Disney World!!

 

 This post is over a month late... but it's fun to relive the memories of an amazing week at Disney World on this cold February day. We spent the most fantastic week at the parks in early January- Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. We also enjoyed a warm day at Typhoon Lagoon and a few evenings at Downtown Disney. There were so many favorite moments, it's hard to capture the week in one post. I think seeing the parks through the eyes of a three year old was definitely a highlight. It was also a great time for Joe to spend a week there, previously he had only been for two days when we were in college. Being with my parents was also a lot of fun, it was neat to relive memories from my childhood with them while sharing the experiences with our kiddo. 

Cheers from Epcot/Germany~

 

We were fortunate enough to stay at the awesome Art of Animation Hotel. The hotel had four areas- Little Mermaid, Lion King, Nemo, and Cars. We stayed in the Cars area- which was so cool. Everything was based around Radiator Springs, the fictional Route 66 location of the movie. All of the details are what make Disney so fantastic, and this hotel definitely had the details- the Cozy Cones (like in the film), the life-sized characters, even the room decor, complete with traffic cone bedside lamps.

A highlight of my childhood, and of every visit, the Main Street Electrical Parade. Greatest parade music EVER.

 The Japan pavilion at Epcot! Fun!

 

Meeting the characters was definitely a highlight for the munchkin.

  

Flip flops in January? Yes please.

 

The marketing bit about happiest place on Earth is really not that far off. We had many great experiences and were so pleased with the service and ease of the trip. From the airport bus that played classic cartoons to the bus driver who went out of his way to send the collectable transportation cards to our hotel room when he ran out, to the operator of the steam train at the Magic Kingdom who let the munchkin say "all aboard" in seeing his excitement for trains. And a shout out to my high school friend Julia who works at Disney and had one of the clowns from her show address our kiddo by name. When they say magic, it's no joke. Things were so smooth and the entire experience of staying on property was very well thought out.

 

I think after such a wonderful week of characters, rides, swimming, good food, and amazing experiences, we are all scheming about our next trip!

 

Snowy crocus

 

Friday evening brought a dusting of snow to the KC area, just enough to be beautiful, but not enough to go sledding. The warmer temperatures we've had as of late have caused some of the early spring plants to start to come up; I love the contrast of the hearty and crisp white crocus against the fluffy snow.

Ice skating

 

Here's the perfect cold winter date night: pho and ice skating. 

For years Joe and I have tried to have a skating date, but something always gets in the way. A few years ago we were able to skate in Yokohama when we were living there, but it was really warm out, so the ice had a layer of water on top of it and as a result we cut our time at the rink short. Not ideal. This weekend we finally hit the ice together under ideal conditions. I grew up taking figure skating lessons and skating frequently, this was Joe's second time. He did great, and we really enjoyed the Ice Terrace at Crown Center; it was outdoors and urban, but not too crowded and definitely affordable. The rink had decent music, and a nice atmosphere, plus the evening temperature was around 30 degrees. We had a fabulous warming dinner of pho and noodles beforehand at the delicious Vietnam Cafe, and enjoyed over an hour of skating and some apres hot chocolate. Yay winter!

 

Valentine

 

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day.... after all the origin of the day is as a Catholic feast day related to a martyr of 3rd century Rome. It has always seemed contrived and forced to me to have a day associated with love. I prefer anniversaries and spontaneous expressions of adoration over a random Thursday in February. That, and working around lots of college students means being around a lot of young people sulking without a date (as one student put it yesterday- singles awareness day). 

Having said that, I will pretty much take any excuse to eat some chocolates, especially when they are the Christopher Elbow variety that Joe brought home today. Such beautiful, perfect, tasty creations!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

 

Energized

 

Today was one of those days that I just wanted to work from home in a hoodie. 

On days when I'm just not feeling like standing in front of students for a few hours, I often give myself a fashion energy boost (and a mocha-flavored one as well). Lucky for me, I had already gone with a red manicure, so it was an easy choice to wear a hounds-tooth dress and my favorite bright red heels. Plus, my Mod-Cloth camera ring always gives me a bit of a kick-butt attitude. These combined with a new Pandora Bollywood station had me inspired for afternoon lectures. Hoodie be gone!

 

February sunset

 

Sunset hitting a sculptural work on the KCAI campus as I left after class this evening. 

The year of the snake

 

It's the year of the snake. 

