Opera and Ephemera.

4-9-19 SHORT HILLS: Saturday night we were at Lincoln Center to hear Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, his penultimate opera. It is not often performed, but the Met is doing it this season. It got a fair review in the NYT, but we liked it a lot. How could it be bad with three hours of Mozart music? It has two trouser roles where women play Roman noblemen, a ridiculous plot, the women wore 18th century gowns, but the men were in stuff that looked like it was left-over from The Magic Flute. The set was the Roman forum looking pretty much in ruins, probably how it looked in Mozart’s time, but not how it looked during Emperor Titus’s reign around 80 AD.

We ate in the opera house at The Grand Tier Restaurant, quite good. It's been a long time since I ate on a thick, white tablecloth.

Back here in the garden, I have continued to do the spring pruning and other chores. I transplanted a bunch of ajuga growing on the walkway to some spots that could use a ground cover. Yesterday was summery, but today feels like November. We did get two rainstorm that each gave us a quarter inch of precip.

At the feeders the goldfinches are changing into their summer outfits. I think I saw a catbird yesterday. We still have a lot of grackles hanging out here.

New blooms: claytonia, Siberian squill.


Josie Robertson Plaza at Lincoln Center. The Met Opera is behind me.

The scrim displayed during the overture to La Clemenza di Tito.

Applause after the performance. The gowns look appropriate for 18th century women, the menswear was probably bought at a final clearance sale at the costume shop.

Claytonia is another spring beauty that disappears soon after blooming.

Dark-eyed junco with some brownish color on the back and head, usually in the eastern US they're only gray/black with white on the ventral surface.

Siberian squill will also be dormant shortly after the bloom is over.