OPERA WARNING.  This weekend I attended The Barber of Seville.  This was not the first opera I’ve attended, although I’m not a buff or anything.  This was, however, the first comedic opera I’ve seen? heard?  Whatever the appropriate term of observing opera, it was great.  If you’ve never gone to any opera, go see this one first, unless you like soap operas.  In my limited experience, all serious operas involve tenors and sopranos being stupid until the soprano finally dies, singing through seppuku/tuberculosis/gunshot wounds, which irritates me immensely because I had deemed her Too Stupid To Live by the end of the first act.  TBoS, on the other hand, was hilarious and the source for all of the music we associate with Bugs Bunny cartoons.  So when they’re playing an overture, you can visualize Bugs or Pepe Le Pew or Elmer Fudd leaping about.  My father-in-law is in the chorus, and apparently a group of them lobbied for rabbits in the supertitles.

            Yes, it’s in Italian and the translated lyrics are projected on a screen above the stage.  Anime has trained me well in reading my entertainment, so I can now report to you that the famous “Figaro-Figaro-Figaro-Figaro” song is actually sung by Figaro, the Barber of Seville.  He’s bragging about how busy he is, in a faux-complaining way, passing love letters for all the youth of the city.  Also, this is apparently easy, enjoyable, highly profitable work, and he is good at it.  There soon follows an ode to slander, several songs about shutting up, and several arias about money and love.  The staging was hilarious with much happy silliness in accord with Looney Toons antics, although those with deeper Appreciation of Art informed me that there was subtext and symbolism.  It didn’t get in the way of my giggling happily.  The costumes were pretty, and the set was cool.

On the original 3x/week posting schedule, this would have been posted much closer to when most people were still in the initial week or 2 of classes.  So suspend some disbelief and enjoy the ride. 

Re: the title: yes, Christmas is on my mind a bit.  Much of the strip is based on my seasonal retail experience, with all the carols in the background and ribbons in the displays.