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<\/a><\/p>\nWhile it was true that it was an Italian sung opera set in the West, I guess in my head I was expecting more of a staging that embraced the spaghetti western imagery. I obviously wasn\u2019t expecting gunfights, horses, and badly dubbed heavies. But once we arrived and the ushers were all dressed in Clint Eastwood-ian serapes, I guess I brought more of an anticipation for the staging than would prove to be the reality.<\/p>\n
I posted to Facebook at intermission my belief that the opera needed more spaghetti.\u00a0 I stand behind that comment.<\/p>\n
Like all audience members, I bring my own personal baggage, be it emotional, experiential or at times literal physical baggage. Eons ago I recall being 6 or 7 years old and going to see Starlight Express on Broadway. That morning my father bought a plasma globe thing at 47th Street Photo that he\u2019d seen on \u201cNewhart\u201d and become obsessed with. We carried that plasma globe throughout the streets of New York and then somehow had to keep it amongst the cramped seats of the Gershwin Theater. That was literal baggage that has since become emotional baggage. But I digress. The point is we interact with works of art based on our own mindsets, experiences, and issues. Such prejudices, preconceived notions, and past experiences can enhance, muddy, misconstrue, or at times transcend the art.<\/p>\n
I thought about this during the opera and my expectation for the Sergio Leone or Ennio Morricone seasonings on Puccini\u2019s work. Obviously an opera written in 1910 wouldn\u2019t have the works of the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and 1970s in it but a director and production team can stage it with those flavorings to draw out insights or commentaries on the work as a whole. Purists might balk or might rave; neophyte philistines such as myself might do the same but for different reasons. Art is subjective and as such can be both viewed through a critical eye and a visceral, personal screen.<\/p>\n
I thought about this as well during my run. Not that running is an art (though in watching some people blow past me, I suppose it can be\u2026) but what I really found myself pondering was that maybe life as a whole becomes our own personal work of art.
\nThere is nothing earth shattering or \u201cnew\u201d about such thoughts. Hell, even Kermit the Frog posited that Life is like a movie; write your own ending.\u201d This isn\u2019t really a segue mind you but amidst the subtitled arias of \u201cLa Fanciulla del West\u201d there\u2019s a line that Sheriff Jack Rance has:<\/p>\n
What is death? A kick in the dark and good night!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This too had me pondering life\u2019s mysteries, life\u2019s meaning, and perhaps what it means at the very end. There\u2019s my oft-considered by others notion then that in life, our personal baggage informs and reflects and alters our lives. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We can be so sure of our life\u2019s choices, as I was on the morning run as I cut back off the bike trail, only to realize later we\u2019ve made a wrong turn. And in correcting that turn, we take another, we make another decision, and though we\u2019re sure it will lead us back to a particular place, it takes us somewhere else entirely. Eventually we wind up where we are meant to be. Maybe a little longer, maybe a little farther than we had thought, but we get there. Maybe it\u2019s some place we never even realized we should be. But we get there.<\/p>\n
Heady thoughts and perhaps not that insightful. But something one ponders on the road, be it running, seeing an opera or four, or just traveling through this thing called life. And, yes, it might all be rationalizations for getting lost. But sometimes the best things happen when one is lost \u2013 a new discovery, a new challenge, a new reservoir of strength and courage to press on.<\/p>\n
In an irrational world that often makes no sense, rationalization is a necessary coping mechanism for sanity.<\/p>\n
It also helps so you don\u2019t freak out when you have no idea where you are in New Mexico, have no phone, no motorcar, not a single luxury save one\u2019s own two feet and a vague notion of which way to go. Scientists and explorers have made huge discoveries with less\u2026 and all I wanted to do was to find my way back to the King\u2019s Rest Court Inn on Cerrillos Road.<\/p>\n
Plus, the added mileage this morning meant I could scarf down this reportedly \u201creasonably sized\u201d lunch entr\u00e9e at La Choza:<\/p>\n