What's Opera, Doc?

 

 

 

Last night Jack and I attended the San Francisco Opera's performance of Lohengrin as the guest of our landlady, who is a dresser with the opera company.  Lohengrin is a Germanic spin on a medieval myth that was composed by Richard Wagner.  It was a favorite of King Ludwig of Bavaria who built the famous castle of Neuschwanstein, which is on our travel bucket list.

This was only the second opera I've seen and I must confess that I don't see the attraction.  There were subtitles over the stage so we could follow the story, but the operatic performance style seems so forced to me.  A stage full of people with their mouths wide open and their vocal cords straining as they sing just seems so overly melodramatic.  Of course, in certain circumstances, I can see the attraction of all that.

We wanted to love the performance but we just didn't, although we could appreciate the training and skill that went into it.  Jack and I escaped like guilty schoolchildren after three hours (Lohengrin is LONG) at the second intermission.  On our way out the door we took a picture of the Opera House lobby and

 

and of one of the gilded wall hangings with Jack's new Iphone.  



 

 

 

Maybe Jack and I will try the opera again some day.  Until then, we'll just enjoy the Looney Tunes version of it.  Now that is the kind of refined culture that I can enjoy.

 

 





This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land ...

This past weekend Jack, Coco and I left Portland for our next port-of-call, San Francisco, California.  It's about a 12 hour trip by car and we really enjoyed the winding road and the rolling hills surrounding Highway 101.  For you baby boomers, I kept hearing the theme song from Bonanza in my head as we drove along.  It's such a big country out there.   

Along the coast the weather was rainy, gray and foggy so we didn't spend a lot of time taking pictures or walking along the beach. 

 

When Highway 101 turned inward in Humboldt County, the route was called the Redwood Highway and it was primarily a 2 lane highway.  It was slow going but the scenery made up for the annoyance.  Since we broke the drive into two days we had the time to take the even slower scenic by-way called Avenue of the Giants.  I had to keep reminding myself that we weren't in a hurry.  Jack, who is so much more laid back, really enjoyed being the passenger and pointing out the biggest trees.  It's mindboggling to think that some of these trees have lived between 500 and 1000 years!

 

 

 

Jack and I enjoyed walking through the trees (it's kind of spooky and mysterious in a good way) and talking about what was going on in history when these trees were saplings.





 

 



 

We think that maybe Coco enjoyed the forest most of all!