Discover Top Posts Tagged with #adaptation inception

(Ferdinand’s wireless rings. Wohlhändler holds very still. Ferdinand picks up practically before the sound subsides.)

Ferdinand: Elsa. I’ve been trying to reach you all night.

Elsa: I’m on the train. I didn’t think I ought to pick up until I could hear the inside of my own head.

Ferdinand: I called Geneva as soon as I saw—

Elsa: I’ve been to see Her Majesty.

Ferdinand (more quietly; with a deep and grateful, tender awe): I know. She spoke with me on the wireless.

(Elsa takes a silent pause; she is shocked).

Elsa: And she told you why I’d come?

Ferdinand: Am I speaking to the Archtrustee of Vienna?

Elsa: Eternal City, Toffi—if I knew! She sent me to Sarajevo, to wait in strictest confidence.

Ferdinand: And yet here you are, on the line with me.

Elsa: I have never seen a soul so angry in all my life.

Ferdinand: My mother?

Elsa: And never a sound! The fire, in the stillness of her hand. I think the ground trembled for her.

#so the thing is... i imagine jean collier being very angry #and yet i don’t imagine elsa is exaggerating here in the slightest #notes notes notes #adaptation inception #long post

#it’s FINE i’m FINE.#(i even already wrote this and i am still not remotely fine)#(helena will /audibly/ gasp at this line... like... they will hear her in the entire theater)#one good poisoning deserves another one #a rare girl wedded to rare fortune #the gang goes to the opera #adaptation inception

#you know that point nebulously end of act iii to middle of act iv #where everyone is like #’oh no my original plan was never a very good plan’#’and is now in shambles anyway’#and every single person on the stage is independently deciding the only way forward #is to sacrifice themselves for some deeply unclear combination of private and civic passions?#yeah... yeah that’s... where we are...#pick a level of the narrative... pick a point of view #that’s just. where we are.#(also everyone running around like)#(‘beware [formal command/informal command] my/the inquisition!’)#(meanwhile the inquisitor sighs: ‘i /know/. i’ve /always/ known’)#[nothing like seeing your mistakes played out on a stage to... keep making them with a little more tragic self-awareness]#adaptation inception #exhausted and punching above my weightclass #the gang goes to the opera

#so one of the ways that this don carlo/s performance gets presented in the text #is ferdinand/konrad/jordan listening to a live broadcast from greifswald #but accompanied by the wirless equivalent of mallory panwar live-blogging from the audience #anyway this is to say i may live-blog watching the chatelet again today but as mallory panwar watching the 3119 version #all of which will be tagged #adaptation inception #should you wish not to see them #the gang goes to the opera

@april-rainer — Another review for the back of the book!

#pro tip: doing eliot and schiller and verdi all at once is not the greatest idea #(particularly when the eliot in question is also already adaptation inceptioning like three quarters of the western canon)#exhausted and punching above my weightclass #adaptation inception

In Thebaldo’s absence, the intimate hesitancy between Carlo and Elisabetta becomes overwhelmingly apparent. Carlo dashes to fill the space with a reassuring charm—permitting Elisabetta her physical distance while supporting her anxiety with a quiet and welcoming warmth. The fire from flint rather than some more elegant means is also rather dashing in this context; these are the strange customs Ferdinand brings back with him from his years of service on the dunes. Elisabetta confesses her trepidation over her duty and the curiosity she harbors for her stranger of a fiancé. Desperate to set her at ease, Carlo produces the portrait he had come to retrieve as one last token of his devotion to Tjiana and presses it to Elisabetta’s chest.

“I am Carlo, and I love you!”

They share their eternity—wrapped up in a moment—hands still clasped gingerly in hands. But an eagerness for gentle and genuine companionship shines from faces whose rapturous certainty is matched only by the terror of their trembling bodies. The cannons fire and they offer their praises to heaven for deliverance from a loveless fate, only to have Thibault rush back onto the stage, drop to his knee, and kiss the rings of a Queen—in French.

The remainder of the first act plays out like a dream—Carlos and Élisabeth separated by throngs of pleading and anxious southeastern socialites, prodding this slight aristocrat to spare them from the implied intervention of Vienna in their sovereign affairs. She submits in a voice that’s firm but barely audible, her duty and her people taking precedence over the fleeting promise of personal happiness. Élisabeth is swept away by adoring throngs to the waiting prison of Edena, with Carlos alone in that empty forest, so grand as to swallow each one of his loves.

#i just love the five act version ok #the last train to the suburbs leaves at 12:35 #adaptation inception #notes notes notes

Elizabetta arrives on Thebaldo’s arm. Her costuming is in clear reference to Helena—her duplicate in attendance, leaning out from the grand balcony. The lady’s dark hair is pinned at the back with diamonds; white chiffon billows at her wrists—it’s the unmistakable imitation of the Deuxchamps gown from Helena’s Anniversary wedding. Her demeanor is warm but slightly out of sync; her foreignness worn at the sleeve, as plain to see as the pristine fabric. But her pride and reserve is a public fiction. Here, Halévy has misplaced their mark. Though presented to the world in the guise of Madame Vice Chairman, this Elizabetta is a better fit by far to Elsa Wittlin—albeit in her distant youth. To those who knew her, this is Elsa, alone in Paris, putting on a brave face for a bustling house of powerful strangers.

#it’s fine i’m fine #the gang goes to the opera #one good poisoning deserves another one #a rare girl wedded to rare fortune #adaptation inception