opera: The Abduction from the Seraglio, Sun. Feb. 26, 2012, at the Academy

A few weeks ago Mom and I went to our first opera of 2012, Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. It was a rather silly opera, but a lot of fun to watch. Rather than setting it in Mozart's time or earlier, the director set the opera during World War I, making Konstanze a spy and Belmonte her lover a Spanish pilot. They used old movie footage projected on a screen behind the singers to further set the scene. I really liked the flair and feel of the opera, but storywise, the framework didn't fit all that well to me with Mozart's original - if Konstanze was really a spy, she'd be rescuing herself instead of waiting for Belmonte, and she wouldn't even be considering Selim as a suitor, since he'd kidnapped her during wartime. Also, if Belmonte was a pilot who flew into Istanbul to rescue her, then what happened to his plane when they escaped on the boat at the end? This questions bugged me for much of the first act, until I realized, dude, it's Mozart, just shut up and enjoy it. And I did, and it was funny and fun. The singing was excellent as always, and the costumes were pretty cool, especially Konstanze's and Blonde's seraglio outfits. I also really appreciated the sets - sometimes the opera company goes above and beyond on set design, which always looks really cool but leads to long intermissions while they rearrange things. This set was very simple and understated, but flexible enough to suit the action. Overall, this one won't be a favorite for me, but I really enjoyed it.

books 2012: Yoga Journal, March 2012

I liked the look of this issue of YJ because it features a woman in her 40s or 50s on the cover, doing quite an accomplished navasana. I love it when YJ expands their horizons to include cover models who aren't white women in their 20s.

In this issue, there was a page about yoga being good for high blood pressure (which I tore out to give to my parents), a handy guide to cooking different types of whole grains and some delicious sounding recipes (looking forward to trying the blueberry quinoa muffins and the wheat berry salad), and an interview with Sanjay Patel, author/illustrator of The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities, which I now want to buy in order to get awesome posters to hang on my baby's wall.

books 2012: The Shepherd Kings, by Judith Tarr

This book was awesome. I really love Judith Tarr but I never actually seek out her books; I usually just find them at flea markets or tucked into random corners of libraries. This one I scored for 50 cents at Goodwill. It was long enough to keep me going all week (me!), and so engaging that I never wanted to put it down. A good retelling of a part of ancient Egyptian history that I hadn't thought much about before.