Parents, Turandot, 화봉요원

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of St. John of Capristano

I just wrote a whole long entry, and it got lost over cyberspace again. Oh well, instead of my rambling commentary, you get a short outline of what you missed:

1. My parents' visit today and my subsequent fattening at Koreana for lunch (yum, bulgogi!)
2. We have tickets to the Met's production of Turandot in January. For the uninitiated, Turandot is my most favorite opera (second are Die Zauberflote and La Bohème), and apparently, the opera buff at our church who bought us the tickets (he is a very nice grandfather who is close friends with our family, mostly because my mother is an opera buff too), also gave us a DVD of a performance where Domingo sings Calaf.
3. My tangent discussion of why I don't really care about the tenor in Turandot, the fachs required for Turandot and Liu and the resulting difficulties in casting, why I like Liu best, comparison of this sort of favoritism to schoolgirls identifying with Eponine in Les Misérables (although she's a total twit in the book)
4. My weird taste in opera, which is dictated not by the music but by the storyline, to the horror of my mother and serious opera fans everywhere; my favorite composers and why maybe I ought to give Tosca a chance; my suspicion that I'm growing up to be an exact copy of my mother
5. How I am growing increasingly obsessed with Ravages of Time...oh wait, I think I'll elaborate on this point after all.

I've been slowly making my way through Chinese scans of Ravages of Time, although I can't read them since they are, well, still in Chinese. Thanks to Fifay.net, however, I've managed to figure out which of the masked characters is Zhuge Liang. Yay! Kongming! He has forked eyebrows though, and unfortunately I can't see the rest of his face. But Tari isn't shallow, nope, not one bit...oh, who am I kidding, I want Kongming to be pretty like I always picture him. >_> Yes, I'm a Zhuge Liang fangirl, let's all get in line.

I've discovered the Korean title for the series (it's just transliteration of the characters): 화봉요원. I think the characters roughly mean Fire Phoenix Burning Origin. I also learned that the first and last two characters make up Liaoyuan Huo's name--thus, in Korean, he's 요원화. The first five volumes have been translated into Korean and are available for purchase in many online stores for ridiculously cheap prices, if I'm remembering my conversion rates correctly. I would buy them all in a heartbeat if the shipping costs wouldn't push it up into no-I-can't-afford-this-price territory. >_> The Korean reviews I've seen seem to be positive; haven't found any fansites yet although that's my next goal.

Yes, I'm obsessed. I guess I ought to be glad there isn't a larger English-speaking fandom for the series. ^_^ I also want to work my Three Kingdoms rereading plan into my regular schedule, but alas, the midterms do not permit it. I haven't gotten any work done all day. >_<

Yours &c.

Comments

[tryogeru.livejournal.com]

Thanks to kendo, and the fact that I like to go out during the weekends, I get no work done during then...>_>

But anyway, I like opera for the story too, though I am not familiar with a lot of operas because I do not know which ones are good. But I love Lohengrin, 'cause the story is *so* weird, and the music **SO** good.

O.o

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, in the lost entry I wrote that my favorite opera composers were Puccini and Mozart, although I also liked Wagner's Lohengrin and this opera about a clown gone mad which was actually quite dramatic and the only Pavarotti performance where he acted and sang well. (Pavarotti has a beautiful voice but no emotional range whatsoever.)

In addition, I like: Turandot, La Bohème, The Magic Flute, Cosi Fan Tutti, The Marriage of Figaro, Orfeo ed Eurydice, and a lot of operas with arias sung by castrati. XD There was also this funny one about a love elixir--I generally like comic operas--but as usual I can't remember the title.

[fadedcliche.livejournal.com]

...and here's where I feel like an uncultured swine! =P

Seriously though, I've been promising myself to just relax senior year (once college apps are over/early apps are over) and to most definitely go out and experience and enjoy the arts... a lot more (sorry, my brain is fried from 8 hours of typing and editing).

