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"My Dear Vicky..."
9 December 2023 02:12 am“My Dear Vicky...”
Lermontov takes up his pen to write a letter, and is not interrupted. AU.
Staring down at the two letters on the desk in front of him, Boris Lermontov knew that he had lost. It was a sensation to which he had been so utterly unaccustomed of late that he experienced it as an almost physical pang, as if the excellent dinner the hotel had served up last night had abruptly begun to disagree with him.
He had thought that Vicky would realise the supreme folly of what she had done: the disaster that must inevitably follow for her career if she walked out on the Ballet Lermontov merely because he, Boris Lermontov, would not permit her to throw away her future on love, marriage, and all such distractions. He could see that stupid affaire with young Julian Craster for the ephemeral nonsense that it was. Sooner or later —he had clung to that certainty even after the news of the wedding— sooner or later she would come to her senses. The world would yield to the sheer force of his will, and Miss Victoria Page would not waste her talents, as she had been doing, in dancing for lesser companies...
( Read more... )https://berkeleywarreps.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/total-art-in-the-time-of-total-war-powell-and-pressburgers-the-red-shoes-1948/
Well, that's an interesting interpretation... even if, like most such critical conceits, it becomes intolerably strained in its attempts to make reality fit its thesis :p
( A case of Lermontov fangirling )
Well, that's an interesting interpretation... even if, like most such critical conceits, it becomes intolerably strained in its attempts to make reality fit its thesis :p
( A case of Lermontov fangirling )
For the record, the dark-leaf chilli is *not* Explosive Ember but Zimbabwe Black. (I asked the owner of the original plant, and she remembered what variety she had planted two seasons ago!)
Apparently they are rated as much milder on the Scoville scale than the Demon Red (circa 20-30,000 ("fairly mild") as versus 50,000 ("moderate to hot")), which explains why biting an unripe purple chilli was really not hot at all...
I have planted the two surviving dwindled narcissus bulbs out again (one of the three that I lifted this summer turned out to have been eaten out from the inside and was quite hollow). I found five of them in total, the other two being rotted, and despite emptying out more pots have no idea what happened to the remainder of the original seven, or which was the "one pot with visible bulb foliage in it" back in July :(
( Red Shoes fic )
Apparently they are rated as much milder on the Scoville scale than the Demon Red (circa 20-30,000 ("fairly mild") as versus 50,000 ("moderate to hot")), which explains why biting an unripe purple chilli was really not hot at all...
I have planted the two surviving dwindled narcissus bulbs out again (one of the three that I lifted this summer turned out to have been eaten out from the inside and was quite hollow). I found five of them in total, the other two being rotted, and despite emptying out more pots have no idea what happened to the remainder of the original seven, or which was the "one pot with visible bulb foliage in it" back in July :(
( Red Shoes fic )
Apparently, I'm writing again...
I attended the premiere of the restored/rereleased "The Red Shoes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mHgGU4AbOA, and there is of course an arguably pivotal moment in that, when it dawns on Boris Lermontov that the leading lady he has driven away isn't going to be coming back or extending any olive branches, and that he is going to have to be the one to humble himself and make the first move... and then news suddenly arrives that she is going to be back in Monte Carlo on holiday, and he immediately abandons his nascent letter of appeal and starts scheming to assert his will over her again, with tragic consequences for everyone involved. So the question is what that letter would have contained ( Read more... )
I did find myself very conscious of the "Love Never Dies" parallels in the moment when Vicky's husband begs her to leave with him now, before the performance, and her impresario puts pressure on her to perform and signal the end of her marriage, and Vicky is pleading that please can't she get the performance over first and then talk to her husband afterwards... :-(
I attended the premiere of the restored/rereleased "The Red Shoes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mHgGU4AbOA, and there is of course an arguably pivotal moment in that, when it dawns on Boris Lermontov that the leading lady he has driven away isn't going to be coming back or extending any olive branches, and that he is going to have to be the one to humble himself and make the first move... and then news suddenly arrives that she is going to be back in Monte Carlo on holiday, and he immediately abandons his nascent letter of appeal and starts scheming to assert his will over her again, with tragic consequences for everyone involved. So the question is what that letter would have contained ( Read more... )
I did find myself very conscious of the "Love Never Dies" parallels in the moment when Vicky's husband begs her to leave with him now, before the performance, and her impresario puts pressure on her to perform and signal the end of her marriage, and Vicky is pleading that please can't she get the performance over first and then talk to her husband afterwards... :-(
Gene Hunt's wife
6 January 2021 11:05 pmI've been re-watching the first series of "Life on Mars", and was rather surprised by the frequent (in the last few episodes at least) references to Gene Hunt as being married. He certainly doesn't seem to be encumbered by a wife for the purposes of "Ashes to Ashes", let alone taking exception because a colleague 'made a pass at the Gov's missus'...
