When I was a teenager, I listened to a lot of opera music almost daily for a while -- not voluntarily, but because at the time mom fell in love with the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo, and she would play his CDs back to back (sometimes in the company of two other equally famous tenors). Not a huge fan myself, my ears were soon filled with the soaring arias and grew sick of them. After a while I almost developed an allergic reaction to operas and longed to never hear them again. But time calms the nerve, and there came a time when I could listen to operas again, and found some of them quite appealing. Nowadays I even buy tickets to see operas.
Last Friday, I saw my fifth opera, Puccini's "Tosca", and it is my favourite one so far. In terms of plot, setting, and songs, I find it more enjoyable than my previous operas: the Toronto productions of the bizarre and cheerless "The Flying Dutchman" and the tedious and dreary "Otello"; the San Francisco productions of both "The Magic Flute" and especially "The Barber of Seville" were more light-hearted and melodious, and being comedies, more fun to watch. In comparison, "Tosca"'s plot is filled with drama -- of love, jealousy, lust, rebels, murder, and betrayal. Tosca, "a good-hearted but high-maintenance diva", was played by Carol Vaness, who was supposed to be "the best interpreter" of the title role. Sitting from the top balcony, I couldn't really see her facial expression, but her body language seemed vivid enough. But my favourite song was the Act 3 aria, "E lucevan le stelle", sang by Tosca's lover, "the idealistic artist", in a sweet, though a little thin tenor voice. The production set, a lofty period piece, was not elaborate but well designed, with nice lighting effects. I especially like the scene at the end of the first act, where there was a religious procession going on in the background.
On Sunday we went to Hunters Point Shipyard in the city. "The Point" is an old navy shipyard on the bay, where some of the buildings have been converted to artists studios -- it has over 250 artists on site and is one of the largest artist communities in the country. Twice a year, during "Open Studios" artists open their studios and show their work.
We had been to another artists open studios in another old military complex in the North Bay, and was not very impressed -- the art was all very strange (probably because they were done by students, who try to be avant garde), and neither beautiful, nor very interesting. Here at "The Point", where the studios are more numerous and the artists more mature, the art works are of a good variety and much better quality (in my opinion). Matthew thinks these artists are probably more commercially minded, thus producing more mainstream art. We saw quite a few artists that we like and I was especially inspired by some of the abstract paintings -- in particular I would like to try my hands at acrylic and mixed media some day.
Here are a few of the paintings (and a photograph) from the show that I like.
昙花再现 
