Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I'm not quite sure how to criticize the French opera, but I'm going to try...

Before I get to the opera, let's start at the beginning. This morning, I woke up to the sound of little kids. So, I got dressed quickly to see what was going on. The grandkids were here today and it's official: little kids are much cuter when they speak French! Their names are Victoria and Augustin, and they're both adorable and very energetic. Apparently, there is no nursery school on Wednesday's, so Mme De La Taille watches them while her daughter works in the morning. They were watching a cartoon about Louis XIV. I hope it helped me for my quiz today!

Because of the little kids, I almost completely forgot about a CUPA newspaper meeting. It's not called Le petit parisien anymore, by the way - they decided to let the other CUPA kids vote on the names, so now it's Le Paris Americain (it's a play on words since a "pari" is a "bet"). Once in French class last year, Justine used that expression (I can't remember exactly why, but I think she was saying that they should make a bet to see if I could turn any conversation into a discussion about a musical...) and, when she got the deer-in-the-headlights looks, she asked if anyone knew what "faire un pari" meant. One kid said: "Made in Paris?" Anyway, so, I rushed to the newspaper meeting, but Chantal was in the middle of talking to another CUPA student about an essay when I got there and Laura wasn't there yet, so I just played on a computer downstairs. Then, Alexandra called - her internship was very slow today, so they told her she could leave early - and we met up to get Lebanese sandwiches for lunch! She thinks I'm taking this a step further than she took her falafel obsession, but I wouldn't call this an obsession. I know when I'm obsessed with something!

In my history class today, when M. Cornette was handing back last week's quizzes, he announced (6 times, in case anyone wasn't paying attention) that I got a 10/20!! I've never been so excited to get a 50% before. He said over and over again that an American who is studying math and not history got a good grade when only 2 other students got higher. Hopefully I did just as well or better on the quiz today. Oh, and he thinks it's very impressive that I can solve a Rubik's Cube as does everyone else in the class.

Okay, now the opera. I actually don't have much to say about it. This wasn't Gounod's "Faust." This was by some lousy composer that I've never heard of named Fénelon. The story was all messed up too. So, despite the fact that I went to the most spectacular opera house I've ever seen to see some of the best performers put on an opera, all I noticed were the bad parts. For example, the chairs up in the nosebleed section are really uncomfortable. And what's worse - all the other CUPA students left during intermission except Zach and me. It was that bad. Marie got there late, so she had to wait outside during the first act, and so we thought that no one from CUPA was there to make sure we were there. But then, when we saw her, the other students decided that maybe they shouldn't leave. Then, they asked her and she said that if it was really that bad, they didn't have to stay. The best part was at the end, after practically 20 straight minutes of applause (I have NO idea why), Marie goes: "I really liked that!" (in French, of course). To me, this opera seemed like the French people trying to make a statement about how crazy and anti-semitic Germans are. If that was the goal, they did a great job. That's the last time I see an opera in German - unless it's Mozart or something I'm absolutely sure will be tasteful. And by tasteful, I would just like fewer cadavers, no gigantic skulls in the middle of the stage, and fewer nasty comments about Jews. Is that too much to ask?

No comments:

Post a Comment