Opera ♪♪ Here's Your Definitive Guide

Here's Your Definitive Guide

To Going To The Opera

Opera Arias

By Alexandra Svokos

Opera can be a little intimidating

Luca Pisaroni in The Enchanted Island

But underneath the grandeur (and layers of makeup), are poignantly human stories to the tune of beautiful music. Because opera is not a mainstream form of entertainment, it is often regarded as a pretentious one, something untouchable. However, if you give it a fighting chance, you'll find that opera can be enjoyed by classical musicians and complete newcomers alike -- old to young. 

Here's our guide to making that happen:

Luca Pisaroni and Lisette Oropesa in The Marriage of Figaro

Picking An Opera

When deciding on an opera to see, think about what type of movie you like (or, what Netflix would suggest for you). Rom-com fan? Try "Don Pasquale." Psychodrama? "Lucia di Lammermoor." Bawdy humor? "The Marriage of Figaro." More into big explosions and theatrics? You're probably better off with some Wagner. Then there's always the classic ABCs of opera: "Aida," "La Boheme" and "Carmen."

If you want to see an opera live, you have to look into what's being performed at your local house (or movie theater). Then do a little research -- even just the first sentence on a show's Wikipedia page will help -- on an opera's plot and genre. Don't research too far -- you don't want to spoil the ending, do you?

Opera tickets can run expensive, but there are usually cheaper options to be found -- think about it like a Broadway show or a football game. Aside from standing room and top tier seats, look out for rush tickets and programs for students or seniors, as well as special promotions from places like Gilt. Programs vary at different opera houses.

What To Wear

No, men, you do not have to wear a tux. And unless you ladies plan on going to an extravagant ball later -- or you rabidly enjoy dressing up -- there's no reason to whip out a long gown.

For men, slacks (or, if you're in a pinch, a nice pair of jeans) and a button-down shirt will do. Jacket and tie optional. Please don't wear your dirty gym sneakers.

For women, dress pants or a skirt and blouse work, as does a cocktail or work dress. Heels if you feel like it.

If you're into dressing up, have fun with it and use it as an excuse to get creative. If not, don't worry about it. Just wear something generally presentable and you'll be fine. Oh, and probably layer up, you never know what the temperature will be like inside.

Before The Curtain Opens

You'll probably want to eat something before you get there -- operas feel extra long when you're hungry. Ditto for getting a coffee and using the restroom before you take your seats.

The ushers are there to help. Don't be embarrassed asking them to direct you to your seats. The ushers will also hand you a playbill. The playbill has information about the singers and conductor, which is usually pretty interesting if only to see all the different countries from which everyone hails. The playbill also includes the synopsis, broken into acts, as well as information on intermission(s). Reading the synopsis will help you understand what's happening in the upcoming act, but if you're the kind of person who doesn't like plot spoilers, tread carefully.

Check about fifty times that your phone is on silent -- or, better yet, off.

Curtains Open

After the lights dim, if the audience starts mysteriously applauding, it's because the conductor is walking out to his or her stand. You should always applaud for the conductor: they're the one running the show, after all.

The right times to applaud can get confusing, especially depending on what you're seeing. The easiest approach is to wait for someone else to start clapping, and then join along. A brief silence after singing doesn't always mean it's applause time.

Yes, most operas are sung in languages that are not English, and even English is hard to understand in operatic form. No, you do not have to know Italian/German/French/etc. to understand what's going on. All opera performances will have some form of subtitles for every line. Sometimes it's a projection to the sides or above the stage, and in other places it's a screen on the seat in front of you. If it is a screen, make sure you hit the appropriate button for your subtitles to show up.

Intermission

Depending on the length of the opera, there could be an intermission or two. During intermission, get out of your seat and stretch out some. Wander around the opera house. They tend to have art and old opera artifacts and portraits hanging around, which are neat to see.

Stop by the bar and get a drink or snack, if you'd like. And don't be embarrassed if you feel the need for a coffee -- it's better to drink a coffee during intermission than fall asleep during the performance.

