A Saturday matinee at the opera
COPENHAGEN — I’d never been to an opera. I don’t know Italian. I don’t know Danish. I don’t know the story of Falstaff, although I remembered to nod several times as Courtenay tried to fill me in. But there I was sitting in a well-dressed crowd of several hundred Danes watching a Saturday afternoon performance of Falstaff, the opera, performed in Italian, with Danish subtitles flickering across the top of the stage.
And yet it was, even for me, a pretty good show.
The Copenhagen Opera House is an impressive building. From the outside, coming across the water on one of my beloved harbor buses, it looked a little like a fencing mask, with narrow belts of metal lining the windows. The reception area was full of light, with amazing views of downtown Copenhagen and up and down the colorful waterfront.
The stage and three tiers of seating were all inside a huge, heart-shaped structure made of beautiful mahogany. The acoustics were amazing. I’m not the guy you ought to turn to for a cogent review of the individual performances, but the Falstaff character, an American, had a great physical presence, he made you smile just to look at him, although there were a few others whose singing voices had more power.
The sets were impressive, the costumes were strong, too. I don’t know what the hell happened, exactly, but there tricks played on Falstaff, tricks played on other main characters, and it all ended pretty much on a high note. *
And then we rode the harbor bus home.
*(I told Courtenay she should have been the one to blog about the opera, but she’s asleep.)
Will in Taiwan: Yingge Museum & Modern Toilet
By Will
During our first full day in the beautiful city of Taipei, we had the opportunity to visit the Yingge Ceramic Museum in the far suburbs of the city. We got to wake up at a respectable time, and the morning moved at a slower pace than the preceding early rising Meiho school days. After a traditional Taiwanese breakfast at the hotel, we left around 9:15 for the train station. It was raining super hard, and many of us were confused about what line to take and which way to walk to get to the correct train. In our two groups–Carter’s group and Li-Lings group–we were able to work out the train system, first the city train and from there we took a bigger and longer train to the suburb of Yingge. The full trip took over an hour, and being “Quiet Americans” was very difficult on the crowded train.
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Once we arrived in Yingge, we took a peaceful ten minute walk past many ceramic shops, a sign of what was to come. Li-Ling told us that we had a ceramic class scheduled at eleven. I was ecstatic! Not only would we get to see the amazing ceramic art, but we would get to try it for ourselves! We walked past down the stairs to the ceramic studio and took a look around. It was a big room, with towering two story tall ceilings and tables stacked with all kinds of tools. They ranged from toothpicks to scrap paper, with mounds of caramel-colored clay rolled into balls and stacks on rectangular tables surrounded by small wooden stools. We spent the next hour learning to make a small clay teapot while the instructor showed us what to do on a huge projector while she spoke to us in sharp, quick Chinese. Because of the need for forty five days of kilning for the pots to solidify, we were unfortunately not able to bring our creations home.
After this experience, I was starving, and we walked over to the museum coffee shop and had a very nice lunch. Many people went back for seconds and thirds. After lunch we began the next section of our day, touring the museum. We were told to each pick one work of art about which we would write many specific details, along with how the artwork made you feel. This portion took about an hour and a half, and afterward some people went back to the coffee shop to eat more food. We toured the museum for a little bit more before beginning on the long journey home.
As you can imagine, it was just as long, crowded, and noisy as before, and afterward we were ready to unwind at the hotel. We will be spending about an hour and a half here before going out for dinner at the famous “Toilet Restaurant” in Taiwan, where all the food is served in toilets and we will be sitting on toilets while we eat. After this we will be shopping and touring the Ximending shopping district. After this, I expect that we will be very tired, and ready to rest up for the long day of touring the city with our new Kangchiao homestay buddies.
The Thompson Attigs 