What is Time?

Here is my video! I am kind of excited. Though I do have to admit the video gives me creepy feelings.

And I did create an event for the fair on Facebook. Apparently there have been 2 of them going around. Double the advertising?

Now I’m not saying that Oprah will be at the Time Fair, but I’m not saying that Oprah will not be at the Time Fair. also,

and,

wait,

lastly,

Hope you guys brought your A game.

-Kathryn

So, I started writing this around 5pm today, and wanted to finish before dinner, but I had an important phone call, which continued into dinner, and so I completely forgot about it. A few minutes ago, I sat down at the computer and saw the email and finished up this mostly complete blog post. The title was originally prefaced with “Brinn Stole My Idea” but it became readily apparent after a glance at the Time Blog that the time had, unfortunately, passed.

I’ve never seen “Carmen” before, so all of this was new to me. With that in mind, I definitely agree with Brinn in that 1: it felt incredibly long and 2: I was so hungry. Maybe an angry editor inserted subliminal messages into this cut of the opera.

The two operas we watched in class were both exponentially more engaging than “Carmen.” I felt like whenever it went into song, the opera would start running in place, singing the same sentence for 15 minutes, then moving on to the next part, and then staying there for 15 minutes. Now, I understand that “Carmen” is a long-form opera and the other two were not, but if all long-form operas I like this, then maybe I just shouldn’t go see them.

On the other hand, if this was indeed an accurate representation of what an opera is like, it is interesting to look at older forms of art involved actors and such. Some people obviously love this kind of thing, and I didn’t. At first, I wondered how this could have ever have had such wide appeal. Then, I began to wonder if it’s just my ADD-internet-psycho generation. We want what we want now and if it doesn’t get there fast enough, then we move on to something else. TL;DR. Has this generation actually just completely lost its patience? Maybe in the past, people didn’t really pay attention to the opera and they would repeat themselves just to make sure that everyone knew what was going on? I guess these days are brains are saturated with stories, videos and pictures we see on the internet, so it takes quite a bit more to impress us. Pure speculation. Maybe I’ll make a movie about it?

As far as the actual narrative goes, I found it interesting that because Carmen thought that Don Jose was going to lead to her death, she set in motion a series of events that led to Don Jose killing her; by trying to predict the future, she created it for herself. In the play, she clearly wanted to love Done Jose, but thought that by doing so, she would be killed. The opposite turned out to be true, and while by killing her, Done Jose proved to have some issues (IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU, NO ONE WILL), going with him was the best choice. Or at least, a better chance if she wanted to live? Actually, maybe she just should have gotten the hell out of Spain. In short, don’t try to change destiny because you think you know how everything’s gonna go down, because you don’t. UNLESS THAT’S WHAT ALWAYS HAD TO HAPPEN?!

