a falling star is a rock from outer space
Apr. 1st, 2018 06:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanamaUnless it's a space station, anyway.
The ride in was uneventful. One woman said I should have asked her to smile. There was a conversation about how Japan has signs in Japanese and English while French has signs in French and only French and not English and definitely not Breton and Occitan.
I sat behind the violinist and her friends, one of whom says that a mixture of lemonade and prickly pear tea tastes like what being quenched feels like and was talking about ulcers and was hoping they already finished eating. I didn't finish eating but I've been to the wildlife center.
I think her name was Molly or Anna. Or possibly Ana-Sofia or Brooks. I don't think it's Ka Chun or Peng or HyeonSeon or Zhongxue.
Elsewhere was a performance of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.
Debussy had a bunch of long-haired angora cats (Ravel preferred Siamese) and apparently gave them the same name, although I can't find what said name is, and if it's lost to the mists of time or merely impossible to Google.
I keep calling it Pelléas et Mélisandre. It's not. It's just Mélisande. They're pronounced the same way, I assume. I'd ask Ashley, if she weren't being a French-fried kumquat and I'd ask Emma but I can't read IPA.
The Symbolists wanted to combine the arts and explore the mystical, the fantastic, and the oneiric.
There are no arias, choruses, and recitatives. There is no rhyme and no meter. It constantly ebbs and flows and the only breaks in the singing are during scene changes. Meterlinck challenged Debussy to a duel, but eventually came to like it.
There are a few scenes that were removed by Debussy, mostly involving the servants who now exist to move things around, do a dance at the beginning, and appear in one scene towards the end. I had to write the summaries of the removed acts from a translation on Project Gutenberg. It probably differs from Maeterlinck's play in other ways but I can't be fucked to read the entire thing right now. Wikipedia has no summary but does point out that all but one named character has an l in their name. Arkël is written with a diaeresis in the play but not in the opera. From what little I understand of French orthography, the diaresis is there to indicate syllable breaks. In lé Français, neither "physician" nor "shepherd" have an l.
Act I, scene 1: the castle gates are opened.
Act I, scene 2: Prince Golaud is out hunting in the forest and finds Melisande weeping beside a pool. Melisande has no idea where she comes from or what she's doing in the woods. There is a crown glistening at the bottom of the pool and all Melisande knows is it was given by the man who caused her to flee. Golaud begs Melisande to come to the castle before night falls.
Act I, scene 3: Geneviève, mother of Pelléas and Golaud reads a letter from Golaud to King Arkël, the half-blind king of Allemonde, grandfather of Pelléas and Golaud, recounting his discovery of Melisande and his marriage to her, but still knows nothing about who she is or where she came from. Golaud asks Pelléas to light a lamp in the tower if Arkël approves, and if Golaud does not see the lamp, he will sail on.
Act I, scene 4: Geneviève shows Mélisande the dark and ominous castle grounds and places that sunlight has not touched in centuries, but also also the light reflecting on the sea and a distant ship represented by lights behind the backdrop. From a distance come a chorus of sailors.
Act II, scene 1: Pelléas shwos Mélisande a fountain where he escapes the heat of high noon and tells tales of its powers to cure the blind, although now that Arkël is blinded, the fountain has lost its power. Mélisande plays with her wedding ring, drops it in the fountain. Pélleas tells her to tell the truth.
Act II, scene 2: at the exact moment Melisande drops the ring, Golaud falls off his horse. Mélisande attends to him and Golaud notices she is unhappy and she can't explain why. Golaud notices the ring is missing and gets very angry and controlling. Melisande explains that she lost the ring on the seashore and Golaud tells her to get it before the tide comes in and washes it away.
Act II, scene 3: glittering flakes fall down on three beggars, sleeping in the cave. Throughout the land, there is famine. Melisande is frightened and wants to leave and Pelléas doesn't want to disturb them.
Act II, scene 4: Arkël tells Pélleas that he kept his father's condition a secret and that he wants him to stay at the castle for a few weeks longer.
Act III, scene 1: Yniold wanders off from Pelléas and Mélisande and then returns, claiming to have seen something. Pélleas dismisses it as a trick of the moonlight or a waking dream.
Act III, scene 2: On a warm night, Mélisande lets her hair down and sings a song from her childhood. Her hair becomes entangled in the branches and in Pélleas. Golaud shows up and dismisses it as child's play.
Act III, scene 3: Golaud takes Pélleas down into the catacombs and encourages him to take a deep breath of putrid water vapors. Golaud carries a glowstone and not a torch or lantern.