We spent the weekend participating in a few celebrations of Chinese New Year. Each year we go to the Nelson-Atkins Museum for their event, which includes dragon dancers, food, crafts, demonstrations, and of course, art. The munchkin loves trying on the kids costumes and posing for a photo in the rickshaw, seeing his favorite work of art (the "big Buddha"), and doing the crafts. This year he made a scroll of a snake- thankfully it is an easy zodiac this year for a toddler to reproduce. The dragon dancers are a bit scary- the music is loud, and the costumes a bit too real for him- so we tried to work up to the event in the last few weeks by reading Karen Katz' My First Chinese New Year, an adorable story about a traditional celebration that includes a dragon dance. It seemed to work; there were no tears this year and despite a hesitancy to sit in the front row, he was mesmerized for the entire 20 minute performance. After the museum we hit up Kim Lin for a quick dinner. Tonight we shared a feast of Bo Ling's with family- a perfect new years treat. 

Gung hei fat choi! 

Cherry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

A favorite cookie in our house is Cherry Chocolate Chunk. This Martha Stewart recipe has long held a prized place as a winter cookie-- the combination of chocolate, dried cherries, toffee, and oats makes for a fabulous treat. For years I would buy toffee pieces from the store, something which I always cringed at- as store bought toffee often is made of high fructose corn syrup or other chemically processed ingredients. Over the holidays we were visiting friends who had a fresh batch of homemade toffee- I had no idea how easy it is to make! So, on this cloudy drab day, we made a batch of microwave toffee- one stick of butter, half a cup of sugar, half a tsp. of salt, and a quarter cup of water, microwave for about 9 minutes until it has a light brown color, pour onto a baking sheet, and allow to cool. Fantastic. From there we made cookies- Valentines week perfection!

 

Post-holiday

Can you believe it's been a month since Christmas?
Since all the sweets and gifts, lights and ornaments?
We enjoyed a great holiday in the traditional sense- family and friends, gingerbread houses and cookies, Plaza lights in KC and the Walnut Room in Chicago. The glow remains long after the tree was put away and the last cookies consumed.

Birds on a Wire

A beautiful early morning sky on a cold January morning, birds lined up on the wires.

Battle of the Bean

 

 

This past Saturday we ran the Battle of the Bean 5K in Leawood, Kansas. This was a great race for a few reasons- first off, the charity was Happy Bottoms, which provides diapers for KC-area babies and toddlers in need. Until I read about Happy Bottoms in the newspaper a few months ago I wasn't aware that WIC and other similar welfare programs don't cover diapers. It was great to see the huge pile of donated diapers on race morning! Second, the theme was coffee vs. cocoa, so there was plenty of Roasterie Coffee post-race and all runners got both Christopher Elbow chocolates and a scoop of Foo's Frozen Custard. Basically, this is a trinity of local Kansas City deliciousness. In addition to race t-shirts we received mugs- even though I ran for Team Coffee, I used mine for a big cup of hot cocoa on Sunday afternoon. The course was through a well-manicured suburban neighborhood, not the most thrilling scenery, but a pleasant course on a chilly January morning. Joe came in about six minutes before me at 30 minutes, and I finished in 36 minutes (the clock time in the photo wasn't my time through the chute- which was done in waves). Not my greatest time, but not too bad for post-holiday middle of winter either.

Starting anew

 

It's been one month since the Newtown massacre. 

The post that I wrote on that horrific afternoon has attracted a good deal of attention. It has been re-posted to people's Facebook walls, found in Google searches, and brought more traffic to this blog than any other single post I have written in the past seven years. I usually have a few readers a day, a few hundred a month. I had nearly 500 readers in the two weeks after Newtown. Even this week the Newtown post had 21 page reads. These aren't people who come to the blog, but who specifically click on that post.

In light of this, I have found it difficult to post something else. All our holiday fun, winter play, baking Christmas cookies, all of that seemed so shallow in light of the loss of life in Connecticut. 

I decided today that it is time to start anew. The terrible violence of that day is not something we should move on from. It is not something we should forget. We all must continue to fight against the NRA as a powerful lobby that advocates for the economic interests of gun manufacturers. We must fight to ban military-style assault weapons for the civilian population. We must fight to ban large capacity clips. There are simply no rational reasons for the civilian population to have these things. There are plenty of historical and Constitutional precedents for banning items that were previously legal. 

Two groups that are working to this end are One Million Moms 4 Gun Control and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Over 800 people have died from gun violence since Newtown. Over eight hundred. We have a firearm homicide rate in this country that is nearly twenty times that of other wealthy countries. This has nothing to do with mental health (people are mentally ill in other countries), violence in the media (Japan has violence in popular culture and virtually zero gun violence), or fortifying our schools (Columbine had armed guards, as did the second VA Tech, and the Ft. Hood shooter was surrounded by armed military). Our extremely high rate of gun homicide is simply related to our lax gun laws and the prevalence of firearms in our society. It is time to take action. To stand up. To have our voices heard. To take back our country from the militarization of the civilian population.

