a mesmerizing orfeo

i watched the met's orfeo, yesterday -- first time i watch the whole thing -- i was mesmerized -- stephanie blythe was just incredible

i don't know what i just pulled here,..from youtube -- probably,....

enrico caruso, at the san francisco earthquake

http://www.sfmuseum.net/1906/ew19.html

WOW -- act two duet, traviata

the great hannibal leads the way

Ten days ago, in the first battle of the victorious campaign that was just concluded, the great Hannibal led his troops onto the battlefield, in enemy territory – far, far from home.

In the first day of the battle, Hannibal was able to destroy all his enemies, without suffering any damage. In the second day of the battle, Hannibal’s troops went on the offensive, and crossed into enemy territory, delivering the first blow of the battle – a significant achievement – for it is well known, that in a battle of wills, it is of the utmost urgency to strike first, to deliver the first blow – and Hannibal’s forces had done that.

Meanwhile, the enemy from the west could do no damage to Hannibal and his forces – drawing not a drop of blood in the second day of the battle, nor in the third. Hannibal, the battle-hardened veteran, had the enemy baffled - not with any overwhelming blows, but with cunning and guile - some sideways maneuvering, some bluffs, to keep the enemy off balance – he even used a butterfly (which Hannibal called by its Iberian name, mariposa), to mesmerize the enemy.

Hannibal’s namesake, from years ago, was more hard-hitting than this Hannibal, and more prone to launch lightning strikes (his family name, after all, was Barca (lightning)). A major exception for the ancient southpaw was his long (and very wide) hook, delivered from the top, which featured some of the heaviest artillery ever seen. That long-ago Hannibal deployed some 40 elephants, from which soldiers hurled high, hard stones – but it wasn’t the accuracy or the potency of the projectiles launched from atop the elephants that did damage to the enemy; instead, the elephants were used mainly to strike fear into the hearts of enemy forces - to make ’em sweat. This Hannibal, for his part, employed those delicate mariposas – in about the same number, as the ancient Hannibal had, elephants.

Hannibal’s camp maintained the advantage in the field, and the enemy could still make no headway – not in the fourth day of battle, not in the fifth, nor in the sixth. They could not lay a hand on Hannibal and his troops.

Hannibal had done this before. In his first year as a warrior. thirteen years and one month before, in a battle defending his home turf in the south, a battle that lasted nine days, Hannibal vanquished nearly every one of the enemy forces that challenged him, and they drew no blood from Hannibal’s forces – they did not even land one blow to his camp. Four of the enemy’s soldiers managed to escape - but even from their positions, on Hannibal’s left flank, they were not able to advance much further, as Hannibal kept a close eye on them, to freeze their activities.

Meanwhile, back at home base, Hannibal was reunited with his brother. This time, though, Hasdrubal joined his brother’s camp with his head intact.

In the recent battle, Hannibal, the general from south of the great sea, continued, unharmed, through the seventh day of fighting. Through those first seven days, he had only used 89 arrows and spears, to vanquish his enemy’s forces. He was not only victorious over his foes, he was also being very economical.

In the morning of the eighth day of the battle, the enemy directed a low-flying projectile towards Hannibal’s left flank, hoping to land a blow against his forces, but one of Hannibal’s nearby troops was able to intercept the spear, before it could do any harm.

Then, late in the evening of the eighth day, Hannibal faced a new foe – one that had been kept in reserve by the enemy, and whom Hannibal had not yet seen in this battle. After an arduous struggle between the combatants, all the soldiers and observers on hand beheld, with a collective gasp, a dying quail sailing across the battlefield, and saw it land in the distant fields, between Hannibal’s ranks. Everyone knew the significance of this ominous sign, and Hannibal’s civilian leaders immediately knew what to do – they recalled their general home, and sent in the reserve cavalry.

