this is one of the more despicable facets of living in a city inundated with high art options. making decisions which one to patronize can be morbidly paralyzing.
case in point: the current season at the met (i.e. metropolitan opera) is already on its third month and yet i have to decide which production i must go to. unlike those old rich upper east siders, a met season pass is way out of my league. there, i've said it and strangely enough, i am no longer embarrassed about it now that i've blurted it out.
odds are i am going to be drawn again to this puccini warhorse, turandot (which will have its season premiere next year yet). i am not about to apologize for my own predilection for the melodramatic puccinis--la boheme, et.al.. the more snooty new york opera aficionados only have disdain for the melody mired body of works of this italian maestro. oh, you should hear what they say about his saccharine arias.
i do enjoy my wagner sometimes although i confess, i have yet to see the entire ring cycle. (there's a decent set of wagnerian offerings in the current season, incidentally.) but seeing something asianey staged at the decidedly occidental and imperial met gives me ample resolve to bundle up and brave the frigid east coast winter just to be dizzy for about two hours or so from my seat way up at the met's vertiginous fourth ring. this is met's nose bleeder section.
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beijing, legendary times. this is turandot's mise-en-scene. and turandot is the man-hating princess who is being hawked in marriage by her father to anyone, royal pedigree preferable but not required, who can answer three riddles. death is the consequence for the witless suitor who can not guess all three correctly.
the long and short of it anyway is that the tenor part, prince calàf, correctly answers the riddles much to the consternation of the princess. characteristically, turandot begs her father not to abandon her to a stranger. the love struck calàf generously offers turandot a riddle of his own: if she can learn his name by dawn, he will forfeit his life.
on pain of death, no one in the forbidden city shall sleep until turandot learns the victorious prince's name. thus the title of the opportunity aria of the prince, the now very familiar nessun dorma.
"nessun dorma, nessun dorma." no one sleeps, no one sleeps.
the aria crawls to a start almost like the way a dirge should initially be sung, tentatively, gingerly. but then the prince, as the song soars, gets to feel like rumplestiltskin, so smug that no would know his secret (i.e. his name). he then gathers all the air in his chest and howls in victory at the end.
"vincero! vincero!" i shall win! i shall win!
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there is no doubt in my mind that he is already dead tired of my whining. this is my friend who edits the online edition of one of the leading english broadsheets in manila. he has this very unoriginal way of telling me to grow up. he just brushes off my instant messages.
ever since i came back to the east coast, there never was any conversation we had--phone or im--that didn't include me complaining about how i still got the blues from totally missing the roaring night life of manila.
"but you live in new fucking york city," my friend would remind me over and over in his best impression of joe pesci.
"yeah, yeah, yeah. pero iba talaga diyan." i could already hear my voice, tinny and downright annoying.
i know, i know. the kander/ebb anthem, the one that liza can probably belt even in her drunken stupor, proclaims that i am back living in a the city that never sleeps. but had these two jewish upper west siders spent some serious r & r in manila, they would sing a different tune, to speak of.
case in point: after ten at night, there is not a single food store that dares to open in our neck of the woods. the closest 24-hour diner in this bronx area i am holed in is a six dollar cab ride away. back in manila, even the family restaurant mcdonalds go on 24 hour red eye operations. top that new york.
nothing says crazyroaringsexycool night life (and blisteringbringyourownairconditioner day scene) like 12 million fiesta crazy people sardine packed in one balmy city by the bay.
i guess this one belongs to the list of apocryphal yogiberrisms. but many swore to have heard him say that in new york "it gets late early out (t)here." sounds like a classic yogi berra quote, way up there with "nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."
"maraming beses na kitang nilayasan...." still remember this 70's song? there's no shame in singing along. we're not called the karaoke nation for nothing. just follow the jumping ball. "manila, manila, i keep coming back to manila."