In the slightly garbled translation on the back of the evening’s program, “La Furba e Lo Sciocco [The Clever One and the Fool] is a comic 18th-century intermezzo by Domenico Sarri, a composer not well-known or executed today.”
Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that seems like an excessive form of punishment to apply to a modestly ambitious entertainment. And besides, unlike Lontano da Qui it had rather good rhythm and the characters were dancing to it.
Lots of broad laughs. Even a couple of costume changes for Madame Sofia while she was onstage. Not something you get to see very often, and you wouldn’t believe how sexy she looked dressed up like a man in those white leather boots.
Was I supposed to say that? Non c’è problema. I just won’t tell Rebecca there’s a post today. I mean, “You think it’s as easy to crank out these things as it is to rhyme words in Italian? Or to earn a major role on the Neapolitan opera scene?”
That way, while remaining unknown and in character, the “stupid and pompous” composer will at least avoid being executed by the “clever, smart, cunning, etc” heroine, who once again had her hair in curls and her fine evening clothes on.
If only I had had my camera! But with the weather app calling for two days of rain, I took on responsibility for the two umbrellas. (And Rebecca isn’t given to taking selfies. So the best I could do was get her to photograph the curtain set.)
-
- That’s Spoleto deep in the background, but I’ve no idea about the two heads
Sounds to me like the costume changes alone would be worth the price of admission. Now what I want to know is when we get A day at the Races?
So far, I’ve spent a morning at the keyboard, read-jumping from site to site, making up for a woefully misspent education in the days of my youth. Rich used to watch all the old movies, and I would reluctantly sit through these classics when I had nothing else to do. So I know I’ve seen A Day at the Races: the wiki-synopsis rings a bell. Yet I cannot recall it in detail. Some Netflix homework for this culturally challenged one when I get home. (A curious side bar: the advent of comedy into the Brothers’ career apparently began in Nacogdoches, an East Texas town, home to a niece’s alma mater and not all that far from where my sister used to live.)
That is, as the kids say, “way cool.”
One more odd bit of trivia: (just as Spoleto has its own sister city in Charleston) Nacogdoches, TX has an identical twin sister not all that far away in Louisiana. The odd part about it, though, is that the same name is pronounced differently (NAK-ə-DOH-chis, which Groucho rhymed with “roaches,” in Texas; NAK-ə-təsh, which I believe might be rhymed with “dish,” in Louisiana). Yes, yes. When it comes to these trivial pursuits, as my wife will testify, never let it be said I’m not full of it.