There will be some indication -- flickering lights, chimes -- that the show is going to start soon, so head back to your seat.

Oh, The Drama

Opera can inspire a lot of emotions. As Kasper Holten, director of opera at the Royal Opera House in London, said, "In one evening, you go through in two and one-half hours what the rest of us spend our whole emotional lives living through." What you see on stage may not look like real life, but it'll feel like it.

Our best recommendation is that if you feel yourself getting swept away, flow with it. Operas can be hysterically funny (even by modern standards), devastating, devastatingly gorgeous (musically or visually), sexy, thrilling, tense, poignant and -- it happens -- boring. If you don't enjoy one opera, that doesn't mean you should completely write all opera off. That would be like saying you didn't like one TV show, so now you're never going to watch TV again.

But if you do get caught up in it all, go on ahead. Cry, laugh, gasp and shout -- we can assure you that you won't be the only one doing so. 

Just don't throw tomatoes; we don't do that anymore.

When It's All Sung And Done

If you enjoyed what you saw, keep the momentum moving. Most young opera "aficionados" know so much about the opera thanks to nothing fancier than the internet. Check out videos of a certain aria or a certain singer on YouTube, find the snarkiest review of a show that you can, and get lost in singer gossip. 
If you have a friend who's super into opera, they would love answering any question you have and talking all about the art form. 
And of course you can always pick up books on the subject (might we suggest the biography of Maria Callas by Arianna Huffington?).

http://paulcpw.blogspot.com/search/label/Opera

Opera Guide, Guide to Going to the Opera, How to Go to the Opera, Opera Dress Code, What to Wear to the Opera, How to Choose an Opera, Picking an Opera, Learning About Opera, Opera Languages, Opera Subtitles, Opera Playbill, Opera Libretto, Arts News

• Italian opera - http://www.snipview.com/q/Italian%20opera

Origins of opera

The art form known as opera originated in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though it drew upon older traditions of medieval and Renaissance courtly entertainment. The word opera, meaning "work" in Italian, was first used in the modern musical and theatrical sense in 1639 and soon spread to the other European languages. The earliest operas were modest productions compared to other Renaissance forms of sung drama, but they soon became more lavish and took on the spectacular stagings of the earlier genre known as intermedio.

Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today, although with only five instrumental parts it was much more like a chamber opera than either the preceding intermedi or the operas of Claudio Monteverdi a few years later. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". Significantly, Dafne was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. The libretto was by Ottavio Rinuccini, who had written some of the 1587 Medici intermedi, in which Peri had also been involved; Rinuccini appears to have recycled some of the material, at least from the scene illustrated at right. Most of the music for "Dafne" is unfortunately lost (the libretto was printed and survives), but one of Peri's many later operas, Euridice, dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.

Traditions of staged sung music and drama go back to both secular and religious forms from the Middle Ages, and at the time opera first appears the Italian intermedio had courtly equivalents in various countries.  more from Wikipedia

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/30/opera-guide-for-beginners_n_6482166.html

Digital Guacamole

Digital Guacamole

Things We Learned About Sleep In 2014

9 Things We Learned
About Sleep
In 2014

By Sarah Klein

Despite the fact that sleep is essential to our survival, researchers know surprisingly little for sure about our shut-eye. Questions about why we sleep, how much sleep we need and what dreams are really for remain, but this year saw plenty of discoveries that have brought us closer to understanding our sleep.

Here are a few of the biggest sleep breakthroughs from 2014, and why they're so important.

The brain makes decisions while we sleep.

You may have zonked out, but your brain hasn't. While we snooze, our brains are still active, not only processing information and clearing the clutter, but even making decisions. A team of researchers from France and the U.K. monitored the brains of a small group of adults as they performed a word classification task and found the same patterns of brain activity when presented with more words while they were asleep. "Far from falling [into] a limbo when we fall asleep, parts of our brain can routinely process what is going on in our surroundings and apply a relevant scheme of response," study author and research scientist Sid Kouider said in a statement. "This explains some everyday life experiences such as our sensitivity to our name in our sleep, or to the specific sound of our alarm clock, compared to equally loud but less relevant sounds."

