rsc and I went to the Boston Lyric Opera to see The Little Prince, a relatively new opera by Rachel Portman. It's certainly not Grand Opera, but it was lots of fun. I really enjoyed it.It was well cast and staged and did good justice to the story. It is in English but with supertitles (a good thing since you couldn't always understand the words). The house was less than half-full which is too bad since lots of people would have enjoyed it. Probably not good marketing since it won't appeal to serious opera lovers and it was on a school night. Maybe they'll do better with the rest of the shows.
I read Le Petit Prince in 4th Form (10th grade) French class and I still have the delightful book with Antoine Saint Exupéry's illustrations. It is one of these children's stories that is really written for adults. I've always loved it and think fondly of it. I reread some of it a couple of nights ago but it was slow going since my French is not very good any more.
The narrator (also an airline pilot) starts by telling a tale of his youth when he drew a picture of a serpent boa who had just eaten a beast:
When grownups are asked if they are frightened, they said Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?" so he did a new drawing (which can be seen on the now obsolete 50 franc note which
slinkr brought back for us in 2001 I'd mistakenly spent my copy):Grownups always need to have things explained to them he says as he continues.
Last night when we came back home, I went to look for my copy of Wind, Sand, and the Stars, also by Saint Exupéry but it wasn't in its place in the shelf where it had been for 30 years or so before the big renovation. It is amazing how I can remember where books used to be. My boss used to always use the quote
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
when we were discussing user interfaces and feature creep.
Flippin' Angelfire!