heirs of an empire long passed away
Mar. 10th, 2019 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yamamanama9 days until the vernal equinox
For most of the ride in, I was too distracted by thoughts of "I wish I wish I wish I hadn't had that cup of tea earlier." There was a woman with blue hair but she was taking the C train, not the E train.
I saw Faith, who is of ambiguous descent but looks somewhat Asian, I’d have guessed Indochinese but I thought someone mentioned Bali, at Amelia's, where I got a spicy chicken burrito.
Basically, the plot of L'incoronazione di Poppea is "Love tries to prove his superiority over Virtue and Fortune and makes a mess out of everyone's lives." The long story is: Otto comes back to Rome and learns that his ex-wife Poppea is with the emperor Nero instead. Nero's guards complain about Nero not caring about uprisings in Armenia and Pannonia. Arnalta tells Poppea that these things are fleeting and oh yeah, he's already married to Octavia. Octavia asks the teacher Seneca to see if he can get Nero to come to his senses. He has a vision of Pallas Athena of his imminent death. Nero's like "Yeah, I'm gonna dump Octavia and marry Poppea" and Seneca asks him to reconsider, and Nero orders his death. Otto's love for Poppea goes unrequited and his friend Drusilla consoles him. Liberto, a guard, tells Seneca to kill himself under Nero's orders, and he says farewell to his colleagues, kills himself in the bath, believing the warm water will speed up his blood flow.
A valet and a servant named Damigella sing aobut falling in love. Nero invites Lucan to revel with him. Meanwhile, Octavia tells Otto to kill Poppea and he does it under penalty of death for refusing. Drusilla lets him borrow her clothes for the murder. Love stays his knife and he runs away, and Poppea thinks her would-be assassin is Drusilla. Drusilla confesses but then Otto does, and Nero sends him into exile and Drusilla goes with him. He sends Octavia into exile as well. Poppea is Empress.
It’s not the oldest opera ever but it’s the oldest opera I’ve seen performed. Here, the music was done on a solo piano.
Fortune wore a gold dress and gloves and a lot of jewelry, while Virtue looked like a cross between a schoolmarm and a nun. Love wore a red t-shirt and jeans and carried a bow. For good reasons, she wasn't blindfolded.
Nero did have an affair with Poppaea and she did become Empress, and Poppaea was future Emperor Otho's old flame (after becoming Emperor, he killed himself after losing pretty badly against Vitellius and not wanting to plunge Rome into a civil war. Drusilla never existed. Seneca killed himself but I read that it was due to being under a lot of scrutiny by the Praetorian Guard and being accused of wanting to overthrow Nero. Nero sent Octavia into exile because she was well-liked, but later he had her killed.
Historians of the time blame Poppea for Nero's misrule but it seems to me like that was bias and what really happened is Nero wanted to take the reins despite being woefully unfit for it.
Nero was a lot more cultured than Donald Trump, otherwise, yeah, the main difference is that Donald made it his mission to surround himself with people less competent than he was.
Nero is played by a woman here but by a castrato in the original performance. Amore was also played by a castrato. Alnarta was played by a man in a wig here. Apparently in the original performance, Fortuna and Poppea are played by the same person and Virtu, Ottavia, and Drucilla are played by the same person.
You could probably get a three parter with Händel’s Agrippina and Vivaldi’s Ottone in villa. Or Nerone fatto Cesare, but good luck finding that one.
I didn't tell Gabriella about it but she was there. The only reason I didn't tell her is because I was like "oh, shit, it's this weekend" on Wednesday or so.
The displays that tell you when the next train was coming were all out of joint and I'm going to blame some work at Harvard. They didn't even bother at Park Street, they just told us that trains come every 10 minutes at this time. At Symphony, it said that the train was 13 stops away, and that's not possible unless a paradox effect brought back the E branch to Forest Hills, and with self-driving cars, I think not only is that never coming back, although I heard they might extend the E line in another direction, but it's probably the end to a lot of major public transit improvements.
I read that self-driving cars have problems with dark skin and some people are treating this as a feature, not a bug.
burning question: A bitcoin music festival? Is it all terrible bands that put out stuff on The What.CD complations?