Skimping on sleep has been linked to a shrinking brain.
Our brains get smaller as we age, but getting too little sleep could make that natural reduction occur at a faster rate, according to University of Oxford research. "Many factors have previously been linked with the rate of change in brain volume over time -- including physical activity, blood pressure and cholesterol levels," lead researcher Claire Sexton, DPhil, previously told HuffPost Healthy Living. "Our study indicates that sleep is also an important factor." The study found a faster decline in the size of the frontal, temporal and parietal areas of the brain among the people who reported poor sleep quality. These parts of the brain play important roles in making decisions, combining words into complete thoughts and learning. More research is needed to determine if lack of sleep actually causes the faster rate of brain shrinkage, but do you really want to risk it?

The brains of insomniacs are different than the brains of good sleepers.
While the researchers noted they weren't entirely sure what these differences mean, they uncovered more activity, greater adaptability to change and higher neuron "excitability" in the movement center of the brain in people with insomnia than in people who reported no trouble sleeping. The researchers said they hope pinpointing such differences eventually leads to better diagnosis and treatment of insomnia.

Too little sleep could lead to
 -- and speed up -- 
dementia.

Adequate shut-eye has long been known to promote greater memory and learning, but a series of studies this year showed that lack of sleep or poor quality sleep can either contribute to a greater risk of dementia or speed up the onset of the disease. In all of these cases, the researchers stressed that the best action to take is to ensure restful nights to older adults by practicing good sleep hygiene.

Sleep deprivation is making us remember things that never happened.
In a University of California, Irvine study, researchers found that after a night of "restricted" sleep, study participants were more likely to say they recalled something that hadn't actually happened, a misremembering generally called a false memory. It's not all that problematic to have the occasional slip up, "but there are contexts (e.g., eyewitnesses in court, clinicians making medical decisions) where errors have serious consequences, so we need to be concerned about factors that make memory less reliable, and more vulnerable to distortion," lead researcher Steven Frenda previously told HuffPost Healthy Living. Although it's impossible to estimate the number of wrongful convictions that could be directly due to sleep deprivation, it's certainly possible that such a thing is happening, but Frenda said, allowing a witness to go home and sleep before testifying raises other issues. "For example, it might be tempting to think that maybe we should send witnesses home to rest before collecting their testimony," he said. "But as more time passes, memories fade and become more vulnerable to distortion. So while you're addressing one risk factor, you might be introducing others."

Family support is key to treating sleep apnea.
Supportive family members seems to play a role in whether or not a person adheres to treatment for obstructive sleep apnea with continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, generally considered the gold standard for treating the sleep disorder, which causes someone to stop breathing while sleeping, sometimes hundreds of times a night. People who were married or living with a partner as well as people who rated their family relationship quality higher were found to adhere to CPAP treatment more closely.

Sharing the bed with a pet
really is messing with your sleep.

Research presented at SLEEP 2014, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, found that 30 percent of pet owners who share the bed with a four-legged companion wake up at least once a night because of their pets. Despite the cuddly snuggles a furry friend can provide, barks, meows, tail wags and more are in fact contributing to sleep disruptions. You and Fido are both better off in beds of your own.

Scientists discovered physical changes in the brains of people with chronic fatigue syndrome.

The condition is highly misunderstood and often dismissed as psychological, but research this year lent some welcome credibility to the often-debilitating syndrome. The small study compared the brains of 15 people with chronic fatigue syndrome to the brains of 14 healthy people and found that the brains of people with CFS had less white matter and differences in nerve fibers in a particular white-matter tract, "in theory, a sign of a better-connected brain," Pacific Standard reported, which was strongest in the people with the most severe symptoms of chronic fatigue. The research could potentially lead to better diagnosis of the syndrome.

