Blog

This is here to talk about things I've seen and opinions ig.

Venus & Adonis by Jonathan Blow (4/18/26)
 After suddenly gaining an intrest in opera (most likely due to hearing Verdi's Requiem) I bought a ticket to this preformance. I new very little beforehand, just that it's often considered one of the first English language operas. This piqued my interest cause it's always annoying having to refer to a translation during a preformance so I thought, somewhat incorrectly (I'll get to this in a bit) that that would solve this issue. It was a somewhat small preformance, it opened with just the baroque orchestra out and they played the "world premiere" of a modern baroque piece. I confused it for the overture of the actual opera as it very much sounded of that time (c. 1684). Regardless, I enjoyed it. In the orchestra pit I recognized two of the musciands from past preformances, a recorder player who played a really cool solo baroque piece (or had a solo a piece, I forgor) and a great violnist who also played the large pipe organ in a recital (I prefer him on violin, but still cool!). They Berkeley ensemble was joined by some folks from the Berklee (heh) conservatory in Boston which was nice. As the opera was about to begin the conductor announced that the liberetto could be found by scanning the QR code on the program which annoyed me. I go to things like this to escape everything that comes with phone usage and the like, so to have to stare at my phone during the preformance seems completely off.
 With that the opera started and the chorus filed in. There is one older guy that I've seen in past preformances that looks strikeingly like my dad. Everytime I see him I always have to look again and strugle to keep myself from smiling. There was also a guy in the chorus that (at least from the front) looked very elvish which was kinda cute but I digress. The first soloist singer was cupid who in the story is male but is sung by a soprano which I thought was kinda interesting; She was wearing a pretty olden-timey dress (like REAL olden-timey, the new vintage is baroque ig). This is when I realized (which I had somewhat guessed before) that it is very hard to understand what people are singing during operas even if you know the language. I could somewhat make out what was happening (with help from the program), but any actual beauty in writing was lost on me much to my dismay. In the first act Venus and Adonis enter. Venus was wearing a pretty red dress and Adonis had a funny little mustache. Both preformers were from Berklee and both had great voices. Venus's, though, was really amazing, throughout the preformance I was wowed by it. During the intermission (which I questioned the need for due to the opera being pretty short) I was able to read the liberetto for the next two acts. A really brief summary of the story is that Adonis and Venus are in love (bleh) and Venus gets Adonis (who regularly adress himself in the third person (bleh)) to join a hunt for a boar. He does and he dies on her "soft bosom". I find it hard to connect with simple love stories like this (especially when any nuance in the text is unintelligible), but regardless it was pretty. During the intermission a guy came and sat somewhat near me, and as he say he mumbled something I couldn't understnd. During the rest of the preformance he was on his phone probably texting which annoyed me. He was wearing one of those stupid fucking hipster hats, idk what they're called but they're dumb. He also had is whole backpack with him and pulled a laptop out during intermission which seemed excessive. Anyways, the second act includes a funny bit where Cupid is teaching a group of little cupids how to spell. I liked the last act (the third) the most, unsurprising seeing music about death is always the prettiest (not in like an emo way, but in like a fruity drama way idk). I think this movement is where Venus' voice stood out the most. Overall I enjoyed the preformance, it wasn't anything life changing, but I'm glad I went. I'm grateful that I have access to stuff like this for so cheap, and that I just generally have opertunities like this. I really want to get into opera more so I think this a good start.

Requiem by Verdi (4/3/16)
TO BE ADDED!