Act III, scene 4: Pélleas emerges from the catacombs and marvels at how fresh the flowers and the sea smell. Golaud tells Pelléas he heard everything last night and warns her to stay away from Mélisande, as she is now pregnant.
Act III, scene 5: Golaud sits with his son from a previous marriage, Yniold, and asks him what Pelléas and Mélisande do when they're together. They talk about things, like the door being open, and they told Yniold that he will one day be as tall as his father. He admits that once he saw them kiss in the rain. He asks Ysiold to spy on them through the window but Yniold becomes frightened and threatens to scream if he does not let him down. Golaud looks through the window himself and does not like what he sees, but we the audience do not find out. Fade to black.
Act IV, scene 1: Pélleas' father is getting better and so Pélleas will continue with his travels. He arranges a last meeting with Mélisande at the well and she agrees.
Act IV, scene 2: Arkël is revived as well. Golaud enters with blood on his brow and becomes very belligerent with Mélisande and drags her by her hair. He asks Melisande to bring him his sword because "he wants to look at it." Sure. Gee, I wonder what could have happened during the previous marriage. Arkël sees naught but great innocence in Mélisande's eyes.
Act IV, scene 3: In the first performance, they had to cut this scene out because the boy they had play Yniold wasn't capable of singing his part. In later performances, Yniold is played by a woman in boy's clothing. Yniold's ball is trapped between a boulder and some smaller rocks.
Act IV, scene 4: Pelléas arrives at the fountain and reminesce about their first time together. They hear Golaud amongst the trees, and they declare their love for each other. Golaud stabs Pelléas to death. Mélisande flees into the woods.
Act V, scene 1: the servants discuss goings-on and the silence in the castle.
Act V, scene 2: Melisande gives birth, becomes delirious, and Golaud continues to press her about her affair with Pélleas. Mélisande dies. Golaud still knows as much about her as he knows the bottom of the sea and the mountains of the moon. Arkël vows to raise the baby.
The subtitles stopped working towards the end of act iv and started working again in act v.
The stage was dark, the costumes were in the hues of moonstones and nacre and silver, jade and malachite and lapis lazuli, with touches of rhodochrosite and gold. Melisande had a tan dress with a tree branch motif and had a long braid the color of fresh blood, and when she let her hair down, it was done with streamers and the background gloom turned ruby and rhodochrosite. Yniold had a beaded cap and a gold vest and held a crescent-shaped toy ship. Arkël's robe and crown had a bird wing motif in nacreous white against a slate grey. Pelléas and Golaud both had paisley pantaloons. Golaud wore a deep blue vest or a tunic with a jade belt and pants of a jade green, and he wore a thin golden circlet with a hanging bead. You can tell Golaud is evil because he has a beard and it's not a long wizard beard like Arkël's. Pelléas' shirt had silver embroidery and a jeweled collar. Geneviève had hair of lapis blue and her robe glimmered with electric blue.
The Paris Conservatoire would expel students for attending performances or having copies of the score.
On the ride home, I met people who were at AnimeBoston, one dressed as a Spetnatz with a Soviet Union flag patch and an anime character flag patch and one with very curly mesopelagic blue and green hair and a lot of pins including the THEY pronoun and a few pride flags, along with a guy in a cowboy hat who claimed to have lost his horse and sung James Brown's I Feel Good DA NA NA NANANA and the theme music to Bonanza, which Wikipedia tells me was written for the show. When we got past Quincy Adams, he's like "Shit! I'm on the wrong train!" and someone told him that if he finds his horse, he'll have a ride.
See, Hungarian is great because it has gender-neutral pronouns and only gender-neutral pronouns but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure it lacks a possessive pronoun entirely; it's all in the suffixes. So sometimes in English, it's more elegant to work around pronouns entirely.
I noticed the Jiji and No-Face pins and Blue-Hair texted a friend about stealing the No Face jack-o-lantern idea. Blue-hair can't spell for shit.
Blue-Hair says that we should celebrate Easter in August if it's about warmth. Maybe we should have just embraced Beltane instead of trying to have both Beltane and the Vernal Equinox.
Guy searching the stuff ignored Blue-Hair's huge backpack and picks up usaa-chan (USA-chan would be Hashmal) and squeezes it. Blue-Hair was wondering just how someone could feel threatened. If you threw it really really really hard, you might bewilder someone. If you had some old Protoss technology, you could increase the gravity somewhere and drop usaa-chan on someone.
