Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Food for both sides of the brain

Richard Feynman, the coolest physicist of his (extremely well-endowed) generation, talked plainly...

But he carried a big brain! The rest of the series: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.

On another note; opera is my escape into a dream....


Or rather, a grown up's culturally acceptable substitution for unbridled fantasy.

2 comments:

Georg said...

Hallo Sorgy,

Listened to this one twice. But it is a bit confusing. Is Vesselina singing the male part?? I suppose you could not make this video bigger to have a good look at the faces.

On 1.53 the woman sings "Halt mich ein schwaches Ding wie ich bin. Sinke Dir dahin" That has been composed before WWI because nowadays, everybody knows women "haben Haare auf den Zähnen. Die tun nur so".

Look at Angela Merkel or before, Margy Thatcher. There were lots of guys who thought they would eliminate her on the fast lane. Now they are all beached begging for a crumb.

Georg

Smorg said...

Hallo Georg,
Yes, she is singing the male part (Octavian) indeed. :o) It's a fun role for her, I think. He's supposed to be a teenage boy Count Rofrano who is having an affair with a Feldmarschallin... but then he falls in love with young Sophie (sung here by Malin Hartelius) while presenting her with engagement token for his cousin Baron Ochs. So they had to engage in some preposterous ruse involving Octavian dressing up as a girl as his co-conspirators watch in order to catch the philandering Baron Ochs red-handed making a pass at another girl even though he is now engaged to Sophie... And we have this woman playing a man pretending to be a woman schtick. ;o)

I'm afraid the video player at blogspot doesn't allow full screen play. :o( But you can find clips from this opera production if you search Youtube for 'rosenkavalier kasarova stemme hartelius', though. It's a really cute and unconventional staging of the opera... And really stupendously well sung.

Haha! We are long past the days when women were supposed to be weak-kneed and would sink into the man's arms indeed. I didn't quite know what to say when one lovely lady actually opened a door for me at the opera house yesterday... I'm spoiled!

Thanks very much for stopping by. Hope your week has started well!

Cheerio,
Smorgy :o)