Yesterday, Axios published the evaluation of the 10 US cities that “did the best” in 2024. Colorado Springs is on it at #5. We are in one of only two blue states on the list, and I believe the only red city in a blue state. Of course, in general, red areas have considerably more room to improve than blue ones. It doesn’t mean we’re one of the top ten places to live, speaking economically (though speaking scenically, we probably are.) Also, the radio opera was Puccini’s Tosca – a tragedy in the literary sense, but also politically. The eponymous heroine’s lover, whose life she tries and fails to save, his friend, and she herself are on the right side of the autocracy vs. democracy divide, and although she manages to kill one pre-fascist (who is a real piece of work – I can only think of a couple of others in opera who even come close to his pure evil), his flunkies only fail to catch ans torture her because she suicides first. Yes, I know, Napoleon was no liberator, but you can’t blame people of the time for thinking he was or might be. Even Beethoven thought that – until he didn’t. “Tosca” is a very tight story- everything moves the plot, even the one comic-relief character, so the more you know about it the more heart-wrenching every note is – and the harder it is to look away. (A side note – this is the opera which contains the aria over which Puccini won a copyright infringement lawsuit against the composer of the song “Avalon.” Of course I was not on the jury – I wasn’t born yet -but had I been, and just knowing the two pieces, I would have been inclined to vote the other way. Only one phrase that’s in the opera is in the pop song, it’s not used “verbatim”, and it is developed very differently.)
I expect everyone here knows this by now, since it came out on Friday. But Sundays are for good news – and right now it just doesn’t get any “gooder” than this. The Contrarian was where I first saw it.
This also came out Friday and started me wondering what else on our wish list would be announced today. Whatever would have been, I would have added. We need all the good news we can get just now.