Night owls may be less motivated to exercise than early birds.
Early birds really may jump out of bed and hit the ground running: A small study from this year found that night owls seem to have more difficulty sticking to an exercise routine. In the study, people who reported later bedtimes also said they spent more time sitting, as well as more perceived obstacles getting in the way of regular exercise, like feeling like there aren't enough hours in the day. "We found that even among healthy, active individuals, sleep timing and circadian preference are related to activity patterns and attitudes toward physical activity," principal investigator Kelly Glazer Baron, Ph.D., said in a statement. Doctors may be able to use this information in encouraging their night owl patients to stay active, she said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/biggest-sleep-news-stories-2014_n_6341638.html?cps=gravity_2689_41926470138176963

Around the Web

• Sleep - Health News and Views - Health.com
•   sleep 2014 - American Academy of Sleep Medicine – Association for ...
•   Sleep Disorders | Health | Fox News
•   WebMD Sleep Apnea News – Timely health and medical news
•   Sleep / Sleep Disorders / Insomnia News from Medical News Today
•   Sleep Disorder News, Photos and Videos - ABC News
•   Obstructive Sleep Apnea News -- ScienceDaily
•   Sleep Disorder Research News -- ScienceDaily
•   Sleep Disorders News -- ScienceDaily

Tombe la Neige - Salvatore Adamo

 

Tombe la Neige

Salvatore Adamo

with lyrics

Tombe la neige
Tu ne viendras pas ce soir
Tombe la neige
Et mon coeur s'habille de noir
Ce soyeux cortège
Tout en larmes blanches
L'oiseau sur la branche
Pleure le sortilège

Tu ne viendras pas ce soir
Me crie mon désespoir
Mais tombe la neige
Impassible manège

Tombe la neige
Tu ne viendras pas ce soir
Tombe la neige
Tout est blanc de désespoir
Triste certitude
Le froid et l'absence
Cet odieux silence
Blanche solitude

Tu ne viendras pas ce soir
Me crie mon désespoir
Mais tombe la neige
Impassible manège

Tombe la neige
Salvatore Adamo
French and English subtitles

The snow is falling
You won't come tonight
The snow is falling
And my heart is dressed in black
This silky procession
All in white tears
The bird on the branch
Mourns the magic

You won't come tonight
My desperation cries out to me
But the snow is falling
Imperturbable carrousel

The snow is falling
You won't come tonight
The snow is falling
All is white with desperation
Sad certainty
The cold and the absence
This hateful silence
White loneliness

You won't come tonight
My desperation cries out to me
But the snow is falling
Imperturbable carrousel

http://youtu.be/HbF8HszsfEM

 

Hồ Hoàng Yến Tuyết rơi
Tombe La Neige

 

 

 

How To Prepare Healthy Foods Without Ruining Their Benefits

How To Prepare Healthy Foods

Without Ruining Their Benefits

Just buying healthy foods isn't enough. 

How you prepare them matters, too.

By Jessica Migala
Posted: 01/21/2015

While many people believe that stocking your kitchen with the right stuff -- from kale to mixed nuts to a colorful assortment of veggies -- is the key to a solid diet, that's not entirely true. 

If you don't prepare these foods the ideal way, you might be missing out on many of the nutrients that make them so potentially healthy. 

Researchers have tested a range of foods and cooking methods, from boiling to microwaving, to discover which yield the most nutritious results. 

Here's your cheat sheet -- don't cook without it!

Cooked Veggies

Best: Microwaved

"Properly cooking vegetables in the microwave can go a long way toward reducing nutrient loss," says registered dietitian Sandra Bastin, PhD, who uses the method in her own kitchen. 

Microwaving limits the need for heat and water, both of which can cause vegetables to lose nutrients. And when Spanish researchers looked at the impact of cooking techniques on 20 different veggies, they discovered that microwaving ranked higher than boiling when it came to preserving antioxidants. 

