Subscribe to chromatic.netI took this video while in Lyon France backstage at the Opera D’Lyon
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Today we left Lyon around 9am and headed to Entrecasteaux. Michael and Ellen drove their car - a rare 4 door sedan which was good, as the trip took about 4 hours. Having never seen the French countryside, I don’t have anything to compare it to, but it was beautiful. Vineyards feature heavily, and lots of stone ruins and not-so-ruins.
On the way down we stopped at two places: Orange to see a fantastic ancient roman amphitheatre, and another place where we saw the bombed out ruin called Chateaux du Pape, which was the summer home of the pope when the papacy was in nearby Avignon.
The amphitheatre was fairly messy. The original roof burned out sometime ago, and the rainfall has done heavy damage to the scene face over the years. They are building a new roof to keep the rain off, so the entire face was covered with scaffolding. The scene is built in stone and is obviously a permanent structure. The plays and operas staged upon it are adjusted to match. It seemed large enough to handle just about any circumstance.
This also turned out to be a good chance to buy postcards, which I had forgotten to do in Lyon 
We bought some sammies for lunch at the Chateau-Neuf du Pape ruins. The views from the chateau were [note to self: come up with more words for “nifty”].
Finally we made our way to Entrecasteaux. It’s a postcard village of about 200 people halfway between Nice and Marseille. The main feature of the village is an ENORMOUS chateau which has only been recently inhabited by someone rich enough to restore it. It overlooks the village and it’s “front yard” is a garden avec fountain designed by the same gardener responsible for the garden in Versailles.
The streets are generally only navigable by foot or motorcycle. Ellen and Michael’s house can be reached by car, and their cul-de-sac is the only available parking in the village. All other’s must park in other odd places and walk up. The house is actually two houses across the street from eachother. The main house is about 4 floors with a small footprint. You enter at kitchen/street level and move up from there. Across the street is the guesthouse which was rebuilt from the ruins of another building brought down many years ago. Michael has been building this nearly full time for 2 years, and had just installed the hot water heater the day they came to Lyon.
The main house
The guest house
Views from the main house
There are two restaurants, and a handful of other businesses. I am writing this on the street seating of “Bar Central” the main watering hole and social spot. Wine is the cheapest item on the menu, followed by coffee, tap beer (too wheaty for my taste), and bottled beers. Bottled water is not cheap, though I could drink from the public fountain that sits about 20 feet from me.
Ellen took us on a lovely walk through the village. We circled around the chateau and along the river (and through the woods) to see the local wash house - river water is diverted into an open structure with basins for local washing, and is actually used by some folks.
Afterwards we sat around chatting and preparing dinner which was tomatoes and zucchini stuffed with tuna, and smaller tomatoes stuffed with rice.
We had some champagne on the terrace of the guest house, then, finally, off to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night to discover I am coming down with a cold, but I just. Don’t. Care. I can still taste, and I’ll collapse with pneumonia when I get home. At least I have a nice quiet village to spend time in while I work through that.
This production of Alcina was created by Jossi Wieler in Stuttgart where it ran for about 6 years. It then went to San Francisco where Roy was the assistant director. When they remounted it in Lyon, Roy was chosen as the stage director to remount the production with an entirely new cast (except Alcina herself).
You can read a brief synopsis of Alcina at Wikipedia on the internets. Roy’s description took an entire lunch and several bottles of wine. The depth of detail and backgrounding required to fully understand it is… ridiculous. He talked all the way through lunch… and as we paid the bill he said “And that brings us to Act 2″. omg.
This production is quite avant garde. The set and costuming is entirely noire. The interpretation is also quite twisted. In the original, Alcina - a sorceress with a nasty habit of enchanting her boyfriends into trees and animals on her island - is confronted and bested by Richardo’s wife and best friend. In this version, however, Alcina is played as the only truly pure character, who only wants free love, and who is destroyed by puritans. It’s a 4ish hour production, although it was played faster than the original so ended up being less.
I loved it. The set, the interpretation, the intricate staging, the costumes, the singing. Everything.
The audience loved all of those things too… except when the directing team came out, there were a small number of VERY loud boos. Some old guard (aka retardeds) that did not appreciate having their classics messed with. IMHO, there are so many stories that are ridiculous when looked at through a modern lens, and updating them to let them breathe new air is natural.
They apparently got some boos in San Francisco as well, and it was not completely unexpected, nor did it hurt anyone’s feelings too much, apparently. I thought that grown adults booing a production that they obviously enjoyed was terrible.
The cast/crew reception upstairs was delightful. I got to mingle with all the folks I had met on my first evening, now with the context of seeing them perform, which is always nice. I met many others who had not attended the first dinner and learned new things… for example, one of the performer’s who is german, has a country house about 100km from here and keeps bees. Two years ago hr produced over 50 kilos of honey. Fun times.
Michael, Ellen, Roy, Holly and Nicolas after the Opera.
Me looking fabulous after the Opera.
