Book Review

I, Claudius
by Robert Graves

This novel is a fictionalized autobiography of the Roman emperor Claudius, covering his life up until he becomes emperor. Claudius comes off quite well: he is educated, relatively mild-mannered, and capable of considerable cleverness and subtlety. The best example of the latter is the way he uses his stutter and limp to make himself seem harmless and negligible to the rest of the imperial family, thereby flying under the radar of their often deadly schemes and keeping himself alive. Another example is the wonderful scene in which Claudius successfully humors Caligula's conviction that he has just become divine. Most of the other members of the imperial family don't come off so well, especially Livia: there is a ton of (very entertaining) scheming and murdering. Graves' style is very readable and engaging, too.

Handel and More Handel

On Sunday I went to the Boston Cecilia Gala Handel concert. I like Handel just okay, but this performance turned out to be a lot of fun. Also, I had a great seat front and center in the balcony, where I had a perfect view of the stage and everything sounded terrific. The program consisted of arias interspersed with choruses, taken from a variety of operas and oratorios. There was a lot of stuff I didn't know very well. The performances were excellent: the chorus sounded wonderful and the soloists were great.
Highlights included:
William Hite singing "Where'er you walk", from Semele. He has a gorgeous voice and makes it all sound effortless. Nancy Armstrong was terrific with "Myself I shall adore" from the same opera. She gave it a lot of humor and flair without being hammy.
Krista River was terrific with "Will the sun forget to streak" from Solomon. What a great voice!
My favorite chorus was "The name of the wicked", also from Solomon. Hmmm, maybe I should get a recording of Solomon.