BLOGG #90 WHAT I DID ON VALENTINE'S DAY

Today is Valentine Day and as we all know, the ritual for celebrating this day is specific. It has to be romantic . The time honoured way is to have it spent by receiving either a heart shaped box of icky chocolates from your current beau or a dozen red roses at a hundred dollars a dozen which last exactly one day before they droop thereby lasting usually exactly the time a love lasts- a warning metaphor for us all who believe in everlasting love. The other most common celebration is a romantic meal in an expensive restaurant followed by a romantic night in a revealing scratchy skimpy and ridiculouneglegie which makes most women look ridiculous -a gift from our romantic beaus. These are all wonderful and I hope you have all participated in at least one of the above but not me. I went to the opera. The metropolitan Opera of New York presented two romantic operas specifically for Valentine's Day and I enjoyed them immensely The operas are both fairy talesthe first one was Iolanta by Tchaikovski and the second was Bluebeard's Castle by Bartok.-They were both chosen to emphasize the broad spectrum of romantic love. The first-Iolanta is a story about a blind princess imprisoned in the deep forest-of course it has to be a deep forest. Fairy tales would not have been written if there hadn't been any deep forests. I have never heard of a princess hidden in a desert-have you? The theme of this first tale is about darkness turning to light-The blind princess is doomed to darkness and is imprisoned by her father for a ridiculous reason as always, until a prince-what else-stumbles on her forest prison, falls in love with her and cures her blindness. Now here's a twist. We have always known "love is blind" how often have you said "What does she see in him or viseversa.She-he- must be blind". but not in this case. Love cures blindness. Mind you, Tchaikovski was skating on pretty thin ice. The whole romance could have gone awry.Once the princess could see, she might have found her beloved prince a froggy looking prince but thank goodness love prevails and once she sees his face she loves him even more. Iolanta is a Russian opera so it has a Russian feel and sound with beautiful music and wonderful voices.The Russian language is beautiful when sung and this opera lived up to that. It ended with a lovely fullbodied chorus singing reverent praises to God thanking him for beautiful light -the greatest gift of all. Bluebeard's Castle is another kettle of fish.This is a dark story set in Hungary.The theme is opposite to Iolanta's. Here we start in Darkness and it gets worse. There are only two people in this opera-the tall brooding Bluebeard, a handsome bearded impeccably dressed bass singer chain smoking and exuding menacing sexynes-a woman's longing nightmare and Judith a silly young blonde mezzosoprano in a clinging gown who is rushing to her doom all the while begging this monster to let her in his castle and give her the keys to the hidden seven rooms. Her stance is that she loves him and thinks if he gives her the keys and she opens the locked rooms to let her love in,the darkness will dispel. Will we women ever learn? The upshot is she opens the rooms lets in the light and is appalled at the horrors in them-blood, gore and rivers of tears to say nothing of all the instruments of murder and torture. Does this stop her? Not at all! she begs for the rest of the keys singing of her love and asking that time old question women like to ask-"Do you love me best of all your wives?"- all the five dead ones mind you- The last key opens to the garden where she stumbles on her open grave and sees her own dead body -a horrible Valentine's day ending. There was mind you some lightness at least for the males in the audience. Judith did bathe revealingly naked in bluebeard's bathtub [he did not kill here there] Believe me, Marilyn Monroe in her bathtub scene in "The Seven Year's Itch wasn't sexier ! The music was dark, hauntingly beautiful in a typical Hungarian minimal scale-no high notes here and I loved it.This is not, of course, a love story but is really a fairy tale with a lesson. It is about a journey we all-male or female -take in our life when we feel deep disillusion,turn our backs on our life-Judith abandons her family and fiance-and search in dark hidden places for illumination-unlocking doors as we go. This is a very brave act and I retract my statement.Judith was not silly but brave.She risked her life "wanting to know." We all do this sometime in our own lives. So my readers-this was the Met's Valentines gift to me and I pass it on to you and remember -Watch out for that little naked fat boy with bow and arrow-He is one of the profoundest Life's teachers.