We plan to leave at 9am on Monday, so we spent 45 minutes packing up after the show and reception. It was such a beautifuil night we headed out again for another walk. We stopped at a sidewalk cafe and drank a bottle of wine before heading back to the apartment to spend the last night in Lyon.
Lyon feels very very San Francisco to me. The people are very come as you are. We saw jeans and fleece at the opera and nice restaurants. It rained on and off the entire time, but it was the light rain that doesn’t require an umbrella - the sort we usually have in San Francisco, this winter very much excluded.
I loved it.
Sphere: Related ContentSunday in Lyon…
I woke up too late to accompany Michael and Ellen on their walking tour of Lyon. They do guided tours for opera buffs and are scouting everything before they bring people here. I wasn’t in the mood for a serious walk today in any case… my leg is a bit worn out from getting lost last night while trying to find the restaurant. We walked about 2 miles, and I was wearing my very non-orthotic dress shoes with leather soles.
Roy had to be at the opera house at 2pm to begin preparations for the 4pm premiere. as it was about 1130 by the time we rolled out, he decided to just dress for the evening. I wore shorts, tevas, and a long sleeve shirt, and I look like an American tourist. Oh well. I sweat a lot when I walk for more than 5 minutes and intend to be comfortable for it.
The plan was to let everyone know I was alive at the cybercafe next door to our apt, then walk down to the opera neighborhood to find a coffee and some lunch. I sent a few emails out from my phone when I got here, but nothing since. Because it’s Sunday very few places are open.
Roy said he found a place in the opera house where if you sat right next to a particular window on the floor you could get a signal, so I ran back up to get my laptop. We stopped at a sidewalk cafe/restaurant to get coffee. This was the first menu I had seen translated to English, and it turned out to be a bad omen. When the waiter finally came out and we ordered a coffee and tea he angrily insisted we move to another set of tables (nearly all were empty btw). As I was packing stuff up to move he tried to shoo us again. We both shot him the evils and he went away to place the order and we moved as soon as we were repacked. Merci, dick.
So we had our coffee and went up to the top floor of the opera house to look for a wifi signal. After wandering around for a bit I located an open signal but it was really weak. I managed to fire off one of the queued blog posts (with only a single image attached) over the course of 15 minutes. The other one has several pictures and there was no way that was gonna go through. I also managed to send out a short e-mail over my mac webmail before I got bored.
While there Roy showed me a toilet that has the weirdest automagically self cleaning toilet seat. The whole seat spins around under a sponge thing like a giant can opener while emitting a redonkalus peach odor. My ass probably smells like a cobbler now. I made a movie of the action which I will post in a few days when internets are being nice to me.
After lunch we found a nearby restaurant with a menu that primarily featured “Brick”… which turned out to be more or less a turnover. I got something that had beef in it which sounded good, and it was amazing. Think square and heavily seasoned and sauced meatloaf wrapped in a pastry and deep fried. We split a chocolate mouse cake thingy and another praline type thing. Praline here isn’t candied pecan. It’s something else that’s bright red, candylike, and tasty. So imagine this candy on top of a tart. Whoah. The restaurants all have little cards.
Ian Mckellan is teabagging. No I don’t know why either, but you go girl.
Silence of the lambs (fat suits for something at the opera)
Art in the the plaza next to the opera house
A view of some beautiful hulk of a building across from the opera house, and the opera house itself
One of the many Arab markets that are open on Sunday. The neighborhood I am in is heavily Arab, so there are plenty of fruits, veggies, and cigarettes to be had. Nearby graffiti. Condition des Soies is “The Silk Condition” whicfh didn’t make sense at first… until I ran into a more formal sign up the block that illuminated. Lyon was a textile producer in the long long ago (the before time). And this particular district I am in was the silk district. And this particular building is where the relative humidity of the silk was measured for weight/price calculagtions. The Silk Condition is a nifty name for a band.
Here’s a map that Roy drew for me to get between the opera house and the apartment. I got lost the first time I tried to use it (at night, after 14 hours of travel, by myself)… but it’s a great map otherwise.
Stairs and shops along the way to the apartment. (Yes. It is. No laws against it. Imagine the size of the dog.)
We are staying in an apartment on top of a hill that is sort of the artist district… called Croix Russe (Russian Cross). Navigating down to the opera house is on a series of very narrow cobblestone streets and staircases. Everything is ridiculously beautiful and old.
We mostly wandered along the river Saune and foodsy/shopsy/outdoor marketsy areas in the vicinity. At this point I am just taking it in and taking pictures of crazy things, or familiar things in another language. At some point we stopped for a box of french strawberries called Garriguettes from the local whole foods type place… then after that made me really hungry we split a thing that was sort of like a sweet bread with praline goo on top. Yums.
Lyon is well known for it’s cuisine… and well loved if you like organs. Lots and lots of organs. I had a Salad Lyonnaise which was your basic salad with bacon and a hot poached egg on top. While eating at a cafe on the street I saw the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life.
We also headed up the hill to see Fourviere - a church on top of the largest hill in the city, which we got to by funicular. It reminded me very much of the Manitou Incline in Colorado Springs, where I lived till about 3rd grade. The inside of the church was fantastic. Every square inch of the place was covered with mosaics.