It is true, that Hannibal might have exhausted his supply of arrows and spears – and butterflies – but it was the dying quail, which all had seen descend in the distant field, more than his material resources, that people feared – and the enemy hoped – would shoot down Hannibal’s morale; for all observers of battle have witnessed such sights, after an unbroken series of conquests – and there was no mistaking its meaning.

For the remainder of the eighth night, and over the course of the ninth day of the battle, a member of the cavalry, who was unaffected by the dying quail, concluded the victorious battle.

In the next battle of the campaign, which began, the next day, Hannibal’s successor general, a man who hailed from Germania, picked up the torch, and for the first six days of the battle, he and his troops went unharmed, vanquishing nearly every one of the enemy forces. This, too, had been done before. Six years earlier, Hannibal and the same Germani general had led consecutive battles, near the northern front, and gone unharmed, for the first five days of each battle.

What remains to be seen is, will this Hannibal and his troops win all the battles, but lose the war.

tosca: gheorghiu & kaufmann

saw the tosca, live from the met, yesterday -- plan to go back, wednesday -- great 'vissi d'arte,' by sonya yoncheva -- great screams too -- spine-tingling -- blood-curdling -- and a magnificent 'e lucevan' by vittorio grigolo -- pours it all out

here's the 2006 vienna pairing of angela gheorghiu and jonas kaufmann -- i saw them in the movie theater, from covent garden -- incredible -- i watched act three of the below, and act two and the 'mia gelosa' scene -- kaufmann encores 'e lucevan,' and gheorghiu doesn't come out, on cue -- terfel really has fun with his role

addendum: yoncheva and grigolo were singing their roles for the first time -- actually, grigolo sang in the opera, when he was 13 -- as the shepherd boy -- and, in the broadcast, he talked about being congratulated, after the opera, by luciano pavarotti, his cavaradossi, and looking forward to the day he'd sing cavaradossi -- here's the picture they showed, on the broadcast -- 27 years ago

turns out, yoncheva and grigolo were also replacements for the originally cast stars -- kristine opolais and jonas kaufmann -- wouldn't that have been great -- they've paired up, in europe, on at least two operas, i think

not only that, bryn terfel was replaced by zelko lucic, and opolais's husband, andris nelsons, pulled out as conductor, and his replacement, met music director james levine, was suspended by the met for sexual misconduct, and replaced, in turn, by emmanuel villaume

wow -- great cecilia

addendum to juices

monday, i bought these (new for me) juice cartons from the rimi next to the townhall building

the pina colada was really good

then there's something else they drink here, which might belong in the "unusual" category

butter -- or cream -- or oil

not by itself,...but with fresh carrot juice -- carrot juice supposedly needs something oily to help ingest the carrots' vitamins -- something like that -- in trakai (the little castle town, a half-hour from vilnius), the waiter brought out a little pitcher of olive oil, with my order of fresh carrot juice -- maria tells me that in grocery stores, next to the fresh carrot juice, there are small packets of oil available -- i haven't seen them

back to drinks

when i started writing about drinks i've met in lithuania, i did it, chronologically -- from the very first drink i met, and so on,...as i met them

i was going to continue, in that vein -- then i decided to...put a little more effort into it -- so i wrote down all the drinks i've met, and put them in groups -- came up with four categories -- juices, teas, alcoholic drinks, and unusual drinks

i'll start with the juices -- and there are a lot of 'em

they must love their juices, here

most restaurants have two categories of juices on the menu -- just plain "juices,"...which i guess means they're from bottles the restaurant bought, and freshly squeezed juices -- they call 'em sultys naturalis (i think that's how it's spelled) -- ones they squeeze, in-house -- the most popular fresh-juice combinations are orange-and-grapefruit and carrot-and-apple -- most restaurants have both

this one's not in lithuania, but...it's a juice -- fresh-squeezed apple juice -- moscow airport, in march

the grocery stores...are where the real action is -- juices galore -- and they're delicious -- even the "drinks" (not 100% fruit juice) are really good

