I bet that was amazing!

Ooh, I found a production that a college uploaded to YouTube! I very much prefer to see an opera live, but I’d already accepted that I would never see this production since it’s probably pretty rare.

I’ll definitely give it a watch, thanks for the rec!

I’ve been wanting to catch an Othello for years now. I’ll see it one of these days!

I mean, if you’re going to go to one show…

I don’t really mind cheeseyness; it shows vulnerability in the author and performers.

Star Trek is undeniably cheesey, but there’s an earnestness that comes with it that makes it compelling.

Hell yeah, sounds awesome!

I don’t know anything about Lizard Boy, but I’m intrigued since you both saw it multiple times in one week.

Oh that’s excellent! We did Bye Bye Birdie in middle school, and it was a ton of fun. I love the enthusiasm of amateur theater. Awesome that they played the orchestra part, too!

I kind of want to hate watch that Jobs one!

I appreciate that they’re doing new stuff though! I love historical performance, but I absolutely understand that is a niche interest. If opera is going to survive as an art form (and I think it should), it needs to be a living medium.

The university is putting an a brand new, world premiere opera called That Hellbound Train here in a couple weeks, and I hope to attend.

An amateur theater performance can be amazing. Even if a performer is not technically skilled, effort and commitment can often be just as enjoyable.

We saw it on Broadway too when we visited NY a few years ago. I wanted to bring the kids to something I knew they’d enjoy, and they absolutely loved it.

Phantom was the first live musical that I saw, and I’ll always love it. You’re going to have so much fun!

I’ve never heard of this one before; it must be so hard to get a new opera out there! I’m glad people are doing it though. Every production seems like a minor miracle of logistics and ambition.

I see it’s based on a book, I might have to give that a read.

Oh, this looks really interesting! I bet that was well worth seeing.

That’s probably fair. I think 20,000 Leagues is pretty well known in the US, probably because of the Disney movie, but otherwise he’s largely ignored.

I’d bet Wells is a bit more known because of his early time travel fiction since its a fairly common plot device now.

I really should read more Verne.

I saw a CH-47, which is unusual enough that I had to snap a pic:

Depends how old. If it’s a Shakespeare play, I like to have read the play beforehand so that I can understand the nuance in the performance. If it’s an opera, I’ll probably read a synopsis beforehand. If it’s a stage play in English written since the 19th century I’ll probably have more fun going in without prior knowledge.

I prefer an e-reader, but I used my phone before I got one. It is nice to always have my books on me with the phone, but the e-reader is much more comfortable for long sessions.

The Wikipedia article music of Egypt has a decent section on ancient music in the history portion.

But it’s important to remember that ancient Egyptian history is incredibly long and varied. It’s hard to pin down musical styles over thousands of years. The reality is that we don’t really know what the music sounded like, so educated guesses are the closest we can get. Notation would not be invented for thousands of years.

The instruments they used provide most of the insight that we have. Here’s a YouTube video of some people playing reconstructions of period instruments. This would just be a guess at the music, but it is at least informed by later tradition from around the region.

What’s your budget? You can get a ukulele or guitar for fairly cheap, and there are websites full of chords or tabs for songs. You can play hundreds of songs if you just know a few chords.

There are tutorial videos on YouTube to get you started. Play and sing along. You’ll suck at first, but if you keep at it and play every day you’ll get to be pretty good.