Best stuff I did in 2009, media edition

[cahn]

Music: Iphigenie en Tauride (Gluck; Gardiner recording). For some reason this opera stole my heart, even though my French really isn't good enough to understand what they're saying, and I don't really like any other Gluck as much. I think a large part is the Gardiner recording being just so... orchestral; the orchestra is practically another character in the opera.

Movie: The Ring Cycle (Bayreuth). Up. Up was the best movie I'd seen in a movie theater since... since the Incredibles. The Ring Cycle was one of Those Things where I don't expect anyone else to like it necessarily, but... wow. Wow. Blew me away.

Book (fiction): Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri). Yeah. Lahiri is just Really Good.

Book (nonfiction): I, Asimov / Prime Obsession (Derbyshire) - a tie! Asimov wins for extremely amusing and readable memoir, while Derbyshire wins for interesting math.

Reread: The Severed Wasp (L'Engle) - Really, I think this is L'Engle's best non-Murry book.

I am really surprised that there is no SF/F on this list (I don't count Severed Wasp, even though it arguably takes place in a near-future NY).

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Slightly confused--was it a video of a performance of Der Ring at Bayreuth?

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yes. (Sorry about the confusion... I wrote it pretty quickly. I could only dream of going to an actual performance at Bayreuth at this point...)

I missed the LA Opera's last Ring performance, not being a Ring addict at the time, and I'm going to miss it again this year because of Life Stuff. Bah.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Alas. I'm not a huge fan of the cycle, but my father listened to it (a lot) when I was growing up, and parts of it are great. Having to watch a grainy, dark broadcast of the BBC thing as aired by PBS, 25-30 years ago, was rather less great, but I can see that a good live performance would be really exhilarating.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I missed all of the Ring except for the first Act of Gotterdamerung, when it played at the Met last year. And then, as a demonstration of what a philistine I am, I left during intermission.