in maxima, one of the four grocery-store chains, i was shocked to see a carton of prickly-pear juice – that was the morning i left here, in march -- now, surely, lithuania cannot be a great producer of cactus fruit -- i love prickly-pears, but i've never seen prickly-pear juice; that doesn't mean it doesn't exist elsewhere -- just that i haven't come across it

on the left is a bottle of fresh beet juice -- popular here -- that's a big bottle, though -- it comes in very small bottles -- not supposed to consume it, in large quantities -- stomach can't handle it or something

funny thing about that picture -- i took it, back in cleveland, the morning i arrived, some 30 hours after i bought the juices from maxima -- my friend maria would not be happy about that -- calls those fresh juices, after they've been sitting outside for a few hours, "wine" -- and they do start to get a little vinegary,...after a while -- a decent while

do you see the price on the beet juice -- 1.16 -- a euro and 16 cents -- that's about a buck-and-a-quarter -- the prices are great -- i get a bottle of carrot juice, almost every time i'm in a rimi, another of the chains -- 1.49 -- i got a bad one, last week -- maria sent me an e-mail address for them -- they were "right on it" -- credited her rimi shopping card


there are a lot of great berry juices

next to the carton of berry juice, that's a bag of loquats -- i couldn't believe it -- they were excellent -- bought some, both times i saw them -- i think, at rimi -- i haven't learned,...when and where

pomegranate seems to be popular here -- sometimes i find the fruit, at a decent price -- gobble 'em up -- and,...thanks to lithuania, now i know why they're called pomegranates -- they're called granata, here -- voila -- the candy bar on the lower-right corner,...i've fallen in love with that -- pergale makes a lot of chocolates

this granata wasn't cheap -- this was in march -- granatai must be a generic form of the word, or the plural -- the pomelo looks like it was cheap -- it wasn't sweet, though

an unusually tart green-apple juice -- yum -- maria says it's not 100% fruit juice

surprising color, for apple juice -- at the discount german chain lidl, which has just entered the market

those plastic bags are funny -- yogurt drink, that you squeeze,...out of the bag -- very good

i thought this was a children's drink -- on a shelf with a lot of other colorful bottles with cartoon characters and animals -- i liked the bottle -- yummy -- lot of banana juice, here

tea, alcohol, and the strange,...coming up

steamy felicie mushrooms

it's in the mid- to high-seventies, this afternoon -- according to the weather channel's web-site, it's 78 or 79 degrees now -- somewhat humid -- feels a lot hotter,...like it's in the nineties -- maybe that's because of how cold it has been -- in the mid-forties, and maybe even colder

yesterday,...walking around in the afternoon,...i got tired and sleepy -- was warm,...relatively speaking -- could have also been tired because of my...sleep patterns

back to felicie and mushrooms

i found a picture of the outside of felicia, from my visit in march

that's felicie, beyond the car -- their outdoor seating area -- to the right is the gateway leading to the church of the holy trinity -- on the left is ausros vartei gatvé (gate of dawn street -- pronounced awsh'ros -- i think i misspelled it, in the earlier post) -- we can see st. theresa church, there, in the distance, on the left -- to the right of that, the alley continues, leading to the gate of dawn, with its miracle-working painting of the virgin mary

the mushroom soup we had there featured the special lithuanian mushroom baravykai -- called boletus, in english -- umm-umm -- i'm gonna try getting some, and cook them,...even though they might only be available now, frozen or dried

 
 