There was a guy dressed as a Spetsnaz with a USSR flag and an anime character patch. He called his credit card company and said that any weird purchases made on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are totally acceptable. He says he can't even draw a circle.
burning question: What kinda French-fried kumquat writes to an American TV show in stinkin' French?! Do I look like Pierre Escargot?! D'you see me in a stinkin' bathtub?!
The ride in was uneventful. One woman said I should have asked her to smile. There was a conversation about how Japan has signs in Japanese and English while French has signs in French and only French and not English and definitely not Breton and Occitan.
I sat behind the violinist and her friends, one of whom says that a mixture of lemonade and prickly pear tea tastes like what being quenched feels like and was talking about ulcers and was hoping they already finished eating. I didn't finish eating but I've been to the wildlife center.
I think her name was Molly or Anna. Or possibly Ana-Sofia or Brooks. I don't think it's Ka Chun or Peng or HyeonSeon or Zhongxue.
Elsewhere was a performance of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.
Debussy had a bunch of long-haired angora cats (Ravel preferred Siamese) and apparently gave them the same name, although I can't find what said name is, and if it's lost to the mists of time or merely impossible to Google.
I keep calling it Pelléas et Mélisandre. It's not. It's just Mélisande. They're pronounced the same way, I assume. I'd ask Ashley, if she weren't being a French-fried kumquat and I'd ask Emma but I can't read IPA.
The Symbolists wanted to combine the arts and explore the mystical, the fantastic, and the oneiric.
There are no arias, choruses, and recitatives. There is no rhyme and no meter. It constantly ebbs and flows and the only breaks in the singing are during scene changes. Meterlinck challenged Debussy to a duel, but eventually came to like it.
There are a few scenes that were removed by Debussy, mostly involving the servants who now exist to move things around, do a dance at the beginning, and appear in one scene towards the end. I had to write the summaries of the removed acts from a translation on Project Gutenberg. It probably differs from Maeterlinck's play in other ways but I can't be fucked to read the entire thing right now. Wikipedia has no summary but does point out that all but one named character has an l in their name. Arkël is written with a diaeresis in the play but not in the opera. From what little I understand of French orthography, the diaresis is there to indicate syllable breaks. In lé Français, neither "physician" nor "shepherd" have an l.
Act I, scene 2: Prince Golaud is out hunting in the forest and finds Melisande weeping beside a pool. Melisande has no idea where she comes from or what she's doing in the woods. There is a crown glistening at the bottom of the pool and all Melisande knows is it was given by the man who caused her to flee. Golaud begs Melisande to come to the castle before night falls.
Act I, scene 3: Geneviève, mother of Pelléas and Golaud reads a letter from Golaud to King Arkël, the half-blind king of Allemonde, grandfather of Pelléas and Golaud, recounting his discovery of Melisande and his marriage to her, but still knows nothing about who she is or where she came from. Golaud asks Pelléas to light a lamp in the tower if Arkël approves, and if Golaud does not see the lamp, he will sail on.
Act I, scene 4: Geneviève shows Mélisande the dark and ominous castle grounds and places that sunlight has not touched in centuries, but also also the light reflecting on the sea and a distant ship represented by lights behind the backdrop. From a distance come a chorus of sailors.
Act II, scene 1: Pelléas shwos Mélisande a fountain where he escapes the heat of high noon and tells tales of its powers to cure the blind, although now that Arkël is blinded, the fountain has lost its power. Mélisande plays with her wedding ring, drops it in the fountain. Pélleas tells her to tell the truth.
Act II, scene 2: at the exact moment Melisande drops the ring, Golaud falls off his horse. Mélisande attends to him and Golaud notices she is unhappy and she can't explain why. Golaud notices the ring is missing and gets very angry and controlling. Melisande explains that she lost the ring on the seashore and Golaud tells her to get it before the tide comes in and washes it away.
Act II, scene 3: glittering flakes fall down on three beggars, sleeping in the cave. Throughout the land, there is famine. Melisande is frightened and wants to leave and Pelléas doesn't want to disturb them.
Act III, scene 2: On a warm night, Mélisande lets her hair down and sings a song from her childhood. Her hair becomes entangled in the branches and in Pélleas. Golaud shows up and dismisses it as child's play.
Act III, scene 3: Golaud takes Pélleas down into the catacombs and encourages him to take a deep breath of putrid water vapors. Golaud carries a glowstone and not a torch or lantern.
Act III, scene 4: Pélleas emerges from the catacombs and marvels at how fresh the flowers and the sea smell. Golaud tells Pelléas he heard everything last night and warns her to stay away from Mélisande, as she is now pregnant.
