Month: September 2023

Shirt by Thom Browne / Jeans by Levi’s

Photos + Info: Bravo TV

Originally posted at: Jenna Lyons’ Season 14 Reunion Look

Shoes by Maison Ernest

Photo + Info: Bravo TV

Originally posted at: Sai De Silva’s Season 14 Reunion Look

Monday morning and I’m out the gate as if I have to reach the finish line by tomorrow! While laundry is drying on the line in the sun, yoghurt incubating in a sunny window, the dishwasher cleaned out, the blemished apple harvest paired and simmering on the stove to become apple butter, I get to write an article for Sixty and Me.

As I am shifting from summer hiking season to fall harvest and writing touring, my list of things to do right now is so long I have to organize my time. Will we ever adopt a butterfly lifestyle, flitting from one attraction to another as we get older?

I have some ‘butterfly’ days, but it takes organization to get those, and I’m in my 7th decade at this point! My tasks are self-inflicted, which brings me to the core reason of how To-Do lists emerge.

Things That Necessitate a To-Do List

Are you an engaged, enthusiastic person? Do you keep up with friends and family? Do you have hobbies and passions that make you feel alive? Do you care about your body and do what it takes to stay healthy?

Are you curious and exploring new places, taking up new activities to expand your horizon? Do you have a (smaller) home you keep looking good? Are you a responsible citizen, and do you contribute to local and national interests and developments?

Do you manage your finances and keep up with the bookkeeping? Are you thinking about the future generation, your grandchildren’s future, and want to leave a legacy?

If you say yes to half of the above questions, you will have a full life with a To-Do list.

To-Do lists are a sign of health, vitality and engagement. At Sixty and Me we aspire to avoid an inactive lifestyle, an incapable and closed mindset in later life. A To-Do list is a positive thing.

What I’ve Learned About To-Do Lists

To avoid feeling stressed by your To-Do list, consider what I’ve learned about these wonderful tools and take your ‘busy-ness’ with a grain of salt and a sprinkle of a smile. Remind yourself that the thing you think needs to get done is your choice and you can change your mind.

What To-Do lists have taught me:

• To-Do lists are only as long as you make them: Remember that it all comes back to choices you’re making or have made.
• Long To-Do lists add years to your life. New things on your list are a sign that you’re involved. You have life left in you.
• You can ‘chunk’ To-Do lists into smaller ones. To avoid feeling overwhelmed by your to-dos, make seasonal lists, maintenance (yearly, weekly) lists and social lists. How often, how much? That depends on you.
• There is always another day for the To-Do list. You have time! And if you feel like you don’t, it’s no good trying to do a rush job anyway!
• House cleaning doesn’t belong on the To-Do list. I don’t mind house cleaning, but it belongs next to exercise and showering, it’s part of living life.
• To-Do lists are a guidebook to your coming adventures. Planning for a trip or trips, a change in living circumstances, a new skill you want to learn creates To-Do lists. See it as creating space in your mind and your body for expansion and deeper living.

You don’t need to stop making To-Do lists to live ‘in the moment’. To-Do lists let you live in the moment as long as you use them as a tool, not a burden around your neck. They are simply a sign of vitality!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you enjoy having your To-Do list or do you feel burdened by it? Do you feel more comfortable writing down your To-Dos or do you try to keep them in your memory? Have you tried going digital with your To-Do lists? Please share your best practices of keeping events, appointments and other tasks.

My family is from St. Louis, so a nice road trip from Chicago to St. Louis (five hours with one potty stop) was in the cards for my opera friend, Betsy, and me. Opera Theater of St. Louis is known for excellent productions, many of them commissioned premiers.

Treemonisha

Opera by Scott Joplin, Produced by Opera Theater of St. Louis

You don’t often see Treemonisha produced because it is not that good of an opera. But historically, it has caché. Scott Joplin was born in Texas and worked and played piano across the south to Sedalia, Missouri. Seventeen years later, he arrived in St. Louis on the tails of his hit song “Maple Leaf Rag”. In 1907 he moved to New York City, seeking broader outlets for his compositions, including Treemonisha. Minor versions of the opera were produced during Joplin’s life. He died in 1917 from complications of syphilis.

Treemonisha was little known until the 1970s when Marvin Hamlish’s score for the movie The Sting brought Joplin back into the limelight. Hamlish pretty much lifted the score from Joplin’s work. As a result of the revival in ragtime music, Houston Grand Opera staged Treemonisha and took it to Broadway for eight weeks. In 1975, Joplin was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to American music.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis first staged Treemonisha in 2000. They commissioned this new version, topped and tailed with two new acts created by librettist Karen Chilton and composer Danien Sneed. This prologue and epilogue anchor the opera in “Joplin-time.”

It begins with the happy marriage of Joplin to his second wife, Freddie Alexander, his muse for Treemonisha. Her death, and Joplin’s longing segue to the beginning of Treemonisha, written in her honor, and set on a plantation in Texarkana, TX. It ends with Joplin alone on the stage, dying, still longing for Freddie and the acceptance of his opera.

I didn’t love this opera nor the new acts. Treemonisha can stand on its own. But I did appreciate the Blackness (to me) of the setting and the story. Treemonisha is a charismatic young Black woman who works to bring her community out of the darkness of slavery. Her parents, childless until they found the infant under a magical tree, are a devoted couple. They performed extra work to hire a white tutor who taught Treemonisha to read and write.

Those familiar with the plays of August Wilson would know he features in all of The Decade Series the alive or dead mystical character Aunt Esther, who represents the slave life and the wisdom painfully learned by the generations. Embodied in her are traditional African beliefs. In Treemonisha, Joplin uses African traditions of the sacred tree (the tree in Treemonisha), conjurers, and the spirit world of Sankofa.

There is a wide variety of music: opera, ragtime, barbershop quarter, and lots of splendid ensemble work. But this seems to lend the opera randomness rather than cohesion. But do see Treemonisha if you are interested in the history of Black music in the United States.

For those of you with grandchildren, learn more about the sensory-friendly version of Treemonisha that will be performed on Oct. 21 at the Missouri History Museum.

Cosí Fan Tutte, Opera Buffa

Produced by Opera Theater of St. Louis, Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte

Opera Theater of St. Louis hit it out of the park with their production of Cosí Fan Tutte. This is such a fun Mozart opera, full of lush arias, duets, trios, quartets, etc. The singers were more than a match for the composer’s rigorous score. Cosí Fan Tutte roughly translates to “women are like that”. But the plot reveals that both men and women are like that.

This production was set in the UK during World War II. The female leads are wealthy debutants who fall in love with capricious men. The war setting enables all sorts of tomfoolery, with the men pretending to enlist in the army and navy, the women turning their mansion into a military hospital where they volunteer. The pretend general instigates the bet that the women will fall for new loves when their men go to war (after all, “women are like that”). The military doctor stirs the plot. 

The beauty of attending any performance at Opera Theater St. Louis is the Loretto-Hilton Theater. There are 763 seats, and all are 30 feet or less from the stage. The acoustics are fine, sightlines excellent, and the hospitality of the volunteers and staff flawless. The theater is on the grounds of Webster University, set amidst lovely gardens, lunch and dinner picnics are available and parking is close at hand.

I enjoyed this year’s season, so how about we meet there next year? Season tickets are now on sale for 2024. Check out Opera Theater of St. Louis.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What do you like most about opera productions? In which theater have you experienced the best of performances? Which performance was it? Would you go to an opera with a friend?

Photo + Info: Bravo TV

Originally posted at: Jessel Taank’s Season 14 Reunion Look