Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Oct. 18th, 2011 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyIn my undergraduate medieval law class in my college days, on which I based the History of Law class I currently teach, it turns out I took ridiculously good exam study notes. I kept all handouts and articles and exams and notes from my college classes and they are occasionally useful even today. But I forgot about my detailed study notes which I will so use to make a lecture. I needed a handout from that class so I went through all my college folders and I found them. I had only a few hours in the afternoon to work on my Rise of Canon Law lecture for tomorrow and it definitely went faster because of those notes. Go undergrad me.
Today was a peer review day in my writing classes so all I had to do was give out the sheet and collect a draft for me. Then, in class, while the students read each other’s papers I finished grading the midterms and one remaining Paper 2. Yay.
We went to the opera in the evening, so I had to work on the lecture as soon as I got home. It was nice to get out of the house for a change even though we did not get home until 12:30am. We took the car into the city and on the way back Papa managed to miss the turn for the tunnel so we took the Brooklyn Bridge. I do love the nighttime Manhattan view.
Opera “Anna Bolena” This opera just premiered and Mama wanted to see it because of Anna Netrebko. I didn’t even think about what the opera was about until last week when I got the Met radio guide. But, of course, it is a about Anne Boleyn and her last days. So that was sort of awesome. We got Henry VIII, played by Ildar Abdrazakov in fabulous bass, who got to be an asshole in the play and a great Jane Seymour, who agonizes over her part in the story. I think my favorite aria was with Anna and Jane – the confession scene where Anna stops blaming Jane since she knows it is all Henry’s doing. The costumes and staging were amazing – they were aiming for historical accuracy with costumes based on 16th century portraits. The intermission was a little too long because two of the singers, the tenor and the mezzo-soprano, couldn’t go on because of colds. But the new singers were really good too. It is Metropolitan Opera, I rarely heard a middling performance there. The singing was incredibly good and I did like the opera. I don’t think I loved it but I really enjoyed it. It got a little late though, and I was really to go home and go to sleep. Also we were sitting really high since those tickets were pretty much what was left. We technically had partial view but you could lean down a bit while holding to the rail tightly. We could see into the orchestra pit very clearly, so that was good.
Today was a peer review day in my writing classes so all I had to do was give out the sheet and collect a draft for me. Then, in class, while the students read each other’s papers I finished grading the midterms and one remaining Paper 2. Yay.
We went to the opera in the evening, so I had to work on the lecture as soon as I got home. It was nice to get out of the house for a change even though we did not get home until 12:30am. We took the car into the city and on the way back Papa managed to miss the turn for the tunnel so we took the Brooklyn Bridge. I do love the nighttime Manhattan view.
Opera “Anna Bolena” This opera just premiered and Mama wanted to see it because of Anna Netrebko. I didn’t even think about what the opera was about until last week when I got the Met radio guide. But, of course, it is a about Anne Boleyn and her last days. So that was sort of awesome. We got Henry VIII, played by Ildar Abdrazakov in fabulous bass, who got to be an asshole in the play and a great Jane Seymour, who agonizes over her part in the story. I think my favorite aria was with Anna and Jane – the confession scene where Anna stops blaming Jane since she knows it is all Henry’s doing. The costumes and staging were amazing – they were aiming for historical accuracy with costumes based on 16th century portraits. The intermission was a little too long because two of the singers, the tenor and the mezzo-soprano, couldn’t go on because of colds. But the new singers were really good too. It is Metropolitan Opera, I rarely heard a middling performance there. The singing was incredibly good and I did like the opera. I don’t think I loved it but I really enjoyed it. It got a little late though, and I was really to go home and go to sleep. Also we were sitting really high since those tickets were pretty much what was left. We technically had partial view but you could lean down a bit while holding to the rail tightly. We could see into the orchestra pit very clearly, so that was good.