"They say that overseas if it should fall into the hands of man a butterfly is stuck through with a pin and fixed to a board!"

Taken from half-way through the love duet, Madama Butterfly's quote is a harsh summary of the plot from one of the greatest musical works in the world. At these words, uttered by an innocent and ignorant 15-year old on the brink of leaving her childhood behind forever, the orchestra plays the haunting "curse theme".

At first, let me draw everyone's attention to some changes in this blog. You may have noticed that the links to the right -> have changed. I might be adding new ones every now and then, so keep an eye out. This is all thanks to Martin, who showed me how to manage the appearance of my blog better.

Temperatures peaked today and the blazing sunshine was downright stifling. In the morning, I was visited by my friends from Dominante (sadly, our Full House quintet has no website as yet) for a rehearsal and some Greek Salad. We ended the rehearsal outside, eating strawberries and cherries on the grass, after which some of us made a spontaneous trip to Linnanmäki for a ride on the roller-coaster (courtesy of Pauli, who gave us free tickets. Let's hope he has recovered from what seems to have been a rough night:)

In the evening, we had a performance with CM Swing which, in my opinion, was one of our best in a while. The next performance will be in a wedding on Saturday, and that will make the seventh day in two weeks of activity with the group.

While Placido Domingo peaks at his high B in the (in)famous aria "Nessun Dorma", I am checking the Academy's website because their list of new students will be published today, and last year the news was out already just after midnight. Nothing yet, though. Talking about Nessun Dorma, it's always funny how some people come to see Turandot just to experience that one aria, and end up screaming "bravo" no matter how horrible the performance was. Ingeniously, there's a part in the second act where the theme starts playing in the background and the audience always perks up at this part, thinking it's time for the fireworks, but of course they're wrong and have to wait for the next act.

I am now reading Robert Harris' historical thriller "Pompeii", which, judging from the back-cover, is supposed to be a heart-chilling narrative of the city's destruction during the Vesuvius' eruption. Sadly, it's not very exciting at all. It's always funny how books with critics' quotes like "blazingly exciting" all over the cover are always anything but. I'm already reading the second half of the book and the blasted thing hasn't even blown up yet. I'd better get back to reading it so I can soon start on something else.