Yes, Fine, There Were Fat Ladies Singing

So, I went to the opera last night, and saw Cosi Fan Tutte. It was...okay, transcendent is probably an exaggeration. Turandot was transcendent. Madama Butterfly was transcendent. This was...exquisite. Delightful. Lovely. Amazing, incredible, beautiful, but probably not life changing. The music kicked ass, all the singers were brilliant, but it's still a comic opera, and while I like comic opera, I am still a complete and utter sap. I love romance and tragedy and melodrama and absurdly long suicide scenes. What can I say? Probably my favorite part was the aria Fiordigli sings in the second act, when she realizes she is starting to fall in love with the Albanian, and begs forgiveness from her (absent) fiance. It's very slow and sad and heartfelt. See how I managed to find the only bit of melodrama in a silly bit of Mozart? I'm incorrigible.

The only thing I really didn't like was the staging and costuming - they set it up as some sort of weird modernish thing - I'd say about 1900, and that just didn't work for me. I thought it really took away from the performance to do that. It's really a story that only works in the time it was set in, even if the general meaning is rather timeless. I want to see it as a period piece now.

All in all, though, it was a great experience, and now I want to go on limewire and try to find some opera.

[Fic] Illusions of Love

Title: Illusions of Love
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus/Sirius, Remus/Tonks
Rating: M (ish)
Spoilers: brief spoiler for Deathly Hallows, if you're one of the three people who hasn't read it yet
Disclaimer: Trust me - if I owned HP, the 6th book would never have happened, and the 7th book might have made sense.
Warnings: non-graphic sex, adult language, passive-aggressive!Remus
Summary: In retrospect, it had been a bad idea. Tonks should have known better than to think there'd ever be a time Sirius didn't stand between them.
Notes: Okay, so it's not the most original idea in the world - I've heard the theory batted around all the place pretty much ever since Book 6 came out. But not that many people seem to write it, so I decided to give it a swing. And really, this is the only way I can rationalize Remus/Tonks, especially since Remus never seems to be very happy with her. Hannah wasn't sure about passive-aggressive!Remus, but I think it fits what we saw of him in the last two books - the way he just tries to ignore Tonks' crush, the way he tries to run off with the Golden Trio when Tonks is pregnant, etc. This is not a guy who likes to face his demons. 

( Remus is aware, more than anything, of the hair, the long thick black hair that assaults his every sense. )