The Captive Reader

It’s a long weekend here in BC and I am determined to make the most of it.  To start it off, I went to my first ever “The Met: Live in HD” performance on Saturday morning.  For those not aware, these performances are broadcast live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York to movie theatres around the world (1,900 theatres in 64 countries, according to their website).  It’s been a clever (and successful) initiative (I highly recommend Ann Patchett’s essay on her love of these performances, included in her essay collection This is the Story of a Happy Marriage) and it was wonderful to see how packed the theatre was yesterday morning for the Met’s production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka” with Renée Fleming.

Now, seeing an opera on a screen is nothing like seeing one in person but it was still a great experience (and, not living in New York, the closest I’m likely to get to seeing this sort of production).  Fleming is not my ideal Rusalka but she still has a beautiful voice and this is one of her signature roles.  I brought my mother with me to the show and, as a native Czech-speaker, she of course had great fun critiquing everyone’s pronunciation.  I loved the Prince, I loved the Water Gnome, and I particularly loved the three nymphs who get to frolic saucily about while everyone else’s lives get progressively darker.  But most of all, I loved the sets.  The shimmering pond in the woods where Rusalka lives before being turned into a human was beautiful in every detail.  The operas I’ve seen recently in Prague and Vienna have all had budget-conscious staging so it was wonderful to see such richness on stage.  The whole experience was enjoyable and I’m definitely looking at the rest of this season’s offerings, wondering what else I should go see.

I’ve also been enjoying all the Olympic sports on television – and, because I’m hugely sentimental, all the tear-inducing interviews with athletes.  Really, all I do is cry during the Olympics: any interview, any glimpse of a grandparent cheering from back home, any particularly well-executed commercial is enough to have me reaching for the tissues.  Canada has had a great start with a gold, two silvers, and a bronze in the first two days and I am loving being able to watch the primetime events live early in the morning.  This twelve-hour time difference is working out quite well!  Plus it leaves my days free to spend outside (where it is usually cold and I am getting good use from my patriotic Team Canada mittens) or inside, with a good book (Lucy Carmichael by Margaret Kennedy is off to a great start).

Justine Dufour-Lapointe via @CBColympics