This Time I’m Going. Maybe.

May 4, 2012

This Time I’m Going. Maybe.

Sometimes advertising actually tells you something you wanted to know. Yesterday I saw an ad, I think on National Review, for an encore presentation of the Metropolitan Opera's Wagner cycle, which was shown in theaters in some sort of broadcast arrangement at intervals over several months, last fall I think, and maybe into the winter. And I thought about going. But I think I forgot and missed the first one, and then the others were showing on Saturday around noon or so, and I always have so much to do on Saturday…and in the end I didn't see any of them. Which I regretted a bit, figuring I would never have a chance like that again, though I am not a huge Wagner fan.

So. This time they're mostly on weekday nights, so I can see them and still get the yard work done on Saturday. I think I'll go. I ought to go. But I'm sure they're sort of expensive. And I do have a lot of other things I should be doing. Who knows, I might not even like the productions, the way I didn't like the one I got from Netflix a while back. In that case I'll have wasted a lot of time and money…

Maclin Horton

Film, Music

7 responses to “This Time I’m Going. Maybe.”

Marianne

May 5, 2012

Oh, my — first Marmite, now the Ring Cycle. The dark side approaches. 😉

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Mac

May 5, 2012

Yes, though I’d already struggled with The Ring a while back:
http://lightondarkwater.typepad.com/lodw/2006/10/pop-culture-vs-wagner.html
http://lightondarkwater.typepad.com/lodw/2006/12/more-fun-with-wagner.html
http://lightondarkwater.typepad.com/lodw/2007/01/sunday-night-journal-january-21-2007.html
Speaking of the dark side: I didn’t know until today that yesterday was Star Wars Day: “May the Fourth be with you.”

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Mac

May 6, 2012

I just found out that the shortest of the four operas is a little over 3 hours, two others around 4 and a half, and the longest almost 5!! Having watched and listened to them before, I should have known this, but those viewings/hearings were always broken up, an hour or at most two at a sitting. It is pretty unlikely that I could sit still for fours hours without falling asleep. Moreover, for the first three I would have to get up and go to work the next day. I don’t know….
My wife said I should go. I said “Do you want to go?” She replied with a fervent “No!”

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Grumpy Ex Pat

May 6, 2012

I’ve been to a Wagner in London with my father, maybe 35 years ago. I remember there were lots of breaks when one could go to the pub. Other than that, it was really, really boring.

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Mac

May 6, 2012

Now that you mention it, I suppose the quoted running times for these films must include at least a couple of breaks. Still…
I can just imagine a child or teenager sitting through hours of that apparently formless music.

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Grumpy Ex Pat

May 6, 2012

I didn’t realize yours was a movie. This was live. Gosh, it was really dull!
I just watched a DVD called ‘Rolling Thunder.’ I don’t know if that was because someone here recommended it, or because amazon selected it for me as one who buys violent movies. A not bad revenge drama.

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Mac

May 6, 2012

If you were like an awful lot of young people, including me, you thought the singers sounded somewhat like cattle. The male ones, anyway.
I don’t recall anyone recommending that movie here, but if they didn’t, this is a very strange coincidence, because I read about it somewhere within the past couple of weeks or so, and with much the same comment–“good revenge story” or something.
I just did a Google search of the site, which is better than the TypePad search, and it came up empty for “rolling thunder,” so maybe it is in fact a very strange coincidence. I think it’s a pretty obscure movie.

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