Culture: Good. Last Saturday night, Robert took Stacey and I to the Berkeley Rep’s production of Figaro. It was simply amazing! Great, with a very talented cast and a glorious string quartet lead by the musical director who also played a nice sounding electric keyboard of some sort.
I noticed that he had a video camera pointed directly at himself and I wondered why on earth is he filming himself as he plays and conducts the string quartet? Stacey informed me that there were video monitors out of sight, on stage, that the singers could see and get their cues from. Neat!
What was not so neat was that as the strings were taking their seats after the intermission, the viola player dropped her viola and it broke! Thanks to Robert, we were right up front and I heard the thud of it hitting the floor. Yikes. She picked it up and the fingerboard was separated from the viola’s neck. I gasped and felt really bad for her! She showed it to the lovely and talented cello player and left the pit. The rest of the show was performed by a string trio.
After the show, I went up to the musicians to tell them that I thought they were superb and I asked about the ill-fated viola. They told me that it was not a horrendous problem and could be repaired. Still, I felt so bad for the young lady!
In other news, I’m very sorry the San Jose Sharks didn’t make it past the second round of playoffs (again). It was an amazing 6th game with Dallas that went into 4 overtime periods. Both teams played more than 2 games that night, and the Sharks lost. I’m fine with that, though. They showed heart and had to play all of the overtime without one of their stars due to a brutal, but clean hit by a Dallas player.
I hope the powers that be keep the coach and the players together for next season. Hats off to you, boys. We’ll get ‘em next year!
2 comments:
A good friend of mine's a professional viola player...you probably have no freakin idea how much very fine string instruments cost. Hint: wanna buy a nice house in SF? If you're a top-flight string player, sell one violin - buy two of 'em. Obviously not all string players play instruments this good - but even yr average symphonic musician invests a very good chunk of change in them.
that was really fun and educational and stuff - and how *about* those seats! some luck huh? poor lady... ihand't even thought about the cost - a bit more than a bottle of clue... let's do it again!
Post a Comment