OH GOSH those trailers! I am having SO many feelings now about these characters. That super awkward hug between Philip and Posa in the first one: Philip trying to be a human being and Posa's little smile! Okay, now as a direct result of watching those, and realizing that between being obsessive about the opera and constructing this massive post, I can in fact do pretty well at picking out characters and sometimes the scene (although THAT SECOND ONE, IS THAT POSA KISSING ELISABETH WHAT EVEN IS THAT) (I may have mentioned I am having a lot of feelings right now), I am thinking that, although spoken in translation is still clearly better for me, I could watch it in German with the script in front of me -- if you know of any good German productions that would be available to me? Regie is fine; I'd watch any of the ones you linked. I'd prefer online/non-DVD format if not available from a US seller because I worry about running into DVD region issues, but maybe that could be worked around. Also, I suppose you would never have had to consult any translations, but do you happen to have any thoughts on what would be a good English translation? Hey, maybe I'll finally learn German...
the play is quite consciously a father-son rivalry not just about a woman but about a man.
Oh yes, absolutely, and the man is the one that is most dramatically resonant. Seriously, part of the reason I prefer the opera, I'm coming to see, is that I was crushed when Posa rejected Philip so decisively, ha.
I think I will have to request it for Yuletide! There's just so much interesting stuff there, so much complexity to the characters that I would love to read about more. And it's interesting, too, to think about the choices someone would have to make writing for it rather than the opera; I wrote this thing (which I see you've read <3) working through having Philip make a different choice, which he's only able to do because in the AU he can believe that Posa did care for him, after all. (Whether or not he actually did is, of course, more ambiguous; he would not have written the letter only for Filippo's sake.) And while it's just barely possible to do that in the opera milieu, and even then I couldn't quite make it work without changing Posa a tiny bit, it's not even possible for me to imagine it in the context of Schiller. Schiller's Posa would have to be entirely different than he is to even think about appealing to Philip in that way. And of course, the pressure points are far different in the play -- what if Carlos forced Posa to tell him what was going on instead of going to Eboli? I mean, in the post I thought that would fix everything, but really it only fixes the (admittedly pretty dire) immediate problems -- what would have happened with that whole Philip-Carlos-Posa triangle, which still would have been set to explode in one way or another? -- oh, I should just write my Yuletide letter already, hee.
I had no idea about Friedrich/Friedrich II/Katte (I have big holes in my history knowledge in general), this is amazing. Wikipedia tells me, However, when he was brought up to be executed, Frederick shouted in French to Katte, "Veuillez pardonner mon cher Katte, au nom de Dieu, pardonne-moi!" ("Please forgive, my dear Katte, in God's name, forgive me."). Katte called back in the same language, "There is nothing to forgive, I die for you with joy in my heart!" omg! *fell in love with both of them right there*
Oh, your Catherine de' Medici fic looks fantastic, I have it downloaded and will report back :)
(btw I'm going to be with family for a week with possibly-limited connectivity/free time, so although I obviously would love to talk about this more, if I don't reply for the next week or so that's why)
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the play is quite consciously a father-son rivalry not just about a woman but about a man.
Oh yes, absolutely, and the man is the one that is most dramatically resonant. Seriously, part of the reason I prefer the opera, I'm coming to see, is that I was crushed when Posa rejected Philip so decisively, ha.
I think I will have to request it for Yuletide! There's just so much interesting stuff there, so much complexity to the characters that I would love to read about more. And it's interesting, too, to think about the choices someone would have to make writing for it rather than the opera; I wrote this thing (which I see you've read <3) working through having Philip make a different choice, which he's only able to do because in the AU he can believe that Posa did care for him, after all. (Whether or not he actually did is, of course, more ambiguous; he would not have written the letter only for Filippo's sake.) And while it's just barely possible to do that in the opera milieu, and even then I couldn't quite make it work without changing Posa a tiny bit, it's not even possible for me to imagine it in the context of Schiller. Schiller's Posa would have to be entirely different than he is to even think about appealing to Philip in that way. And of course, the pressure points are far different in the play -- what if Carlos forced Posa to tell him what was going on instead of going to Eboli? I mean, in the post I thought that would fix everything, but really it only fixes the (admittedly pretty dire) immediate problems -- what would have happened with that whole Philip-Carlos-Posa triangle, which still would have been set to explode in one way or another? -- oh, I should just write my Yuletide letter already, hee.
I had no idea about Friedrich/Friedrich II/Katte (I have big holes in my history knowledge in general), this is amazing. Wikipedia tells me, However, when he was brought up to be executed, Frederick shouted in French to Katte, "Veuillez pardonner mon cher Katte, au nom de Dieu, pardonne-moi!" ("Please forgive, my dear Katte, in God's name, forgive me."). Katte called back in the same language, "There is nothing to forgive, I die for you with joy in my heart!" omg! *fell in love with both of them right there*
Oh, your Catherine de' Medici fic looks fantastic, I have it downloaded and will report back :)
(btw I'm going to be with family for a week with possibly-limited connectivity/free time, so although I obviously would love to talk about this more, if I don't reply for the next week or so that's why)