#also adding this to

[noughticalcrossings]

Maria Stuarda

190 years ago today, on the 30th December 1835, Donizetti’s opera premiered in La Scala after several hiccups, not least of which included the two leads scrapping during a rehearsal having mistaken the lines for actual insults and the opera being rewritten, renamed, and once even banned, since “the sight of one queen calling another ‘vile bastard’ on the stage of the Teatro San Carlo […] was too much for the Neapolitan sensibility”.

Nonetheless I’m glad we have it today, a headache for historians but a riot of music and colour about two deeply flawed Tudor queens. This labour of love took maybe eleven hours as I got lost in the brocade, tried to render ten thousand pearls, and kept taking breaks to hurl myself into the sun every time Giorgio Talbot smiled sorrowfully at Maria. The things we do for art.

This particular performance was filmed at the Teatro Real, Madrid almost exactly one year ago, with Lisette Oropesa, Aigul Akhmetshina, Ismael Jordi, and my current hyperfixation Roberto Tagliavini. It is available on arte tv until May.

[rocketonthemoon]

15. Please let’s go home 

Fwip fwip. Smooth mechanics competed with a pounding heartbeat in her ears. Haruka fingered the key in silence, ready to bring the car to life. They should just... go. They should. It'd be light soon. The cops were on the way for sure. They had to go. 

The baby in the back seat fussed in her sleep. Haruka's shoulders automatically tensed. 

"Michiru..." 

Her partner sighed, obscured in shadows. "Please, let's just go home." No teasing lilt. "It's been a long day." 

Haruka turned the key. The baby settled as the engine roared into the night.