For the live performance we were to attend for this class, I chose to go see “Le Corsaire” in DC. This was kind of a leap for me. I’ve never been to a ballet before, primairy because I, now ashamedly, never had any interest in attending a performance where music, especially good music, was subservient to what was going on. This is the same reason I hate recititave in opera-I couldn’t stand hearing music that was just a commentary for the “bigger” art. I’m just to attuned to the music being played to not pay attention to it alone. That’s now beginning to change thanks to Le Corsaire.
It was the typical hero trying to save the girl situation with some backstabbing here and there. The take was rather comic, which I learned was because the ballet is only loosely based on the actual story (much like between a book and it’s movie). The ballet started out wonderfully, but seemed to taper off towards the end and didn’t seem to match the storytelling of the beginning. But long story short, the dancers were absolutely amazing. I never have really appreciated the physicality of professional dancers, but what really took me was their natural attention to detail and the unbelievable fluidity in their movements. It was truley an eye opening experience having my attention completely and almost involuntairly focused on movement for almost three hours. Most suprising was that I wasn’t upset about the music of the ballet. It was very effective in working in tandem with what the dancers were doing and with the story being told. I admit that I won’t be downloading the soundtrack anytime soon, if ever. There just weren’t any memorable musical moments that I want to revisit. But therein lies the magic-the music never trumped or bowed to the rest of the production. It all blended perfectly. Which leads to my temporal experience of the night.
I arrived to the Kennedy Center and was seated two rows from the stage, slighty left of center, and I was very excited. I didn’t know if this was going to be an eye opening experience or substantiate my bias against ballet (my girlfriend and I have had a debate going for a long time about who’s more all around skilled and the greater artist, the dancer or musician). Not once in the followign three hours did I glance at my clock in agitation or bordom. I percieved that I had been there for a while but the passing time didn’t have the quantitiative aspects that I thought it woud. This may be due to the fact that I was experiencing something new, but I’m sure that if the experience was something I hadn’t enjoyed then my frustration would have overcome my initial excitement very quickly. This was not the case though. The time spent was almost purely qualitative. Only during the intermissions did I feel the passing of time; I would walk out of the theater with a sense of slight exahustion, which I attribute to drainage from focus. I tried to pass the intermissions with a drink, but the lines were too long, and $5 for a beer and $17.00 for an old fashioned was not going to happen. So I would call my girlfriend (she’s currently going to school at the American Music and Dramatic Academy in NY and has always been an amazing dancer) and try to describe what I just saw. Obviously not having the technical dancer lingo to describe the moves, I used “jump, leap, hella high crazy spinning jumps” and other juvenile adjectives. She laughed at me the whole time, and not just at my super adorable ignorance, but because I was actually getting really excited about describing what I was seeing. Before I knew it intermission was over and I was rushing back to my seat. Being so close to the stage helped to enhance my qualitative experience. I could hear the dancers breathing and see their muscles performing intricate rapid flexations, and taking this all in at once, and for the first time, was wonderfully overwhelming. Like I said the ending was disappionting but the night as a whole was nothing less than completely enjoyable. It wasn’t a 5 hour ordeal of traffic and dance, it was a great evening of art.

I guess its high time I write about my thoughts on this Opera, considering I saw it about a month ago. I am kind of in the middle as to how much I enjoyed this Opera. On the one hand I did enjoy the experience of listening to the music itself. I have never really listened to an Opera in full before so it was a nice change to see how the story progresses. Instead of my usual “name that famous opera tune!” which usually is how I listen to Opera.

Yet, within the Opera story itself I was aware of how disjuncted it felt to the real passing time. The reason for this is because of how it was set up. With three acts and two 20 minute long intermissions. It seemed as if every time I felt myself getting lost into the story and the characters “time,” I was brought back to my time and completely aware of how much time had passed. It also didn’t help that during the intermission they showed some of the backstage stuff and interviewed the singers. While this was interesting and I enjoyed learning about it, it didn’t help with me being lost in the story. Because for some reason watching and seeing the work they put into it just took away part of the magic (is that the right word?) of the story. It is almost as if I began to see how our time actually affected the performance.

Instead of just enjoying the story and following it in the lives of the characters on stage I began thinking about the singers and how they perceived the performance within their roles. Then I began thinking about how much time was put into actually producing the Opera itself. There was also the mention of how this was the second time performing this Opera for much of the cast and I started thinking about how it is strange that people want to watch or reproduce the same thing again.

I also wondered if the show became sort of automated if they performed it again and again, did it become a lets just go through the actions kind of thing? Or were people still feeling nervous and excited just as they did the first time they performed the Opera? I think I can assume that people don’t have the same feelings every time they put on a show like this. But does that change the show and even time itself? Can your feelings about a certain moment change the way time moves through it?

Now I am beginning to feel a bit like Augustine, asking more than answering, but maybe it is because there is no clear answer we are so fascinated. I think that curiosity for the unknown is something that makes us human. We strive for answers, and I think once we know that everything cannot be answered we are content with what is. Or maybe not. But back to the Opera. I enjoyed it. I never will relive the experience of seeing an Opera all the through for the “first” time again. But, I can always rewatch it. It would be interesting to see what kind of new thoughts I come up with, and if the Opera says something else. Chances are though, if I rewatch it I will still experience a colliding of the real world with the fictional. It just might not be as evident as when I walked out of the movie theater after 4 hours of being in it. There was a definite moment of, “There are people who weren’t there?!”