 

in case i haven't mentioned it before, mushroom- and berry-picking are a big thing here

the great corelli

i've been listening to a lot of franco corelli, lately -- he's unbelievable -- my new god

i'm getting this collection

watched this tribute to him, from 15 years ago -- in parma -- such a nice guy, too

shakshuka

i'm starting another series -- because, thursday, i went to the best restaurant i've been to in vilnius

first, though, about the weather -- when i looked at the weather app on my phone, thursday night, it said that it was going to dip to 46 degrees, at six o'clock, yesterday morning

i asked maria -- she said her colleagues said it got down to three degrees -- celsius -- equals...38.4 fahrenheit

back to food

i first met this restaurant in march -- i was walking around, and saw these antique instruments in the window

it's between town hall and the gates of dawn (ausros vartu (that's awsh'rus), the only remaining gate to the city), a place of good luck

then, i passed the restaurant again, a month ago, when i was on my way to see hales turgus for the first time -- a popular market, on the other side of ausros vartu

reminded me of the women who sit on the ground outside the gates of jerusalem, selling their produce

the woman was wagging her finger at me,...about taking pictures -- i then walked by her, and we smiled at each other

i haven't talked about the rye bread -- unbelievable -- maybe the best thing here -- certainly,...the greatest discovery...from my first trip

a week before, i went to another turgus -- kalvariju -- i'll get back to that one

when i passed the restaurant, i took two more pictures of the instruments -- thought i might get a better result than the first time

 then i looked at the menu

WHOA -- SHAKSHUKA (the bottom-left item) -- WHAT THE HECK!

on mother's day, we went for a brunch at table 45, in the intercontinental hotel, on the cleveland clinic grounds -- hani, the egyptian man at the omelette station, made me an omelette -- very good -- then my ex-brother-in-law went -- hani offered to make him an omelette, arab-style -- shakshuka

we loved it -- lots of tomatoes,...well cooked -- stewed,...i guess...is the word -- with onions -- i think khalid said that cooking the tomatoes well, takes care of the acidity -- the eggs are cracked onto the cooked ingredients -- the egg whites get mixed in, but the egg yolk is left intact, until the end -- then,...a little cut in each,...to let the yoke leak out

so i made it a goal to have a shakshuka here

after spending more time walking around hales turgus than i should have, i finally headed back (towards the library), and i stopped at felicie, to check it out

we finally made it there, thursday -- a holiday here -- mindigas day -- the founder of lithuania -- brought the country together -- its only king -- but the founder of a dynasty,...i think -- one of his descendants, gediminas, founded vilnius,...responding to a vision of a wolf

the shakshuka was great

only difference,...the egg yokes weren't cut -- were cooked just slightly more than...to make them ooze-able -- i told the waiter...about everything -- he was going to tell the cook

actually,...looking at the picture now, i see that the egg whites weren't mixed in with the rest of the ingredients -- a la hani's shakshuka

oh -- something important -- when i first told the waiter why we were there, he said that they were no longer making shakshuka -- that it wasn't a popular item, so they took it off the menu -- i asked him, please -- he checked with the chef -- bob's your uncle

and we were the only ones in the restaurant -- inside or out -- they have a nice seating area outside -- great location

before the shakshuka, though, we had their baba ghanouj -- very different than what i'm used to (levantine arab style) -- excellent -- i loved it -- jewish style, the waiter said -- with mayonnaise -- funnily enough, the plain crackers worked better with the baba ghanouj than the soft bread did

and the mushroom soup was outstanding too -- a special local mushroom -- i don't remember the name -- something like buletas or bulentas -- i'll get it -- mushrooms are so amazing

maria wanted the baked goat cheese -- with caramelized beet roots -- she loved it -- i thought it was just all right

the gira was very good too

and look at the couch there

we sat on a similar couch -- looking at that one -- the outdoor seating area is to our left

i told the...replacement waiter -- our first waiter was great -- very friendly -- he left, though -- well, i told her that i've been to 20 or 30 restaurants in vilnius, and this one was the best

i'm going back -- for everything

it's pronounced felitsia

brrrrr

before i get back to drinks or bibliotekas,...or anything else,...a little weather report