Place veggies in a glass container with one to two tablespoons of water, and microwave on high until they are crisp and bright in color.

Kale

Best: Raw

Here's why you should enjoy this leafy green uncooked: According to one study, boiled kale lost 89 percent of its vitamin C, and its polyphenols (compounds that may lessen your risk of disease) were reduced by more than half. If raw kale is too tough for you, registered dietitian Julieanna Hever suggests massaging the leaves with avocado or olive oil.

Cashews

 

Best: Roasted

As long as you're roasting chestnuts on an open fire, throw some cashews on there, too. Cooking cashews at around 265 degrees for 33 minutes produces nuts that not only are tastier, but also have a higher antioxidant level than their uncooked counterparts, according to research. Roasting helps in two ways: It may free nutrients that are bound together in the raw nut, and it may also cause a chemical reaction responsible for increasing antioxidant activity.

Tomatoes

Best: Simmered

A 2013 study found that tomato paste had more than double the lycopene (a chemical that may help fight heart disease and cancer) of raw tomatoes; heat breaks down the insoluble fiber in the fruit, releasing lycopene. To make your own paste, simmer chopped tomatoes with salt on the stove until they reach a pureelike consistency. Run the puree through a food mill to remove the skin and seeds. Spread the puree in a baking pan and place it in the oven at 300 degrees. Stir every 30 minutes until the paste is thick and deep red.

Sweet Potatoes

Best: Dried

Move over, sweet potato fries. A recent study looked at where the spuds fell on the glycemic index (GI), which measures how food affects your blood sugar (the lower the number, the better). The results: Sweet potatoes that had been dehydrated (a drying method that turns taters into chips) had a GI score of 41, better than when they were steamed (63), baked (64), or microwaved (66). You can buy a dehydrator online for about $40. Once your sweet potato chips are dried, add salt for flavor.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/21/healthiest-cooking-methods_n_6458390.html

Fox News 📺 Becomes the Unwilling Star of a French TV Satire

Fox News Becomes the Unwilling Star
of a French TV Satire

France Mocks FoxNews "No Go Zones"
#FoxNewHypocrites

By DOREEN CARVAJALJAN. 19, 2015

PARIS — Mockery is a national weapon in France, so when an American cable news channel raised false alarms about rampant lawlessness in some Paris neighborhoods — proclaiming them “no-go zones” for non-Muslims, avoided even by the police — a popular French television show rebutted the claims the way it best knew how: with satire, spoofs and a campaign of exaggeration and sarcasm.

The show, “Le Petit Journal,” is a French version of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — irreverent and reliant on mock correspondents who showcase the foibles of the high and mighty.

Usually “Le Petit Journal” reserves its venom for French politicians and the local news media. But in the days after the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 17 dead, including 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, it set its sights on a trans-Atlantic target, America’s Fox News, after the channel claimed that swaths of England and France were ruled according to Shariah.

“They did this on a weekend when all France and Paris was in a state of shock,” said Yann Barthès, 40, who has hosted the show since it began in 2004. “I cried.” But, he said, it was also “irritating, so we chose humor to campaign against Fox News.”

One episode of “Le Petit Journal” featured fake Fox News correspondents screaming about the dangers to be found on the streets and in the kebab shops of Paris. Credit Canal+

“It’s more effective than being upset,” Mr. Barthès said.

On Saturday, Fox News apologized four times on the air for its reports about the no-go zones, acknowledging that there was no reason to believe that they existed. It called the reports an “error” and apologized to “any and all,” including “the people of France.”

It is hard to say whether the apologies were the result of “Le Petit Journal’s” mockery; a campaign instigated by the program to inundate Fox News with emails; or Fox News’s realization that its reporting, which reinforced a popular conservative warning about a purported spread of Shariah in the Western world, was wrong.

In a statement Monday, Michael Clemente, an executive vice president at the network, said: “We issued a correction and apology across several platforms, so that any viewers who may have tuned in to the earlier programming would have a chance to hear our corrected reporting.”

