Addio senza addio...

"Lloyd always said that in the theater, a lifetime was a season, and a season a lifetime."
--Karen Richards in All About Eve

Well, no. I'm not pulling the plug on Maury D'Annato exactly. At least probably not. I am, however, scheduling a heart to heart with him after Parsifal, presumably the last big operatic event I'm hitting this season. It's just that valedictory postings are such fun, I didn't want to get cheated out of one just because I'm not necessarily leaving.

And the facts are these: I started this blog six months ago thinking two or three friends might read it if they were exceptionally bored at work. And a certain number beyond that have begun reading it, and that's a bit of a thrill. But my writing on this topic has begun to feel a little formulaic to me, and maybe to you as well. The reason to keep blogging would be if I thought I were writing something usefully or at least enjoyably unique/new, and I have mixed feelings about that. Occasionally I write a sentence that makes me laugh, but often it looks a lot like another sentence I wrote three weeks ago. Nu...

The summer may be something of a natural break, though already I'm booking up Caramoor and the like. Who can say? If you find me posting a time or two a week, a year from now, you can retrospectively consider this little more than an excuse to quote a beloved farewell by a real writer to his fictitious creation: [yeah, yeah, I'm gonna translate, but I'm just so excited to have found the text online]

Блажен, кто праздник жизни рано
Оставил, не допив до дна
Бокала полного вина,
Кто не дочёл её романа
И вдруг умел расстаться с ним,
Как я с Онегиным моим.

loosely:

Blissful is he who left the party early,
Left the last of the wine undrunk,
Who didn't read the last page of the novel
But was able simply to part with it
As I do now with my Onegin.

And I my Maury, except probably not really. Gosh, I think I got something in my eye.