Word to the wise: programs are £4 apiece at ENO, and cash only.
Thus it was that all I had for Emily to sign at the end of the evening was my considerably-large ticket stub.
Thus it was, too, that I kept thinking to myself throughout the production, “Man, I wonder who that Sarastro is? It sounds a lot like Robert Lloyd,” and had to ask Emily afterward, “Who was Sarastro?”
“Robert Lloyd,” she answered.
“Oh. Well, that explains everything.”
Flute was, well, Flute. I’ve seen it probably more than any other opera, and as a piece of theatre, it just doesn’t wear terribly well for me. The dramatic impetus is silly, the reversal in terms of who the bad guys are is extraordinarily abstract, and the more people try to explain how deep it actually is the more it sounds like Wolfie and Manny just pouring a bunch of pretentious nonsense onto the page. I’ve never seen a great staging of it; because it is so ridiculous, there’s not really staging so much as there is performers moving around whatever the director’s concept is. This concept involved Tamino fighting off a bear attack with the flute.
Let me say that again: there was a bear attack, which Tamino fought off with the flute.
As Frank put it, “I was not prepared for the bear attack.”
That said, as a piece of music, it is incontrovertibly wonderful. When it’s well-sung, you don’t worry too much about the ridiculousness, and luckily, this production was well-sung. It was a reasonably young cast, save for Lloyd, and everybody brought a lot of energy and musicality to the table. Emily held her own very well and sounded like a million bucks; she has always been a perfectionist in the five years I’ve known her, so I expected no less. Her overall approach struck me as being very similar to that of Kurt Streit‘s; there’s a very similar slender, shimmery, laser-pointer-accurate approach that blossoms when she’s darn good and ready for it to blossom. Like Streit, it’s a bit early music-y in that regard, and it allows a lot of musical artistry to be displayed that might otherwise get lost in the blast of a vocal firehose.
Following the show, Megan, I, Frank, Emily, and Ayla, an old schoolfriend of hers, and her boyfriend went to a bar called The Marquis for a drink. (“I’d like a Booker’s Manhattan and some nachos.” “I’m sorry sir, but we aren’t serving cocktails or food any longer this evening.” “So what can I order?” “Beer.”) Just about the entire cast and the conductor were there, too. You know, in high school, we went to Denny’s after shows for coffee and cheesesticks. In Seattle, a place called McMenamin’s provided the post-performance libation and nourishment. It’s nice to know that, even amongst seasoned professionals at a very high professional level in a different country, the initial impulse after a performance is to go out and drink something bad for you.
Afterward, it was becoming imperative that we Feed the Megan, so there was a Parting of the Couples. Frank and Emily had an early morning trip to Scotland for an audition and also needed to eat something; we hugged goodbye, affirmed that we hoped it wouldn’t be three and a half years before we saw them again, and that was that. Thanks for making time to see us, guys — it was awesome.
We had a light dinner at a restaurant called Browns. Good pasta, good wine, decent service, not obnoxiously expensive. At the request of Megan’s father and mother-in-law, we toasted them in absentia; I managed to get the cuff of my brand new white shirt in the marinara sauce.
It was Valentine’s Day, we were together, we were in England, we had seen friends, we had seen one of those friends in an opera, and Megan had given me daisies.
Doesn’t get much better than that.
Then it was off to bed; we had to get up early to make it up to Oxford in the morning.
One nice thing about listening to 
A brand-new recording is 
As may sometimes have been clear, 2008 wasn’t exactly a hoot and a holler and a gaggle of memories I’d love to relive. Exhaustive detail on all the reasons why wouldn’t be at all appropriate, let alone interesting, in many cases; therefore, instead of a lengthy retrospective, I decided to see if I could go month-by-month and write descriptive three-word phrases. Here’s what I came up with:
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Goose, as it turns out, is on the expensive side. Being married to me has evidently done horrible things to Megan’s math, and/or her approach to thinking about food, and when she was asked how many people she was feeding when she ordered the goose, she added one plus one (her and me), and came up with the number seven. The resulting ten pound goose was, as you can see, not cheap. Ah well — if it had turned out terribly, it would have been a tragedy. As it is, we’re just fine with a few days’ worth of leftovers.
I mentioned earlier the matter of brining the goose. This involved cleaning the bird and soaking it overnight in five gallons of water with lots of salt, sugar, peppercorns, bay leaves, cardamom, and so on. The exact recipe may be found 
I think we finally rolled out of bed around 10:30am on Christmas morning. We opened presents — some festal icons for us, a couple of reference works Megan wanted, and then for me home coffee roasting supplies — and then what I was really waiting for: eggs benedict from scratch, with biscuits made from the
buttermilk that Megan’s butter-making efforts from a couple of days before had yielded.
the fat can drain out while the bird is cooking, and then you have to be immensely careful when pulling it in and out of the oven lest all of the drippings splash over the side of the roasting pan. The plus of this is that goose fat is supposed to make fantastic mashed potatoes.
We followed 
Anyway, one way or the other, the fowl was not foul in the least. My impression of how goose tastes is that it’s similar to roast beef as well as good dark meat on a turkey. We also had mashed potatoes, collard greens, and spinach, served with a very nice Lebanese red wine. Dessert was homemade pound cake.
December is here. This means any number of things. It means NaNoWriMo is over, it means the semester is almost over, it means West European Studies will hopefully get back to me soon one way or the other, it means we’re hip-deep in the Nativity Fast with the Christmas feast fast approaching, and it means we just got back from a much-needed, if shorter than ideal, vacation over the Thanksgiving break. It also means that a week from today, this blog will be a year old. Sheesh.
The Thanksgiving break spent in Nashville was fantastic, and a very welcome getaway for us Barrettses. Check out pictures 
the replica of the Parthenon, which is impressive, but I gotta say, it loses something being made from poured concrete rather than marble.
Anyway, back to the museum. There were a number of clever uses of speakers and acoustic tiles to create very localized sound exhibits, which in and of itself was interesting to see and hear. One of the things to which I found myself drawn was the archive section being visible in the center of the gallery behind glass; you can see all of their compact shelving, their sound editing stations, everything. It’s actually a useful reminder that the museum isn’t just a tourist attraction; it’s also a professional and scholarly resource. The stuff we see as the general public is really the tip of the iceberg at best.
It would have been foolish to visit Nashville without hearing any live music, and we decided to go to a club called 
also really good; tall, skinny younger guy named Andy, but I didn’t catch the last name. If anybody knows his last name, I’d love to know and find out what else he does. It was a show that was a lot of fun to see, and I plan on seeking out one of David Crow’s solo recordings. The Station Inn is also a neat little venue; it’s a dive that has Bud and hot nacho cheese sauce on tap and not much else, but it’s a dive with a long history, and best of all, it’s smoke-free!
On Saturday, we went to 
Vespers, to say nothing of Matins and Divine Liturgy on Sunday, at 
After Vespers Saturday we had dinner at a delicatessen called, appropriately enough, 
Another bit of a walk through Lower Broadway followed, as did some rain. We saw Ryman Auditorium, and we also found something neat for which we weren’t looking was a life-sized statue of Chet Atkins; Megan decided to play air guitar next to him.
We relocated to 
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 