Act III, scene 5: Golaud sits with his son from a previous marriage, Yniold, and asks him what Pelléas and Mélisande do when they're together. They talk about things, like the door being open, and they told Yniold that he will one day be as tall as his father. He admits that once he saw them kiss in the rain. He asks Ysiold to spy on them through the window but Yniold becomes frightened and threatens to scream if he does not let him down. Golaud looks through the window himself and does not like what he sees, but we the audience do not find out. Fade to black.
Act IV, scene 1: Pélleas' father is getting better and so Pélleas will continue with his travels. He arranges a last meeting with Mélisande at the well and she agrees.
Act IV, scene 2: Arkël is revived as well. Golaud enters with blood on his brow and becomes very belligerent with Mélisande and drags her by her hair. He asks Melisande to bring him his sword because "he wants to look at it." Sure. Gee, I wonder what could have happened during the previous marriage. Arkël sees naught but great innocence in Mélisande's eyes.
Act IV, scene 3: In the first performance, they had to cut this scene out because the boy they had play Yniold wasn't capable of singing his part. In later performances, Yniold is played by a woman in boy's clothing. Yniold's ball is trapped between a boulder and some smaller rocks.
Act IV, scene 4: Pelléas arrives at the fountain and reminesce about their first time together. They hear Golaud amongst the trees, and they declare their love for each other. Golaud stabs Pelléas to death. Mélisande flees into the woods.
Act V, scene 2: Melisande gives birth, becomes delirious, and Golaud continues to press her about her affair with Pélleas. Mélisande dies. Golaud still knows as much about her as he knows the bottom of the sea and the mountains of the moon. Arkël vows to raise the baby.
The subtitles stopped working towards the end of act iv and started working again in act v.
The stage was dark, the costumes were in the hues of moonstones and nacre and silver, jade and malachite and lapis lazuli, with touches of rhodochrosite and gold. Melisande had a tan dress with a tree branch motif and had a long braid the color of fresh blood, and when she let her hair down, it was done with streamers and the background gloom turned ruby and rhodochrosite. Yniold had a beaded cap and a gold vest and held a crescent-shaped toy ship. Arkël's robe and crown had a bird wing motif in nacreous white against a slate grey. Pelléas and Golaud both had paisley pantaloons. Golaud wore a deep blue vest or a tunic with a jade belt and pants of a jade green, and he wore a thin golden circlet with a hanging bead. You can tell Golaud is evil because he has a beard and it's not a long wizard beard like Arkël's. Pelléas' shirt had silver embroidery and a jeweled collar. Geneviève had hair of lapis blue and her robe glimmered with electric blue.
The Paris Conservatoire would expel students for attending performances or having copies of the score.
On the ride home, I met people who were at AnimeBoston, one dressed as a Spetnatz with a Soviet Union flag patch and an anime character flag patch and one with very curly mesopelagic blue and green hair and a lot of pins including the THEY pronoun and a few pride flags, along with a guy in a cowboy hat who claimed to have lost his horse and sung James Brown's I Feel Good DA NA NA NANANA and the theme music to Bonanza, which Wikipedia tells me was written for the show. When we got past Quincy Adams, he's like "Shit! I'm on the wrong train!" and someone told him that if he finds his horse, he'll have a ride.
See, Hungarian is great because it has gender-neutral pronouns and only gender-neutral pronouns but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure it lacks a possessive pronoun entirely; it's all in the suffixes. So sometimes in English, it's more elegant to work around pronouns entirely.
I noticed the Jiji and No-Face pins and Blue-Hair texted a friend about stealing the No Face jack-o-lantern idea. Blue-hair can't spell for shit.
Blue-Hair says that we should celebrate Easter in August if it's about warmth. Maybe we should have just embraced Beltane instead of trying to have both Beltane and the Vernal Equinox.
Guy searching the stuff ignored Blue-Hair's huge backpack and picks up usaa-chan (USA-chan would be Hashmal) and squeezes it. Blue-Hair was wondering just how someone could feel threatened. If you threw it really really really hard, you might bewilder someone. If you had some old Protoss technology, you could increase the gravity somewhere and drop usaa-chan on someone.
There was a guy dressed as a Spetsnaz with a USSR flag and an anime character patch. He called his credit card company and said that any weird purchases made on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are totally acceptable. He says he can't even draw a circle.
burning question: What kinda French-fried kumquat writes to an American TV show in stinkin' French?! Do I look like Pierre Escargot?! D'you see me in a stinkin' bathtub?!