~Jenn Arndt

So I went to the encore presentation of Lucia de Lammermoor. I have to admit that I have always been fairly judgmental when it comes to things such as opera. No offense, but it seems a bit prissy. Despite my reservations, I think that if I were to have seen this opera in an actual theater in New York or anywhere like that I’m sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more. I think that there is just something about the atmosphere that changes everything. The intermission during this encore seemed to drag on for forever. I was pretty sick when I went to see it so at one point I found myself wandering aimlessly in the hallway. I think it took the entire 20 minute intermission for me to snap back to reality. But I think that if I were watching this at the Met the intermission would seem much shorter. I went to go see The Addams Family on Broadway this past January (please don’t ask why I went to that one, not my choice) and the intermission flew by. I was barely able to purchase my souvenir travel mug of wine before the show started again. What made the intermission last even longer was that stupid lady that Stephen mentioned in his post. She was wearing this obnoxious bright orange blazer and she interview everyone and their mother. Then the rest of the intermission was filled with men shouting at each other backstage in irritating New York accents. I will never again go see a show in a movie theater for those reasons. An old couple left in a rage because of the intermission. “If I had known that it was going to be a satellite feed I would never have come!”

So ends my rant about the intermissions. Besides that little issue, the opera was pretty entertaining. The costumes were really pretty and so were the sets. I thought that the singing was extraordinary. I had always made jokes about operas and singing but watching it actually happen gives me a whole new perspective. I didn’t even mind that I couldn’t understand the words. Actually, the subtitles bothered me. Without the subtitles I think I would still “get” the plot, actually maybe I would understand more.

I mentioned before that I was sick but I wanted to stick around because I knew that there was going to be a “famous mad scene” at the end. I so wish I could say that it was worth it. Unfortunately I thought that the buildup was just too much and in the end I was let down. I did leave shortly after that because I was dying and sitting in a theater for four hours wasn’t helping my rapidly declining health. All in all I would say that if I were anywhere but here, as Ryan said, I think I would enjoy the opera. I think that being in some elaborately opera house would add a lot to the experience. Next time I’m in New York (which might be never because cities like New York scare me a little) I’ll try and go to the Met.

Well, I had weeks to write this and I had been planning an elaborate post in which I re-tell Carmen with pictures of cats, but I seem to have lost track of time, so here are my thoughts on the opera. Apologies if they seem incoherent and rushed; I somehow convinced myself that I had until the Time Fair to have this blog post done.

I must admit that going to the opera is not my preferred Sunday afternoon activity, as it required me to put on pants and leave my house, but, on this particular Sunday afternoon, I found myself wearing pants at the Fredericksburg movie theater with Kathryn, Marshall and a few other students from What is Time?

We got some snacks and prepared for what I soon discovered would be the longest three hours of my entire existence. I decided to go see Carmen, rather than any of the other options, because it was in 3D. I assumed this meant that Michael Bay directed it and there would be explosions at every turn. Sadly, I was mistaken. There wasn’t even one explosion. The character Carmen was a bit over-sexed, though, so perhaps Mr. Bay did have a hand in this production after all. The most interesting portion of the opera was the 20 minute intermission where we sat staring at a clock, watching time creep by at an impossibly slow pace. I wonder if this was not intended to be a commentary on how often slowly time can move. Watching the opera was just as thrilling as watching the clock, as in, I felt like time had stopped and I was going to be trapped in that theater staring at a screen forever. I think the entire thing could have been condensed to an hour if the songs had been less unbearably repetitive.

I don’t mean to be so harsh about the opera. I’m sure some are enjoyable, but this one wasn’t.

You guys. The other week I had the pleasure of an afternoon jaunt to the ever-wonderful Regal Fredericksburg 15 with a one Jordan and Marshall, or, if you will, Jarshall.  While it certainly was no Muvico, the presence of Pretzel M&M’s did assuage my mild discomfort.

Soon after we entered the theater, the next three hours expanded to what I can only compare to a bloated corpse washing ashore the banks of the East River.  I am not sure if this is the case with all operas, but at least with Carmen, time seemed to linger, drawing out what should have taken perhaps forty five minutes.

