errata
So last night the Nashville Symphony served up another steaming slice of Shostakovich. (Hoo-boy did I pick the right year to subscribe or what?)
It was quite tasty, and soloist Leila Josefowicz was outstanding (and as I discovered in the pre-show discussion, she was also quite charming in a nerd-ish way that I find irresistible — I was crushing hard : )
But I was also pleasantly surprised by the Prokofiev on the program — selections from his ballet based on “Romeo & Juliet”. I haven’t heard much of his work outside of ‘Peter & The Wolf’ (my favorite version of which being the one done by Weird Al), but this was fantastic. Rapturous and dramatic — just the way I like it. I recognized some pieces of it but I’m not certain from where. I’m thinking at least that the opening stabs of the “Montagues & Capulets” section may be the same stabs that were sampled by Greater Than One for their song Metal — an old old favorite I haven’t heard in forever. I’ll need to listen to it later to be certain.
In other events, I’ll be spending the better part of the weekend in an intensive yoga workshop with my teacher’s teacher, Manouso Manos. Then, in between sessions on Saturday, I have to dash out to the dojo for a green belt pre-test. And sometime in all this I want to find time to see Pan’s Labyrinth as well as a couple more of the Janus films at the Belcourt. Looks like it’s going to be a busy one, I’m sure I’ll be exhausted by Sunday evening — flexible as a rubber band, but exhausted : )
[...] Then Saturday night it was the Nashville Opera performing Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet. I didn’t go in with the highest of expectations, I figured — OK, well, it’s Romeo & Juliet, it’s bound to be thin & sugary and utterly unsubstantial — but no, it was fantastic. The music was mesmerizing and breathed life into the overexposed story. Of course I’ve now taken in two musical adaptions of the play in under a month, which should probably be enough for a while : ) [...]