OK, before I go on and on about how much I'm looking forward to seeing Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in Victoria next month, a quick word about the Seattle Opera's production of La Traviata.  It's good; go see it.  I'm not going to give it a full review, because frankly, it's about as necessary as reviewing Star Wars.  Both Traviata and Wars are classics that create their own reality.  With Star Wars, you get faster-than-light travel, an impossibility according to today's physics.  Whereas in La Traviata, your tragic heroine sings quite beautifully despite her fatal tuberculosis, which most doctors agree could never happen.  Both things are not possible, but who cares?  Traviata's vocal performances are all top-notch, especially Nuccia Focile as Violetta.  My mom's friends were at the same performance I was and they tried to talk some stuff about Focile being sub-par.  Obviously, they'd been smoking a lot of crack before the show.  I mean a lot.  I think they were a little put off by the fact that she got drowned out a few times by the orchestra.  Hey, it's Verdi!  Those things happen in his music!  Anyhow, it's really worth seeing, so go do that soon.  It plays through October 31st - ooh, spooky!  

Now can I talk about how excited I am about The Rake's Progress?  I can?  Excellent.  This opera is among my all-time favorites.  It's crazy and funny and contains some lovely music by the handsome and charming Igor Stravinsky.  Oh yeah, and W.H. Auden wrote the libretto.  Gee, that's one heck of a collaboration, isn't it?  As you may know, there are no operas in Seattle this November, so I highly recommend taking the Clipper up to Victoria to see this production.  I'm going and I'm totally gonna do a full-on review right here in these electro-pages, because I feel that this is something that all opera should be: fun, dramatic, compelling, hilarious and beautiful.  Victoria's Pacific Opera is giving it five performances, beginning November 12th.  Right now, they're in the midst of - who could have guessed it? - La Traviata.  But theirs is a contemporary adaptation, while Seattle Opera's is as traditional as a whalebone corset.  So take it from me, somebody you've most likely never met (or would never want to meet), go up to Victoria and see this.  And you can do all that other quaint crap that you've been meaning to do in Victoria for the last decade.  Go ahead, go have tea somewhere!  See Buchart Gardens!  Do anything you want within Canadian law!  Just see The Rake's Progress sometime in between that stuff.  Honestly, I haven't been to Victoria since I was four, so this is really going to be a treat.