Approximately, one hour into the viewing, I nodded off, drifting myself off into the land of Dream Time, a time that tragically did not last very long, although I did have the opportunity to join Jon Leguizamo in his search for the perfect condominium, which is fitting, because I have watched a lot of HGTV’s Househounters recently, so I practically have my real estate license.  Anyways, after I awoke from the dream I spent the remaining portion of the opera realizing that I had heard a fair number of these songs before, and actually had no idea that most of them came from Carmen.

So all in all, I might not be partaking in any 3D telecast of operas anytime soon, the Pretzel M&M’s were definitely worth it.

Wow…I wrote this and then forgot to post it!

I attended the opera “Lucia di Lammermoor” rebroadcast.  Honestly, I was not particularly excited about the idea of spending hours of my Wednesday evening watching opera as it has never been my favorite art form and I don’t know after seeing it my opinion as changed.

My first ever experience with opera was back when I was 13 and it should have been an exciting one.  For spring break my family had taken a trip to Vienna, Austria and my father, lover of the arts, decided that he wanted us all to go see an opera.  We got very cheap seats at the opera that were standing room only and we came in during the middle of a show.  There were no subtitles so I had no idea what was going on and all I could think about was home much my feet hurt.  The time dragged on.  With this experience in mind I went to the movie theater to see “Lucia di Lammermoor” hoping that at the very least I wouldn’t leave the show with tired feet.

I arrived at the show a little late because I was coming from my night class.  When I got there though, I realized that the opera had yet to start and the performance broadcast was running 40 minutes behind schedule.  Sitting and waiting for it to start was a hungry and rather dull way to pass the time.

Maybe it is the generation that I am from, but once the opera started I found it hard to get involved in the story and the music and feel removed from my own personal time.  The story was one that reminded me of “Romeo & Juliet” so it was not a new and exciting story with an unexpected ending, but rather a common tragedy set to music.  The scene where she goes mad did catch my attention for a moment and I did feel involved in the story although it was a fleeting experience.  While it may not have been the themes in the opera itself, time was a crucial part of my experience of the performance.  I found that opera seems to heighten my awareness of time and slow it down to a point that I am uncomfortable with.  Maybe someday I will be able to engross myself in an opera without feeling the passage of every second.

-Jane Kadyszewski

(Sorry this is rather late; I kept forgetting about it).

So I went to see Carmen 3-D a few weeks ago.

Now, Carmen is far and away my favorite opera. I love the music, many of the songs, and the plot. I’m generally not especially keen on opera, but I do love Carmen. I’ve seen a couple of different productions of it (my favorite being that one of Naxos with the red-head as Carmen… I don’t remember where/when it was).

This production was thoroughly NOT my favorite.

To be fair, it had a number of cards stacked against it. I had a friend drive me to the theater and he was late in picking me up so I was afraid I was going to be late for the show. There were about three non-UMW students in the audience, and that was a little sad. It started at three or four in the afternoon and went until six. Having had a rather light lunch, by the time about five rolled around, I was starving. That in itself made time seemingly stand still. I know the progression of the opera and I know what happens in the story, but the first hour and a half seemed to take FOREVER. I like Carmen and when it comes to movies, I have a tendency to lose myself in the story and lose track of time. Except this time, I was hungry and grumpy so I kept checking my phone only to find ten minutes had only passed.

Not to mention the fact that there was a 20 minute intermission during which we were basically forced to watch a clock tick. This wasn’t a live performance or even a stream of one–it was a movie, with editing and everything. The opera isn’t especially long; I’ve sat through longer movies in theaters. I do not understand why they felt the need to keep the intermission when it would have been just as easy to cut it out.

As far as the actual performance of the opera was concerned, I mostly liked it. The 3D part was annoying as it added nothing to the show and made it even more difficult to knit in an already-dark theater. And as Natasha said, Carmen herself was awkwardly over-sexualized and basically groped everything. IDEK. It was an interesting show though and I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been hungry and it hadn’t had a seemingly endless intermission.