For most of the ride in, I was too distracted by thoughts of "I wish I wish I wish I hadn't had that cup of tea earlier." There was a woman with blue hair but she was taking the C train, not the E train.
I saw Faith, who is of ambiguous descent but looks somewhat Asian, I’d have guessed Indochinese but I thought someone mentioned Bali, at Amelia's, where I got a spicy chicken burrito.
Basically, the plot of L'incoronazione di Poppea is "Love tries to prove his superiority over Virtue and Fortune and makes a mess out of everyone's lives." The long story is: Otto comes back to Rome and learns that his ex-wife Poppea is with the emperor Nero instead. Nero's guards complain about Nero not caring about uprisings in Armenia and Pannonia. Arnalta tells Poppea that these things are fleeting and oh yeah, he's already married to Octavia. Octavia asks the teacher Seneca to see if he can get Nero to come to his senses. He has a vision of Pallas Athena of his imminent death. Nero's like "Yeah, I'm gonna dump Octavia and marry Poppea" and Seneca asks him to reconsider, and Nero orders his death. Otto's love for Poppea goes unrequited and his friend Drusilla consoles him. Liberto, a guard, tells Seneca to kill himself under Nero's orders, and he says farewell to his colleagues, kills himself in the bath, believing the warm water will speed up his blood flow.
A valet and a servant named Damigella sing aobut falling in love. Nero invites Lucan to revel with him. Meanwhile, Octavia tells Otto to kill Poppea and he does it under penalty of death for refusing. Drusilla lets him borrow her clothes for the murder. Love stays his knife and he runs away, and Poppea thinks her would-be assassin is Drusilla. Drusilla confesses but then Otto does, and Nero sends him into exile and Drusilla goes with him. He sends Octavia into exile as well. Poppea is Empress.
It’s not the oldest opera ever but it’s the oldest opera I’ve seen performed. Here, the music was done on a solo piano.
Fortune wore a gold dress and gloves and a lot of jewelry, while Virtue looked like a cross between a schoolmarm and a nun. Love wore a red t-shirt and jeans and carried a bow. For good reasons, she wasn't blindfolded.
Nero did have an affair with Poppaea and she did become Empress, and Poppaea was future Emperor Otho's old flame (after becoming Emperor, he killed himself after losing pretty badly against Vitellius and not wanting to plunge Rome into a civil war. Drusilla never existed. Seneca killed himself but I read that it was due to being under a lot of scrutiny by the Praetorian Guard and being accused of wanting to overthrow Nero. Nero sent Octavia into exile because she was well-liked, but later he had her killed.
Historians of the time blame Poppea for Nero's misrule but it seems to me like that was bias and what really happened is Nero wanted to take the reins despite being woefully unfit for it.
Nero was a lot more cultured than Donald Trump, otherwise, yeah, the main difference is that Donald made it his mission to surround himself with people less competent than he was.
Nero is played by a woman here but by a castrato in the original performance. Amore was also played by a castrato. Alnarta was played by a man in a wig here. Apparently in the original performance, Fortuna and Poppea are played by the same person and Virtu, Ottavia, and Drucilla are played by the same person.
You could probably get a three parter with Händel’s Agrippina and Vivaldi’s Ottone in villa. Or Nerone fatto Cesare, but good luck finding that one.
I didn't tell Gabriella about it but she was there. The only reason I didn't tell her is because I was like "oh, shit, it's this weekend" on Wednesday or so.
The displays that tell you when the next train was coming were all out of joint and I'm going to blame some work at Harvard. They didn't even bother at Park Street, they just told us that trains come every 10 minutes at this time. At Symphony, it said that the train was 13 stops away, and that's not possible unless a paradox effect brought back the E branch to Forest Hills, and with self-driving cars, I think not only is that never coming back, although I heard they might extend the E line in another direction, but it's probably the end to a lot of major public transit improvements.
I read that self-driving cars have problems with dark skin and some people are treating this as a feature, not a bug.
burning question: A bitcoin music festival? Is it all terrible bands that put out stuff on The What.CD complations?
