(goldvermilion87 will get that reference!)

( 'Carmen' mini-review ahead )

. . . I've been meaning to post this.

"Giuseppe Verdi at 200: An appreciation"

It's not like I know much about Verdi -- as I said, opera newbie here. But I love the writer's enthusiasm. I love this:

"Here’s where I’m supposed to sit down and write some big expository paragraph in sober-sounding prose explaining all the facts and why Verdi is amazing and why you should care. And I can’t do it. Verdi is way too personal for me. . . .

"I can’t explain to you why you should like Verdi, because I can’t believe you won’t hear it for yourself. It’s hardest for us to teach, or explain, the things that come most naturally to us, and for me Verdi has always made perfect sense. Something about his work accords with my sense of how life works, and how stories can be told and experienced."

We all have artists (composers, writers, whoever) that we feel like that about. I love that Anne Midgette has expressed this so well for all of us.

(Also, I like this: ". . . the plot synopses, which I find almost impossible to understand . . ." I looked up some Verdi plot synopses, and they are almost impossible to understand. Maybe that's why Eugene Onegin's lack of plot doesn't bother me, or even appeals to me -- because so many operas with plots just get silly!)