Brokeback Mountain

I love the polarity of travel: you gain perspective on what you left behind when you find something new out there for comparison. And sometimes the juxtaposition itself lends a new twist to your perception of the individual parts.

Consider, for example, the nexus of sheep-herding, hopeless relationships, accidental sex, and the banal reality of rural life in America. Conduct your inquiry among an astute, well-dressed, and somewhat gay crowd in one the world's great centers of arts and entertainment. And narrate the whole scene for opera (I shit you not) in what I can only call the American vernacular, with lines like, "He got hit in the head by a tire!", "Two beers and a shot!", and "Goddamit!" sung in tremulous exchanges between the bass and baritone leads.

The world premiere of Brokeback Mountain, the opera, opened last month at the Teatro Real in Madrid. It's the latest iteration of Annie Proulx's book, which was later adapted to the screen. She also wrote the libretto for this latest performance, and consulted on the production. Amy Jo and I were there in the balconies during the first run, as were critics from just about everywhere. The folks at NPR gave it a measured review, applauding the audacity of the thing without actually saying that it was, well, good. And so have gone most of the reviews, with no one going on a limb, but everyone acknowledging the hard work involved and the boldness of the effort. 

For me, it was hard to get past the crazy juxtaposition of all the components, there in the ornate and gilded opera house. I tried to empathize with the alto disappointment of the cuckolded wife as she made plans to go shopping in Billings over the weekend (yes, the opera is set in Wyoming, as is Proulx's book and the movie). I imagined keeping a doomed relationship alive way beyond its natural course. I squinted and squirmed and imagined that this whole drama could play out in the cow towns of Wyoming. But in the end I found it hard to do all that imagining through the lens of opera. 

There is certainly a plausible story there, as anyone who has read Proulx's book will tell you. The haphazard circumstances of the relationship, the soul-wrecking secrecy of the thing, the longing and wondering of "What if?" -- all provide plenty of opportunity to identify with and gain compassion for the characters. I just found it impossible to sink in and feel the story given the silliness of the whole presentation.

Parts of the production are very, very good. The pace and timing of the single act is impeccable, and I was disappointed to see the final curtain drop. The sets are simple, clever, and stunning, with the photo backdrops shot in Wyoming providing a calming context for the scenes up in the sheep pasture, and the rolling stage employed to a surprisingly emotional effect. But the musical score? Well, maybe I don't know much about these things, but I couldn't tell how it related to the scenes onstage at all. Perhaps that would difficult given the non-lofty discussions that make up the script. I was plenty honored to be there in the house that night with a hundred professional musicians playing their hearts out down there in the pit, and I watch mesmerized as they created the whole complex soundscape. But in the end, I could not connect the music to the script, nor could I connect any of the disparate parts to one another in this crazy love story. I saw the thing and am glad I did, but I cannot say that I understood it or can share a cohesive mental picture. I saw just a representation of a slice of the lives of two hapless guys from small-town America as they got themselves into a whole heap of trouble.

The audience offered the troupe a long round of seated applause. Amy Jo and I stayed put for a long time, way up in the steep balconies, admiring the stunning architecture and the colorful social scene around us. Down in the lobby, men in suits and scarves escorted their elegant fur-clad women, young folks in casual garb grouped up to make plans to go out, and stylish gay men traveled hand-in-hand out the door and across the great plaza that fronts the Teatro Real. We bundled up against the weather and made our way across town with the thinning throng, losing a few of our fellow opera-goers at each tavern and restaurant along the way. I peered into the foggy windows of each place, and saw a few couples I recognized from the lobby. I felt a little envious when I caught one pair nuzzling in what seemed, at my brief glance, to be a familial and friendly way. I turned the scene over in my mind as we made our way down the paseo, and realized that I hadn't seen for sure whether the lovers were a hetero couple or two men. And then the thought filtered in, before I had any conscious awareness of it.

"It doesn't matter." And maybe that awareness is what I got out of this goofy opera.

  -- Chris

Saturday in Segovia

O my good. That sums up the day-trip we took this last Saturday with our new friend Nicolas Garcia. As often happens in foreign places in new situations, we had no idea what to expect.

Nicolas advised Chris to wear "sport clothes" for this outing to Segovia. We predicted, correctly, that Spanish sport clothes don't include fleece garments, and that our guide would arrive in a suit coat with no tie. We weren't too far off the mark. 

I knew that one purpose of this trip was relationship building between colleagues Chris and Nicolás. These off-work friendships holds great importance in the Spanish business community. But as we settled in for the one-hour drive North to Segovia, I realized that Nicolás would also become a good friend who would have a huge and happy impact on our new life.

Segovia is best known for an intact and stunningly intact aqueduct, a roman construction built about 2000 years ago. We spent a good amount of time standing underneath the structure, looking up, and wondering "how"? How do 25,000 granite blocks, spanning almost 3000 feet, including 170 arches, hold together without mortar?

We spent almost two hours wandering with Nicolas through narrow alleyways, climbing up and down staircases, and marveling over each vista and architectural wonder. There is a gothic cathedral and a royal palace in Segovia that both deserve a posting of their own. But, what impressed me the most on Saturday was .... lunch. 

Nicolas drove us out of the city centre to his favorite restaurant. Chris and I were surely the only non-Spaniards in the building. This will forever be one of my favorite meals in Spain at a place we would never have found on our own. We ordered the standard starter: small beers to go with our plate of chorizo and bread. The waiter described our lunch options, since there were no menus in evidence. Nicolas scribbled notes on the paper tablecloth to help explain what we were about to eat. By the end, we had scribbled words in Spanish and English, drawn sketches of ungulates, and made schematic drawings of the distilling process that produced our post-lunch liqueur. The website URLs and names of kings showed how far we wandered in our far-reaching discourse.

We devoured big bowls of sopa de castellana, carved up entire carcasses of canejos con ajo, and worked our way through baskets of papas and pan. We enjoyed a torta with whiskey, cafes cortadas, and a sweet, coffee-flavored brandy. We've eaten several lunches which were concluded when a bottle, or several bottles, of liquore appear on the table. Perfect small glasses are included. Nicolas described how this is a gift from the restaurant owner, as is the plate of chorizo and olives that usually show up when you arrive. He suggested that if we order the chorizo or olives that we'll be charged for them, that if they arrive on their own they are a gift, but that we should never really never expect them. 

We'll see.

 -- Amy

House-Hunting International

We need a place to live. We'd like to find a flat by the time we leave next week, because we'd find it ideal to move into our permanent home when we return in April with all our stuff. But this international house-hunting project is going to take some time.

I've been in a half dozen flats (pisos in local parlance, literally "floors") in the last few days. Amy has been in twice that many, since she's the advance guard of our house-hunting project. We've seen just about every combination of features in these places, but to date no one place has it all. The second-floor flat in the neighborhood known as La Latina has the perfect kitchen and great artwork, for example, but our charming agent Nadia neglected to tell us that the bedroom opens onto a plaza that's home to the local tavern's sleep-killing rowdy summer beer-garden. The fourth-floor flat with killer views and a rooftop terraza  is vastly short of storage space for big stuff like bicycles, and it's a half-hour walk or forty-minute bus ride from my office. So we're choosing to stay picky for a while, reserving judgment on the lot until we see more a few more places.

By the end of the week we'll choose from among the best. We're engaged in nesting behavior, really, searching for a comfortable and secure place from which to launch this next amazing stage of our lives. I'm confident that we'll do well, if only because we're so open to the possibilities of life in this great city.

-- Chris 

P.S. February 18th. We found it and negotiated an agreement. Stay tuned!