On the way back to the apartment we ran right into a… something. Someone handed us a pamphlet that about “Le Mouvement Free Tekno”, and cute boys told us that it had something to do with a peaceful protest blah blah party. They were cute so it must be true. It looked more or less like an Afterburner party or Haight Street Fair… but with cuter boys. I have some movies of this action which I’ll post sometime later.
Next up was a random brass band for I don’t know what reason. Roy mentioned something about American’s treating Europe like Disneyland… and the way things are going I have no trouble understanding why. I didn’t bother to photograph a preposterous merrygosomethingorother with spinning teacups. It reeked of SF’s pier 39.
We stopped for a quick coffee and watched them prep one of the city squares for what will be some sort of football celebration. I can’t possibly get annoyed at Raider’s or Niners fans anymore, after seeing the way these folks celebrate their favorite sport. No pictures. Had a quick coffee and rest before heading back up the hill for a real rest before dinner.
…
Roy’s friend’s Michael and Ellen arrived early evening. We are staying with them in Entrecasteaux at the house they are remodeling. Lovely, entertaining people. He’s a retired Opera producer and she is a piano player. I am told that there will be a recital at their home.
They are also foodies, so Michael picked a restaurant from the Michelin Guide: L’Alexandrin. We took a subway there, then got really lost. It took about 20 minutes to get to the place after going in several wrong directions, so I was famished when we arrived.
It was fixed price, fabulous. I was worried at first given the size of the portions… tiny but delicious mouthfuls of nearly everything… but it kept coming and coming and coming. My dinner was something like:
- An amusement of 4 things of totally unknown but tasty origin. 2 solid and 2 liquid. Yums.
- An amazing little tart of something and something else that was unidentifiable and couldn’t decide if it was fruit or meat gravy gel, but who cares. Yums.
- Mousseline with a crawfish (I think) in a super rich crawfish butter broth thing. Mousseline = a dumpling made of egg and pike that ended up putting the mouse in mousseline. Yums.
- Fennel sorbet with Chartreuse on top. Shut. Up. Really weird and really yums.
- Chicken leg in a sauce that was wonderfully tart. Yums.
- A warm goat cheese and bread course.
- A pre-dessert that was little tiny chocolate wafers and feather thin sweet things and stuff.
- A chocolate real dessert: 2 chocolate madeleines with hot goo center on one side, and a chocolate ice with a vanilla (and some weird spice like coriander?) sauce. Woof.
Dinner conversation was amusing. Michael asked what I did and I explained it to him. He sort of boggled that I get paid to do it. I sort of agreed with the statement that I canonize common sense… which is something few people have or can do.
We took a cab home. Time for bed now… it’s 1am. I am hoping to get to a wireless tomorrow morning to post some pics and these blog entries, then we have the opening of Alcina at 4pm. Evening will be repacking, then we head to Entrecasteaux the following day.
Sphere: Related ContentWas ridiculous and cool.
Navigating the airport a breeze… Customs was a fast “passporte svp and merci”. Getting luggage no problem. Getting a single ticket to central Lyon, no problem.
Then the bus queue. I was the 3rd person there, but there was a 20 minute wait, and lots more ppl showed up in the mean time. And when that bus came it was a bloodbath. People yelling and pushing and shoving. So I let my inner-Boston out a little bit and got my ass a seat on that bus. I am told that this was a typical French experience
I made my way to the very back of the bus and sat down. There was a long announcement in French that was clearly about a number of different stops… something Roy and I had not discussed. I just figured one stop or one main one. Then came the english… I listened hard and my seatmate noticed.
He turned out to be Yann (like Ian)… a delightful, sweet french guy of 25-30ish who immediately took me under his wing. We chatted about his lovely girlfriend and tiny cars in europe and his very successful trip to Warsaw where he managed to gain a non-trivial increase in the bathroom hardware he was selling. And he gave me restaurant reco’s… something to the effect of not being able to find a single bad restaurant in all of Lyon. You gotta love that civic booster action.
Even better, he graciously offered me a ride to the Opera de Lyon where I needed to pick up keys and directions back to the apartment. After loading my sttuff in the back of his car… he locked his keys inside. With his phone, wallet, and everything.
My baggage including my emergency wad of travellers cheques and laptop were in this dude’s car. Was I being played?
Nope. He was so apologetic about the whole thing it was almost funny.
I discovered my phone didn’t work, so we had to borrow the phone from guy at the tgv car parc station operator office. (HOT HOT HOT OMG). He called his girlfriend and she drove down with an extra set of keys. While we waited he took me to the TGV platform so I could see one. (Dear Caltrain: GROW THE FUCK UP. Love, all the commuters of CA) I also drank a 4euro orangina. Yummy.
So she came, we got in the car, and graciously took me not only to the opera to get the keys and up the hill to the apartment.
He is moving this weekend, so unable to accept my offer of lunch, but perhaps if he makes it to SF or when I return.
Thanks Yann