people have been wearing overcoats here,...today and yesterday -- raincoats,...jackets,.... -- maybe the days before too -- i don't remember -- it's 57 or 58 degrees, at four o'clock -- the high hasn't gone much over 60, the last two days,...if it has even reached 60 -- it's to get to 50, overnight -- might have dipped into the forties, the last couple of nights -- my summer costume is always,...t-shirt and shorts (polo shirt, half-sleeve shirt, whatever) -- not today or yesterday -- long-sleeve shirt,...for sure -- and long pants -- socks, too -- although i've been formal here -- want to look presentable,...when i go into these libraries -- haven't worn shorts yet,...i don't think -- maybe once,...for a very short foray -- reminds me of being in baghdad

actually, i just looked at the weather channel's web-site -- even though it reaches 66, 65 and 67 degrees, the next three days, it goes to 46, 45 and 47, overnight

funny

it's supposed to warm up, saturday -- crack the 70-degree mark

i finally was able to find the temperatures for past days, on the weather channel's web-site -- the high was 62, yesterday; 59, sunday; 70, saturday

now,...back to drinks or bibliotekas -- i like saying "biblioteka"

vilniaus bibliotekos

that's libraries of vilnius -- not too hard -- i just had to learn the ending -- endings -- of both...vilnius and biblioteka

* * *
before we get back to drinking,...a little work

when i was in cleveland, and decided, three months ago, that i would spend the summer in vilnius, i thought i'd teach english during my stay here -- i corresponded with a few schools here, and they told me that to teach english here, one needed a certificate -- after arriving, i learned that a program to get the certificate lasts four or six weeks, and costs a thousand or so euros -- in the meantime, i thought i'd put up a shingle, offering writing and editing services -- i told aneta, at my old hotel, and my landlord that i was looking for work -- zita sent me links to three translation agencies here (vertimu biuras) -- the place is littered with them -- one of them, which provides translation services for businesses and the e.u., responded -- that they were actually looking for someone to write for their blog -- they liked some of my ideas,...so that meant i needed a library -- i've been to seven or eight

the first one was the closest to my apartment of the ones recommended -- lietuvos technikos biblioteka, on sventasis ignoto gatvé -- saint ignatius street -- sventasis starts with a "sh," and is always abbreviated "sv," with a little wide v accent mark over the "s," to make the "s" a "sh" -- somebody tell me what that accent mark is called -- most of the streets in old town, especially the pre-war streets, are narrow alleys -- cobblestoned streets,...or brick streets -- alleys, really -- the way they've been, for hundreds of years -- now with elevated pavements on the sides -- probably added, early in the twentieth century

the library is on the right side of the brick wall,...down the road a bit

that's the other end of ignoto -- the library is behind us, on the left

entering, from another gate 

before you enter the reading room -- which is around the glass case to the right

i don't know if this library is attached to any university or college -- its web-site says it was founded by the ministry of defense, last year, and that it's funded by the state -- i've seen a few men in military uniform here -- one, with his little girl, in the cafeteria -- its books are divided into design, architecture, landscape, aviation and other technical fields -- a good percentage of them are in english -- maybe 10 to 20 percent

it's quiet -- the cubicles are wide -- not too many people have been there -- friendly staff

this library quickly became my favorite -- then, what i discovered, a week or two ago, made it...soar...into the stratosphere -- into...something,...supernatural

next day, i went to the national library, on gedimino prospektas -- the main boulevard of the new city -- gedimino starts, directly across the street from the great cathedral

that's the library building -- to the left is the parliament building, one of the main sites of anti-soviet demonstrations -- which began in 1987

the building was constructed in soviet times -- i think, begun, in 1963 -- but they've been redoing the inside, for 10 years -- just opened up

i like their system of numbering the days of the week -- you see that, everywhere -- shops, restaurants, etc.

busy place -- it was hard to find desk-space

i couldn't understand what those were -- right across from the main desk

lot of lockers

it looks like i've got myself another series -- and i'm not even done with the second item in the series

same bat channel