Barbier von Sevilla

The Barber of Seville is an opera that I have never seen all the way through, but not for lack of trying: I have always fallen asleep. Generally, I value character development over plot, and honestly, the Barber of Seville doesn't have much of either, so despite the music being pleasant, it's little more than an entertaining lullaby. Last night I saw it at the Opera Graz, with a lovely friend.

It was a mess of costumes, but the set-element was very cool - namely the enormous rotating stage was a giant wig, and it used the idea of salvadore dali's portrait of mae west.

compare this:

with this:

At least the couch is the same. It came with a chorus dressed as head-lice, that hammer on the wig when everyone says that their confusion makes their "heads pound", and a hair-dryer wielding army. This led to the layer of "the story is all in their heads" except, they added cocaine and homophobia and distracted texting and a bunch of other strange concepts that had no place in the simple story, and did not really add an actual useful original idea.

Anyways, I got there on my bike, hitched my floor-length skirt up and biked, got special priced tickets from a friend, where we sat in the 10th row in typically very expensive seats. I didn't lock my bike, because I haven't been locking it. It's a very broken bike. I got into a bicycle accident, where my gear-cable snapped, and we never fixed it. And the breaks weren't very good either. Plus Henry likes to take my lock off my bike, so it's never on there.

After the opera, we walked my bike to the place we were going to have a post-opera discussion and glass of wine, and my friend asked me if I was going to lock my bike, and what to do if it were ever stolen. I explained it wouldn't be stolen. How many nice people have not stolen it. Hundreds of people have had the opportunity and haven't taken it. It's not good enough to be stolen or sold.

Well, when we left the restaurant and went along to bike home, hers was there. Mine was ....... not. "you're kidding" she said.

.....

It made me notice one thing. It takes only one mean person to color the world. Suddenly, all those people you pass who have never done anything bad turn into pigs. "How can people be so mean" goes through your head whether you want it to or not. 

But in the end, it's the only thing that has ever been outright stolen from me, and I kind of programmed it by accident. People are still terrific, and life is still pretty much picture perfect. :)