I'm excited about that! Anyway, we stayed there as the party wended it's way to a close, at which time we took the night bus back to our respective domiciles. (we had to wait out in the cold a long time, after running when we saw the bus at the stop only to have it drive off as I had my finger on the button to open the door....what a pisser!)
Rotsturm at the Heuriger: €3
Seeing Duné (sp?) in drag: Priceless
First things first: German midterm. Ridiculously easy. I mean, it was so easy partially because I've been speaking a lot more German lately, and I've come to that point where a lot of things that aren't grammatically correct don't 'sound right'. (I think Hofstadter mentions something in GEB....something about AI chess programs and "chunking"....but I digress) So, a lot of the adjective ending stuff and certainly the vocab came much easier. Mike and I were the first ones done, having finished in about 40 minutes, and after finishing the test I headed straight for the library. I knew that everyone at IES had their German midterm at 10:00 that morning, and I also knew that I was the first one done with probably one of the easier midterms, so I went straight for the library, banking on the fact that whoever was working would not be done with their midterm, and I could staff the library until they got there. As I suspected, no-one showed up until about 11:30, when Reb came down from her midterm. I clocked in an hour, patting myself on the back for just earning €5, and headed home.
I met Mike at his place for a quick lunch of pasta before camping out for standing room tickets for Götterdämmerung. We sat next to these nice Americans: Emmy and Natasha, who were studying here for...something, I didn't catch what. Emmy is a percussionist from Seattle who loves the opera (perhaps she'll become a director someday! she should, with all the good ideas that she has), and we had some great conversations with her. As for the opera....good! I mean, everyone who could have died died. It was incredible. I mean, I expected Siegfried and Brünnhilde to die, but I mean EVERYONE died.....the brother and sister, Alberich's son (I suppose Alberich was already dead) all the Gods, everyone. Incredible. The music was good, too....I probably enjoyed the music the most in this one out of all the four. The orchestra pulled it together, unlike in Die Walküre, when they were just sort of terrible. And Brünnhilde! Amazing! Incredible! Siegfried was OK....he's VERY short, and came off a bit to spunky and precocious, not big and strong and heroic. The impresario (or whatever) came out after the second intermission and said something about something about Siegfried in the third act and we appreciate your understanding......I thought maybe they had replaced him, but he sang in the third act! Of course, once he died, they replaced him with this RIDICULOUS body double who was maybe a head taller than him, much skinnier, and had this ridiculous beard which the other Siegfried most certainly did not have....he also had the worst corpse make-up on I've ever seen....but other than that, the production was very good. Certainly the best of the four.
After the opera Mike and I went back to his place and he changed into his costume for the costume party down at Hietzing. (I did not wear a costume, as I could not think up anything good) For more specific costume details, check out the pictures on Smugmug. The party was really fun, lots of cool people there in cool costumes. Since there was a bit of a SNAFU with the cover charge (i.e. people came and drank and didn't pay, so the Hietzing residents had to foot the extra €40 themselves....), Mike and I got our own drinks from the bar. I had a glass of Rotsturm which was very, very good, and unfortunately might be the last Sturm I'll have, as it's on it's way out of season. Soon we'll get the Eis- and Glühwein, though, and I'm excited about that! Anyway, we stayed there as the party wended it's way to a close, at which time we took the night bus back to our respective domiciles. (we had to wait out in the cold a long time, after running when we saw the bus at the stop only to have it drive off as I had my finger on the button to open the door....what a pisser!)
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