Best-laid plans
I heard that a new neo-opera group were doing some free show here last night (opening for someone else, who I didn’t bother to look up), and, in a stunning departure from my hermit-like ways, I decided to go. The description sounded cool, anyhow, and free, so the worst I could lose was a bit of my time.
So a friend and I are sitting front and centre (last table available, before all the tables disappeared), watching them set up — one of them played a really cool accordion, all glittery, and another played some traditional Chinese instrument which I recall having seen before, in Chinatown in Honolulu, but forget the name of. (The third played guitar.) Other people hand out lyric sheets, which my friend reads.
Then suddenly two people in jeans and holding beer get on the stage. I’m a little startled — this other group is dressed up like they’re in some film noir, and anyways, they’re supposed to be the opening act. But no: the two people in jeans suddenly start singing Verdi. Ah! The other group is two people singing opera. Until the people at the table next to me join in, too.
Liederwolfe are a collective of professional musicians (I think many of them are graduate students at McGill) who bring opera to more public spaces, aka bars. The show was phenomenal, too: I like opera, inasmuch as I am happy to listen to it at any time, but I don’t know very much about it, and don’t really have the chance to hear it performed often — and live performances are, of course, much better than taped. (The other group performed a few songs during the show.) And this will give me a place to start to find opera I like (along with the Coco de Mer album I have and need to listen to again really soon).
I should also start trying to pay more attention to all the things I can do here when I de-hermit.
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:20 am
For some reason, when you say “neo-opera”, Lordi comes to mind. Non sequitur? Just me? Hmmm.