I also watched the musical broadcast of "Kinky Boots", which left me with the impression that the original film was probably a rather attractive Ealing Studios-type drama that I would have enjoyed watching. Unfortunately I didn't like the music at all.
Likewise the Matthew Bourne ballet version of "The Red Shoes" ended up simply inspiring me with a desire to see the Powell & Pressburger film (I may just have a videotape of it somewhere). ( Read more... )
I also watched the musical broadcast of "Kinky Boots", which left me with the impression that the original film was probably a rather attractive Ealing Studios-type drama that I would have enjoyed watching. Unfortunately I didn't like the music at all.
Likewise the Matthew Bourne ballet version of "The Red Shoes" ended up simply inspiring me with a desire to see the Powell & Pressburger film (I may just have a videotape of it somewhere). ( Read more... )
"Love Never Dies"
11 October 2012 05:56 pmI have to admit that I was very sceptical about Andrew Lloyd Webber's announced plans for a new "Phantom of the Opera" musical when I first heard about it, and was mildly disappointed but not at all surprised when the show, after eventually struggling to the stage, garnered poor reviews and failed to become a hit. But I was curious enough about it to pick up a discarded "Daily Mail" cover CD featuring songs from both "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Love Never Dies": and to my delight I found that the 'new' songs were actually extremely good. The score is very recognisably Lloyd Webber without yielding to the temptation to descend into pastiche: this is new music, not a re-hash of past success, yet for the first time in a dozen years or more it's melody worth listening to -- tunes you catch yourself humming out of context.
I soon found myself actively considering looking for a full recording rather than the half-dozen highlights included on the disc, and all the criticisms (numbers sounded like Tin Pan Alley showtunes rather than doom-laden European opera, dialogue was sung-though rather than spoken, unacceptably tragic ending, too much Raoul and Phantom and not enough Christine) seemed perfectly acceptable and possily even selling-points from my point of view. Unfortunately, then I came across the plot.
From the songs I'd heard I assumed I'd already gathered the gist of it (it later turned out that I'd massively misattributed the singers in one of them...) I'd been somewhat shocked, but the developments weren't such that I couldn't logically swallow. What I then discovered via the Internet and couldn't take was the plot's blithe assumption, supposed to be shared by the audience, that Christine Daaé had apparently have been pining after the Phantom from the first, and that she is constrained only by convention from taking her child and going off with her true soulmate.
( So why am I not on the side of the Phantom? )
I soon found myself actively considering looking for a full recording rather than the half-dozen highlights included on the disc, and all the criticisms (numbers sounded like Tin Pan Alley showtunes rather than doom-laden European opera, dialogue was sung-though rather than spoken, unacceptably tragic ending, too much Raoul and Phantom and not enough Christine) seemed perfectly acceptable and possily even selling-points from my point of view. Unfortunately, then I came across the plot.
From the songs I'd heard I assumed I'd already gathered the gist of it (it later turned out that I'd massively misattributed the singers in one of them...) I'd been somewhat shocked, but the developments weren't such that I couldn't logically swallow. What I then discovered via the Internet and couldn't take was the plot's blithe assumption, supposed to be shared by the audience, that Christine Daaé had apparently have been pining after the Phantom from the first, and that she is constrained only by convention from taking her child and going off with her true soulmate.
( So why am I not on the side of the Phantom? )
