Field Trip City

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the first installment in an ongoing series:

WHAT I'M IN FOR (PART ONE)

I had my first class today - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Opera - and I will not, as I had previously indicated, be studying Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Instead, I'll be looking at five, count 'em, five operas, presenting as part of a group on one and writing a 15-page paper for the remainder of the final grade. The operas are: Mozart's Le Nozza di Figaro, Verdi's Don Carlos, Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, Strauss' Elektra, and Britten's Death in Venice. I'll be seeing the first two live.

I chatted with some folks before class, including another English student named Marco whose schedule and interests shadow mine pretty closely. He also speaks Italian. He must be stopped (kidding). After a 45 minute delay related to scheduling, Professor Hutcheon introduced the course along with Professor Clark, and the students introduced themselves. The class is a mish-mash of Music, Drama, Comp Lit and English students that will be put into groups to present. The amount of readings is about average, in addition to actually sitting down and listening to/viewing the operas. It feels as though I'm of the few who know next to nothing about opera, but that's only going to drive me harder. On Wednesday I have a one-on-one with Hutcheon about the course. I'd better review how I quoted her in my undergrad essays.

I arrived on campus far earlier than need be to pick up OSAP, so I spent some time locating the Graduates' pub on the western end of the campus. Know where to drink and you'll know where to think. About $200 in textbooks later, I headed home, ate some chili, played some Wii, listened to some SModcast, and hoped that I'm not already in too far over my head.