Flittering Away

Today, the plan is for Mom and me (yes, that’s grammatically correct) to go to church together, then to lunch and then to the opera.

We missed the first two productions of the season due to Mom’s repeated health problems. Fingers crossed that she stays well.

The opera we hope to see is Puccini’s MADAME BUTTERFLY click on this link and give yourself a treat by listening to a recording of a bit of Un Bel Di from it. This was the first opera Mom ever took me to, so it’s very special to us, even apart from the intense beauty of the music.

We plan to have lunch at a Chinese restaurant, since we don’t know offhand where a Japanese restaurant is, between here and the Brown. We’ll probably get there and there’ll be a Japanese joint right across the street. Okay, I just Googlized it, and there are several, but they’re either too expensive or you have to make reservations or they got bad reviews or all of the above, so we’ll probably just go to the Chinese buffet.

I’ll let you know how the opera goes.

p.s. I’m posting today also at The Write Type, about the impossibility of “cheating” at NaNoWriMo.

WRITING PROMPT: Look up the plot of an opera and set it in a different time/place and write a tweaked story line for it.

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Flittering Away

  1. Mary

    November 21, 2010 at 12:31pm

    Your day sounds wonderful. Enjoy the making of memories.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      November 21, 2010 at 6:37pm

      Mary, today was memory upon memory! MADAME BUTTERFLY was the first opera I ever saw–Mom took me to see it when a was a little girl. She also took our youngest daughter when SHE was a little girl and ready for HER first opera, and today she also took our oldest daughter and her husband for THEIR first live opera. 🙂

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      November 21, 2010 at 6:38pm

      Monti, we live out in the woods, but an urban area is about 30-45 minutes away, so we have the best of both worlds. 🙂

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  2. Bodie P

    November 21, 2010 at 10:49pm

    How lovely that you and your mom can share that. I got my nevvies hooked on opera when they were little (light opera, that is). I had a big old book of Gilbert and Sullivan, and when I’d pull it out they’d come running, slide in under the piano, and press their backs to the sounding board. “Play the da-dump, da-dump song!” they’d beg). And so I’d play them “The Criminal Cried” from the Mikado. When my nephew Aaron was about eight I took him to Phantom of the Opera, and it was the most incredible experience for both of us.

    Aaron elected to dress for comfort (something he regretted when he got there and saw the evening clothes) while I dressed for my escort–I put on my lovely tea-length evening gown and paired with with a set of cut and spraypainted seashell earrings Aaron had gotten me for my last birthday.

    I treasure that evening still, and so does he–he’s now in his twenties and puts engines in Lambourghinis and has muscles like an octopus and tats and piercings everywhere–and he still talks about going to Phantom of the Opera.

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    • Author

      Marian Allen

      November 22, 2010 at 10:49am

      Enid, sounds like you go for musicals more than opera, although Les Miz and Sweeney Todd blur the line. Miss Saigon is Madame Butterfly brought forward to the end of the Vietnam War. I loved Les Miz, too!

      Bodie–Gilbert and Sullivan was the first classical music my mother ever gave me–if you can call those whackos “classical”. They’re like the Marx Brothers of light classical music–lol! My youngest daughter got hooked on The Pirates of Penzance when she was about six. We got a copy of the Kevin Kline movie version and watched it–I’m not exaggerating–EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT for about two years. We watched it again recently (she’s 27 now) and she regaled me by stopping the film and telling me what she thought that scene was about when she was little. It was too funny! Thank you for sharing your stories about your nephews and G&S. Wonderful memories!

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