Seeing as all I've determined are things I can't go to... Any suggestions?

p.s. thank you for such a thorough response to my question - I certainly wasn't expecting anything close to that length! However, exactly how much of that I can say to an interviewer may be called into question... This time next week, I'll be done muttering about college. I swear. For a few weeks anyway... =)

[troisroyaumes]

Nah, don't feel uncultured. I always shut up when I meet a real opera fan because then I feel uncultured. The grandfather at my church for example practically memorizes the libretti of all the operas he goes to see. >_>;;

Suggestions for operas? Or for arts events in general? My mother started taking me out to Lincoln Center performances my senior year too because she wanted me to have a chance to enjoy New York before I left for college. So I just made the rounds: a NYCB performance (we saw Coppelia), a Met. Opera performance (we saw Aida, which had its strengths and weaknesses), and a Mostly Mozart festival performance. NYCB tends to be pretty decently priced and if you go during the daytime, there are often lots of empty seats so you can sneak down to the front. XD

And ugh, college apps in one week, no wonder you're stressed out. I do recommend though going into your interview with as much a false sense of confidence as you can muster. Also, the interview tends to be mostly asking you to talk about yourself and describe yourself, so get into an egotistical mood beforehand. ^_^ It's not so terrible, really, once it's over with. Good luck on everything! I really hope you get into Harvard--I definitely think you deserve to.

[phoebs.livejournal.com]

I like operas for their stories. Turandot is awesome, although I was sad when I saw it at the Met because Turandot is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world, and the woman singing her looked like Jabba the Hut. I mean, yes, the voice is the important thing, but my suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

And I saw an incredibly staged production of Tosca. Is good. And the singer playing Tosca was actually quite a good actress, too, which is rare....

[troisroyaumes]

Oh yes, one of the parts of my entry that got lost in cyberspace was a discussion of why I cared more about the soprano casting than the tenor casting. Any decent tenor worth his salt can pull off Nessun dorma, but Turandot requires the voice range and quality of a Wagnerian soprano. On the other hand, while Valkyries can be buxom and robust without looking strange, Turandot is another matter entirely.

The production I saw on TV (the Forbidden Palace version) actually had a decent Turandot--she wasn't beautiful of course, but she wasn't grotesquely large. She actually had a normal soprano's figure, so it wasn't visually repelling.

Did you go see the Met production where Hong Hei-kyung performed Liu? If so, I envy you so much. I got to see the concert version of Turandot (you know, those Met summer concert in the Park events), although not the actual staged version, and she was amazing. It's hard to find a good lyrical voice, I think, because it dies so fast as the soprano gets older. Hong Hei-kyung's actually the mother of a former Hunterite too, ain't that cool? ^_^

I think I didn't like Tosca when I first saw it because I was really young and the character of Tosca really ticked me off. (I had similar reactions to La Traviata and Rigoletto.) But I think I want to watch it again now and give it another chance.

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

He heh, I went through a stage where I was obsessed with the plots of opera. >_< I enjoy the absurdity and bloodiness of operatic plots, which probably shows literary bad taste.

5. Ha ha, join me in obession. :D (Damn, it's like there's a fandom of four or five people? How sad. ;_; )

Yeah, Zhuge Liang should unmask himself. You can't tell who the other masked characters are, though, until they unmask themselves.

When I saw Zhuge Liang's eyebrows, I thought "omg, Treize is descended from Zhuge Liang." :P

You know, I should have read Three Kingdoms before I came across this series. It is totally wreaking havok with my mental imaginings, to think of Guo Jia and Wenruo being this pretty. (god, a sad fangirl moment. >_< <--so shallow as well) I'm around page 250, though, so Kongming hasn't come out of his retreat yet. What can I say, I usually read faster than that, but it demands a lot of concentration to keep the characters straight, especially since there are overlapping last names and such.

[troisroyaumes]

I enjoy absurdity and bloodiness too. There was this terrific opera about a clown who got cuckolded and then proceeded to murder both wife and lover--it was excellent and quite possibly the only Pavarotti performance where I felt he was actually acting instead of just singing beautifully. I always forget the title though, probably because I watched most of these when I was around ten or eleven. I've only recently started deciding which operas I really enjoy listening to, instead of just watching as if they were musicals. ^_^;;

Oh, and yes, I thought the exact same thing when I saw the forked eyebrows! XD

It took me weeks to read the book as well because of the name confusion. And I have to admit, now I can no longer remember the names of many of the characters--I only really remember the ones that made an impression on me--which is why I'm constantly consulting kongming.net while reading Ravages of Time. >_

[worldserpent.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I Pagliacci, right? I love the aria from that one.

Mmm, yeah. I know that the Chinese fans are really insane with the parody, so I'm sure someone has written fanfic on that premise. Although usually they turn everything into wuxia, and this is already wuxia, so I'm wondering what they turn this one into.

It's painful how many characters have the same last name, and they're not related to one another. :P I went, "wait, Water Mirror is related to Sima Yi?!" when I read that scene in the book. (His real name is Sima Hui)