Before the apologies, Mr. Barthès and his “correspondents” hounded Fox News, which is not widely available on French television. Mr. Barthès’s show, which has about 3 million viewers and follows in the satirical tradition of Charlie Hebdo, but in a much gentler style, showed generous portions of the Fox clips where the no-go zones were discussed, providing French translations.

Mr. Barthès reviewed his script in his dressing room before going on stage. He has hosted the show since it began in 2004. Credit Capucine Granier-Deferre for The New York Times

Their comics confronted Fox News correspondents when they spotted them reporting live in Paris. In one video, two of the show’s correspondents pretended to be American journalists venturing into supposedly forbidden areas and, in slapstick fashion, cowering by a Turkish kebab shop and a couscous restaurant and falling to the ground at the sound of a jackhammer.

Representatives of “Le Petit Journal” also showed up at the New York offices of Fox News on Thursday to seek comment, Mr. Barthès said, until security turned them away.

Mr. Barthès said that his show was unable to obtain any response from Fox News, so he turned to his viewers for help, giving the email addresses of Fox executives. When the show posted the information on Twitter, he said, they had 7,000 retweets in five minutes.

The theme was picked up by others on social media who expressed mock horror at the “danger” in Paris. A food guide site mapped the best places to dine in the so-called lawless zones, including a bakery where the owner had won awards for baguettes.

The commotion began this month when Steve Emerson, identified as a terrorism expert, told the host Sean Hannity, “there are no-go zones” throughout Europe ruled by Muslims. He then elaborated in an interview with another Fox host, Jeanine Pirro, claiming that the entire city of Birmingham, England, was a place where “non-Muslims simply don’t go in.”

On the day the Charlie Hebdo attackers were killed, Nolan Peterson, who on his website describes himself as a freelance writer and a combat veteran, went on Fox News on and identified what he called 741 Muslim-dominated “no-go zones” around France and said the areas reminded him of his time in Afghanistan and Iraq.Even the British prime minister, David Cameron, reacted to the Birmingham claim, saying, “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge.” He called Mr. Emerson “an idiot.”

Muslim leaders say that Muslims are often the victims of attacks, especially since the Paris killings, which were carried out by Islamic militants. The head of a French organization known as the National Observatory Against Islamophobia called for protection by the state, saying there had been “116 anti-Muslim acts, including 28 incidents at mosques and 88 threats,” in the two days after the Jan. 7 shooting.

Fox was abject in its apologies, as was Mr. Emerson. Julie Banderas, a Fox anchor, said that “over the course of this last week, we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France.”

“Now this applies especially to discussions of so-called no-go zones, areas where non-Muslims allegedly are not allowed in and police supposedly won’t go,” Ms. Banderas continued. “To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion that there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”

Apologies were issued on-air three other times.

Carly Shanahan, a spokeswoman for Fox News in New York, said the communications office never received a query by telephone or email from “Le Petit Journal.” Mr. Barthès said the show had made repeated attempts, including his own emails.

Mr. Barthès said he was not sure whether his show could take credit for the apologies. “The important thing is that we really had fun,” Mr. Barthès said. “It’s important for the French audience to know about this. They don’t really know Fox News, and they think it’s an enormous channel, very American, with announcers with big voices and blonde women who look like Barbies.” 

Rabid Fox News Host's Unhinged Rant: "We Have to Kill!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFEQ0p478GE

Le Petit Journal

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Le+Petit+Journal

Related Coverage

• Open Source: Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and FranceJAN. 18, 2015

• Open Source: Murdoch and Fox News Mocked on Twitter for Claims About MuslimsJAN. 12, 2015

• Fox News Beats a Retreat After Gaffes About Islam JAN. 12, 2015

• http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/world/europe/fox-news-becomes-unwilling-star-of-french-tv-show.html?ref=todayspaper

 Fox News ‘No Go Zone’ Lies Exposed

 In Most Wonderful Way By French TV Show