Hearing to Eyesight

Much of my peace of mind comes from listening to music. Using Pandora allows me to look up any of my favorite songs and create a station out of them. Pandora radio exposes me to new songs that I thoroughly enjoy, and are now my favorites. I particularly enjoy the 50s, 60s, and 70s radios. I correlate many events in my life with certain songs, that, without Pandora, I would have never heard. The website www.otr.com provides access to radio channels that were the only form of entertainment before the television was invented. I listened to a comedy, Fibber McGee and Molly that was five minutes and eleven seconds. This comedy was light hearted and enjoyable to hear. The music involved with the show reminds me of the original Little Rascals soundtrack that I adore greatly. I also really enjoyed imagining the characters through descriptive words. I was able to picture where the characters were, what they looked like, and how they interacted through my own perspective and imagination. What I love most about "I Love Lucy" is the show's ability to make me smile the entire time. I have been watching the show since I was kid, along with "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Matlock". After watching these original television broadcasts, you can see the correlation with newer television series. These new series were based off of the original ideas for comedy, mystery, and drama. Lucille Ball's facial expressions and her actions make the show fantastic. I remember the episode where they were squishing grapes with their feet to make wine and her face as she entered the huge wooden tub was priceless. I enjoy looking back and appreciating the different forms of media that have been innovated and expanded, especially the black and white shows that have been edited and brought back to life in color (although, the original black and white is always truly the best).

Opera

The Birth and Life of Opera was very insightful. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling with the speaker through different locations observing and appreciating the advancements in civilization through a visual art. Overall, I learned quite a bit and I am looking forward to see how opera has transformed society's entertainment. I watched the opera,Tosca and I was thoroughly impressed with the orchestration. The use of sounds to categorize characters showed us who were villains and who were the common folk. This opera was overall enjoyable, even though the subjects, murder, torture, and suicide were used to create suspension and dramatize the situations being portrayed. What makes Tosca interesting is because this opera was made to define the perspectives of the year 1800, from the year 1895. Nowadays we portray the past much differently than the way the past was perceived over two-hundred years ago. I enjoyed learning more about the history and the challenge of deciphering the overall meaning, or moral of the opera. Tosca is an opera that bases itself on events that occurred prior involving war and iconic villains, in this case Napoleon. Watching an opera is something I have never experienced, and I am glad to have chosen Tosca as my first, especially for its incorporation of music to define characters.

Pjotr Sapegin's Madama Butterfly Reflection

The depiction of the opera was on cue with the actual ideas of the show. The most symbolic part was the umbilical cord that attached Madama Butterfly with her baby. This incorporation represented the bondage the child and mother had, but also, it showed the bondage of Madama Butterfly to Captain Pinkerton. The endless waiting for hope of return of the captain was emphasized by portraying Madama in the same clothes, in the same location, looking towards the same area of the ocean. Although she had a child to bond to, she still waited for the man who promised her his return. This comical short of the opera represented the depression of Madama Butterfly, while also portraying her endless hope, which makes the short quite wonderful.