bloodstains are the new black...?

Tonight was Lizzie Goes To The Opera, Part II: "Lucia Di Lammermoor!"  First, however, I am going to talk about how I singlehandedly saved BBDO several dozen-thousand pounds today...it's an exciting story for anybody as business-nerdy as me (coughPhil-and-Chriscough).

In the UK, corporations can reclaim portions of sales tax that their employees have expensed to the company by creating a compilation called a VAT Reclaim.  It fell to me, the lowly accounting intern, to do this unglamorous but essential job this year.  Basically, I went through every expense claim that had been filed over the course of fiscal year 2009, photocopied and refiled every applicable VAT-reclaimable receipt, and created a monster of an Excel spreadsheet to tabulate it all.  By spending my whole week working on this, I saved BBDO about 17,000 pounds...big deal, right?!   I felt like such an accountant rockstar.  Haha, oxymoron for the win.  Anyway, it was a good, good day at work due in large part to that.

"Lucia:" bloody brilliant in more ways than one!  I thought the plot, singing, orchestra and general performance was miles better than "The Rake's Progress."  The singing was much more rich in lower male voices, my favorite, and the two tenors of the cast were also amazing.  Lucia, the lead role, was a very light-voiced soprano that was lovely to listen to.  The plot is very dark... Lucia's older brother, in desperation, forces her to marry a man she loathes for a political alliance, and she murders that man and then goes insane because the man she loves (her brother's sworn enemy) forsakes her.  Then she dies and so do a lot of other people.  Very dark.  Lots of blood.  As in, Lucia spends the whole third act in a nightgown covered in it.  We had a wonderful time and were thrilled to head back to the flats after the whole three-hour performance ended.  I was a really big fan of this opera, although it wasn't sung in its original Italian which bummed me out a bit.  (One of the highlights: an INSANE amount of wonderful piccolo solos!!  YEAH piccs on top!)  

I'm still nursing this godforsaken cold, which has migrated from my head down to my throat/lungs and set up a very determined camp there, so I'm going to go put jammies on, drink more peppermint tea, and call it a night.  Catch you on the flip side!