Murphy's Law in the Classical Sense

[rmthunter]

WFMT, Chicago's only surviving classical music station, has a regular feature on Saturdays -- a complete opera, beginning generally around 12:30. It used to be "Live from the Met," but that ran out of funding, so now they generally do recent recordings.

Yesterday's opera was Tristan und Isolde, which was a treat because a) I love Wagner; b) "Tristan" is one of my favorites; and c) Wagner doesn't get broadcast much. It was also a fairly new recording with Placido Domingo as Tristan. I knew he had been expanding his repertoire and was looking forward to hearing him do Wagner. So I was all prepared to hunker down on a gloomy Saturday and listen.

They lost Act II.

The announcer came on after Act I and said words to the effect of "We can't find Act II of this recording, so please be patient while we try to find an Act II somewhere." (One of the nice things about WFMT is that the announcers actually talk as though you were there in the room with them. It's pretty informal.)

About ten minutes later, they found an Act II (on LP) with Kirsten Flagstad as Isolde and a tenor whose name I can't remember as Tristan, so it wasn't a total loss. It was kind of a wrench to the continuity of the whole thing, though.

They went back to the original recording for Act III.

Domingo, by the way, was terrific. It's a recording I'll have to look out for (with Act II).

[Redlass]

Those poor folks!

[rmthunter]

Actually, it's the sort of thing that tends to happen with WFMT (which is also available on cable and online). I remember many years ago, at 10 on a Friday night, listening to the news and weather. The announcer got to the weather report and just read right through until he got to the part that said "for the remainder of this evening, partly sunny . . ." Silence. Then: "Someone's being a little too optimistic. That should say, partly cloudy."

It was an FMT moment.

[Redlass]

*laugh* Yeah, I'd get concerned if it were partly sunny this far north in the winter.

By the way (taking the thread totally off topic), I almost got to come to your neck of the woods. Rick got called in for an audition with the Illinois Shake Fest. However, I'd already committed to doing a craft show, so I didn't get to join him.

[rmthunter]

It's not in the winter, it was at 10 pm -- Chicago's not far enough north that it's going to be sunny at 10 pm any time of year.

Sorry you didn't get to make the trip. Would have been nice to get together.

[Redlass]

With any luck, there will be more opportunities.

Well, there are a few summer days where it feels like it is going to be sunny at 10 p.m. (I think Lansing is about the same distance north as Chicago--we might be a tad further north, but not by much.)

[rmthunter]

Not enough to make that much difference. Of course, now it's dark by 5.

[eris esoteric]

It's not so much the north thing, it's the distance from the edge of the time zone thing that gives us sunlight at late hours.

[rmthunter]

I'd forgotten about that -- we're right on the eastern edge of Central Time. Which could be a story title, now that I think of it.

Or a country & western song.

[Redlass]

Oooh. That's a good point. 'Cause we're at the tail end of Eastern time on this side of the lake.

[rmthunter]

It always used to throw me when I was a kid, because we lived right on the border and did a lot of our shopping in Indiana.