Saturday morning...a dark day..

for a dark time---how responsive the weather seems to be to the demands placed upon those who are asked to stay in.  Kind of nice, earlier, now the rain is falling which eliminates any thought of a long walk or trip to another borough, or even another part of Manhattan. How will I spend my day, not sure...but there seems to be enough to do here.
  Last night---a tough night---lots of stomach cramps, which did not let up until the morning, and even are not fully gone. What does this mean---it is truly a physical statement, but when I resist going to see a doctor and take the risk of the cramps playing full out--is this an emotional statement? Earlier this morning, in my mind, I linked the cramps to the desolation I sometimes feel in the early morning hours. A fair assessment? Not sure---anyway, time to move on to another subject.
   The Met Opera web site is streaming operas from its past---this morning I came upon a 1976 televised version of their production of Don Giovanni. My history with that opera began in 1966, I saw my first performance at the Met on the same day that I "failed" my first army pre-induction physical. Given a 1 y designation because I was seeing a therapist, I celebrated by first going to Luigino's a nice Italian restaurant on 48th street (sadly no longer there) . Then, off to the Met (in its last season in "the old house" on 39th Street) to join the line for standing room tickets for the evening's performance of Don Giovanni, with Cesare Siepi in the leading role and Welsh bass baritone Geraint Evans as his servant Leporello. It was a time when I was becoming fascinated with every aspect of opera in detail, and I had probably read a great deal about the opera (which I knew to be great) in preparation for seeing it. The conductor was Joseph Rosenstock, a stand in for Karl Bohm. The latter was a well respected conductor who conducted  Mozart and Strauss at the Met often, but was not available that season.
My response to the opera which was well performed was not one of being blown away (maybe the opera is too complex for that anyway0 but more one of watchful and cautious absorbtion, I wanted to really "know" this opera--and that evening was to be my first learning experience. I must have seen it that season at least two more times at the Met---I also invaded the Lincoln Center Library to try to take out as many recordings of the opera as I could find, and compare the different interpretations of the singers, and the different tempos and visions of the conductors. It was a "heady" time for me,
getting to know the repertory that the two opera houses were performing, and also using the standing
room line at the Met as a way to meet possible dates. I was working for the Department of Welfare
in a center in the Bronx with an eclectic group of colleagues, many of them just out of college like myself, trying to figure out what to do with their lives. I think I was enjoying myself at that time
a great deal. It all ended that summer, when I decided to leave the job, and audition as an actor
(I had been studying for about a year with Milton Katselas and thought that I was ready), a move
that I guess one might call "miscalculated".  There  were not that many auditions--I found myself with
a lot of time on my hands that I did not expect to have, and I began to question whether the aspiring
actor's lifestyle was really something that I could cope with. It all ended with my getting a job
sorting mail for the U.S. post office--a job which I grinded through for seven months. Finally I was able to transition to a Social Work job around July of 67, and my world went slightly back to normal.
I've covered some of the alienation and confusion that I dealt with for those months in an earlier
post (Mozart forever)--more to come..? Perhaps...will report soon.