Frankly Speaking

It’s ironic how much I’m able to maintain this journal between planes and trains.

It’s ironic how many times I’m going to be flying to a city that I like so little. It’s ironic how the one person who has the power to make those trips so pleasant may have no clue and it’s really ironic how perfect that person may think I am. It’s ironic how much time some are willing to lose and how little risk they’re willing to take.

Irony can be as endless and unexpected as the digits of pi. Finally, it’s surprisingly ironic to what extent culture and travel can substitute for lost love. But how could it not:

Snapshots of Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Garnier have kept me giggling lately. Try as I may to find a version of Singt dem Großen Bassa Lieder as perfect in tempo as that seen on stage, I could not. It was simple, teasing, with multiple clins d’œil for those who knew something about the art of belly dancing… Mozart is the most mischievous and playful music writer I can think of at the moment.

Then came Berlin with an even funnier adaptation of Der Untergang der Nibelungen, so naturally out of time and place with the text, and so out of text and into current politics, it made everyone in that tiny east-side theatre crack.

But the cherry on top was Saturday night: a Welch ballet performed to a Bach piece. Projectors threw just the right colors to highlight those perfect topless bodies moving in baroque. They were not artists dancing, rather kids floating playfully on top of the orchestra. They were smiling joyfully. They were uncomplicated. They were Berlin.

Soon comes Istanbul, Tosca, London, Austin, Berlin and Frankfurt all over again…

Life is great, that may be true; but frankly speaking, where are you?