Dim Sum and Opera

Dim Sum for lunch, the joys of being not far from Manchester.
and Zoroastre for the evening. In the summer we saw inside the Baroque theatre in Česky Krumlov, to see inside is the most you can do but that includes going beneath the stage. Untouched for 200 years and preserved in perfection, a memorable encounter. This production is from Drottingholm the other baroque theatre not quite as original but it is still a working theatre.
The gestures of Amir Hosseinpour's dance language is reigned in and perfectly blended into baroque dance forms, in touch with the genies of this theatre, fitted onto the small performing space and necessary simplicity of lighting.
I loved the formality of this; very different from the rumbustiousness of the opéra-ballet.
This is the second tragédie en musique by Rameau I have seen on DVD, the other being  Les Boréades which must be far outside the accepted form. A mission now to find others.

We start

Was given "The Glass Building" to read. It was not just that it was badly written but that the background knowledge that had been so assiduously Googled showed its paste too readily:- I quote

"The car - a Tatra, she had been told - drew in at the kerb and stopped".

 She is supposed to be blind so Simon Mawer couldn't resist telling us he had researched that taxis when the book was supposed to be set were Tatras but this totally irrelevant to the thoughts of a blind old lady . By page 37 I was heartily sick of these gobbits of ill digested research and closed the book. I then started reading again Thomas Berhard: sort of a cold shower! After "Concrete" then "Extinction" now on "Corrections". The connection with the Mawer is that the catalysts is a famous Central European modernist building. Even when a lot must be lost in translation it's such fun to read language used with a purpose.
Films recently watched  Doing a Fellini burst specifically the late ones. "Orchestra rehearsal"  only comes alive halfway through just 5 minutes beyond the point I nearly switched it of. However "Fred and Ginger" is a poignant gem. Although perhaps it gains with knowledge of some of the earlier films; it has become more topical in the intervening 23 years - Berlusconi pre-invented by Fellini. I have never tried Clouzot, not quite separating him from the inspector.  "Le Corbeau" followed "Quai des Orfèvres" in my watching, both deserve re-watching soon.