Category: events

Rigoletto

On Tuesday, my neighbor and I went to our second opera of that season: Verdi’s Rigoletto. In contrast to Fidelio, it was a very traditional production, and it was astonishing.

I saw Rigoletto multiple times back in Russia, but like with many operas that I thought I knew, it turned out that we had a severely reduced version of it. My first eye-opener was Carmen, and Boris told me that he had a similar revelation with Faust, and now Rigoletto.

Beautiful. More tragic than I ever thought.

Fidelio

I never heard anything except for the overture to “Fidelio.” I do not think it was ever on stage in the Soviet Union (likely because the theme of the opera is the imprisonment of a political rival), and it was rarely performed in the US as well.

My friend and I were wondering how far the opera “modernization” would go; we both had a couple of traumatic experiences of that kind recently. However, the production was amazing! Everything fit really well in the context of the modern prison, and an amazing woman whose courage saves the world prompted somebody behind us to start chanting Ka-ma-la! 😀

And the voices were extraordinary!

Harry Potter And The Cursed Child

This show just opened last weekend, and I saw it yesterday. I have just one word – FANTASTIC! Everything they write about this show, and better! Everything you can see in this promotional video, but better because it’s had to capture the fire on stage – it is way cooler than it looks!

PG Day Lowlands

Friday, September 13 – the Pg Day Lowlands team was brave enough to have their first event scheduled on that day :). And it went really well! I liked a lot of things about it, and I definitely want to use some of them for PG Day Chicago, including the rule that Boriss Mejias mentioned about always leaving a space for a fith person to join a group of four. I also loved the idae of Sponsor Passports, which encoraged the participants to visit all sponsor tables.

I started this post three days ago, but never had time to finish because the moment I returned to work, I had no time for anything else. But now, I have pictures taken by a professional photographer, so instead of posting whatever pictures I took, I can post really high-quality ones. So now, there just a couple of mine left :).

Here are some of them (of cause, I am shamelessly posting the pictures of myself:))

Speakers gifts
Sponsors
It was a different photographer than two years ago, and Boris was not even in the front row, but still 🙂
Sponsor passports ready for drawing

PG Day UK

I believe that was the first conference I was late to! Maybe just for 15 minutes, but still – I always arrive early.

My talk went really well, and I am glad I rehearsed it multiple times. It’s not something “revolutionary” in terms of concepts, but I am glad I presented a new and very useful tool for performance analysis.

I think the biggest problem with the conference was a relatively low attendance, which, I think was a combination of being a relatively new event and not enough advertizing. Thereby, the audience was “polarized” – there were many people who “knew everything” and many total novices, and a very little number of people “from the middle.”

Also, the social event after was non-existent: everybody could stop at the pub and use one free drink ticket, but it was so loud and so crowded that the only place you could speak was outside 🙂

“Never Better” Musical

Theo Ubique Cabaret just opened the season with the new musical Never Better by Preston Max Allen. Today was a preview and only the second run of the show. I am so impressed! It’s different from anything I saw at Theo before. It’s a very tragic story, not even pretending to be funny, and the acting is just stunning! Each character is so true to life, and for all of the two hours, it’s so real that you forget you’re in the theater, and you worry about the characters and what will happen next.

The show runs for five more weeks, so if you are around, come and watch it!

Ninotchka

Siskel Center started a new lecture series, “Propaganda and Counterculture.” The program is incredibly interesting. However, I can hardly attend any because most of my Tuesdays are already scheduled. Because of that, I made a point to see “Nonotchka” last Tuesday.

The auditorium was packed with students who stayed for a class after the screening. I am curious to know their impressions! The movie is funny. Even with the obligatory dose of “cranberry trees,” it still captures some utterly funny details that are pretty close to reality.

Now that I think about it, maybe “funny” is exactly what feels slightly disturbing. One may say that we are not afraid of things we can laugh about, but at the same time, that exact feeling that “things are not too scary” prompts the viewers to believe that the communist regime was not so bad…

Bike The Drive

For the second year in a row, I did a full course of Bike the Drive! The weather was perfect except for heavy winds after 8 AM, which slowed down the last portion of my ride. Other than that – just perfect. This time, I didn’t pay for breakfast because, for two years in a row, I found it expensive and not good. I much preferred the snacks at the rest stops: bananas, apples, dried fruits and nuts packs. Also, Urban Remedy was giving away small bottles of coffee and cookies.

I checked my bike and attached the number the night before
At the event starting point
At the turning point – the rest stop by the Museum of Science and Industry
Stopping on the overpass on the way back
30 miles challenge medal
Urban Remedy goodies. I checked their website – their products are very expensive, so I don’t think I will buy any, but it was great to try.

Larisa Shepitko Movies

Thursday was the last day of the Siskel Center’s “Entrances and Exits” series. Each night, the Film Center presented the first and last film of an outstanding director. Yesterday, it was Larisa Shepitko Heat and The Ascent. I only went to see the first one, because I can’t spend four hours in the movies, and couldn’t be that late (my workload is absolutely insane these days).

Heat is Shepetko’s first movie, the one she directed as her graduation project, and I never saw it or heard about it (yes, there are some gaps in my education). I can’t even describe how much I loved it. It’s incredible that in 1963, she could produce a full-length film that would be so moving, deep, powerful, and with almost no traces of propaganda or obligatory Soviet reports.

While searching for any information about this movie in English, I found this video, which outlines the history of Kyrgyz cinematography and talks about the Heat in detail.

Back To The Future Musical

I haven’t seen the movie, and I didn’t know the synopsis (and didn’t want to read any reviews before I saw it for myself), so I went in on Wednesday with an open mind.

I liked the show; There is nothing deep and philosophical, but everything is put together really well; the music and lyrics are great, and the special effects are amazing. Great entertainment and it’s exactly what I needed to balance my insane workload.