For now, I'll be returning to my usual banter of random art, politics, travel, and food. Gun violence is something that has long concerned me, so I'll keep posting when something of interest comes up. The above photo is a close-up of the winter white flowers I bought at the grocery this evening. Something pure and crisp to brighten the chilly days of January.

Enough with the guns, America.

Everyday I pass a sign like this on my way into work. It disgusts me each time. Not because I disagree with the message, but because we live in such a violent society that forces me to view this type of image daily. Because guns- violent weapons that kill- are so widespread that signs like this become a daily sight. Is this the type of violence above all world that we want our kids to live in? It's sick.

Today is a day of horrific tragedy in our country- an elementary school shooting. Twenty-seven families will be mourning this day for the rest of their lives. Twenty innocent beautiful children will not get to see all the joys of their childhood, teen years, and adult days unfold. Seven teachers lives were ended in senseless violence. Four hundred children will be terrified of their school for many years to come.

Could this have been prevented? Easily. Will we work to prevent it from happening again? Likely not. The NRA and other gun lobbies are extremely powerful in our country, and we as a people do not seem to have the collective will to do anything about the plague of gun violence in our country. Over 1,000 people die every month from gun violence in the U.S., yet we are relaxing gun laws and expanding open carry as I type this. Earlier this week there was a shooting at a mall in Oregon. There have been six major public gun massacres this year. Personally, in the course of my 30-something years, my father was held up at gunpoint, my mother had a gun pointed at her in traffic, and my university had five people die and twenty-one sustain injuries in the lecture hall where I took Math 101. A few years ago I had a student in one of my classes who had a restraining order against her armed ex-boyfriend who had threatened violence on campus. Campus security was on alert, and I was informed to keep my classroom door closed (as if that would do anything). It was terrifying. This year there were two occasions where I was in public and my mind raced to how I might escape or hit the floor when other people became agitated and reached for a bag or their pocket. We live in a war zone. All so some people can soothe their inadequacies with a deadly weapon. Why do their rights trump mine?

Why? So people with emotional issues can feel powerful when holding a weapon? So we can defend against the Queen? It's pathetic. Second amendment defenders often say that they want to be able to protect themselves against the government. This is, frankly, laughable. No matter how many arms you stock, you will never be able to defeat our military, which spends more than the next 26 nations combined. Nice try, but a sad excuse. Others say they need weapons for self-defense. When, exactly, was the last time you heard a heart-warming story of someone defending themselves against a perpetrator with a gun? Oh, never? Yeah, me neither. Certainly not in the time I've heard about the mass-shooting at schools, malls, and movie theaters. It's likely that there was someone with a gun in the audience in Aurora- did they have the time to react? No. Would they likely have shot innocents or been shot themselves by police looking for the gunman? Yes. Stand-your-ground laws (supported by the NRA) have been tied to the death of innocents in Montana and Florida- they are not helping us as civilians to be safer. In fact, the more guns a society has, the more homicides there are.

Early news reports are stating that the weapon used to kill small children and teachers was a semi-automatic rifle. It is completely indefensible to say that these, and the high-capacity clips that many mass shooters use should be legal, yet this is exactly what the NRA lobbies for. The only reason for these weapons is war, yet the gun lobby wants these deadly weapons to be legal and easily purchased. As far as I'm concerned, the NRA is as guilty as the shooter. Assault weapons and high-capacity clips should be banned. Period.


There are people who will say that this day is not one to talk about gun control. That we should mourn, not "politicize" the issue. This is bull$hit. If we had an outbreak of food poisoning, we'd talk about food safety. If we had roads collapsing, we'd talk about infrastructure. We have a crisis of gun violence in our country, to not talk about it is ridiculous. The gun lobby said this same thing after Columbine, VA Tech, NIU, Aurora, and the list goes on. If we had done something about gun control a decade ago, today's tragedy would not have happened. Over 5,000 people have died of gun violence since the Aurora shooting this past summer. That's more than died in 9/11. After that tragedy, we changed airport security, fought a war, and opened an entire government bureau dedicated to counter-terrorism. Yet, about gun violence we do nothing. It's disgusting, sick, and perverse. One person years ago tried to light his shoe on fire on an airplane, and another tried to mix up explosives with liquid. Now, we can't take anything over 3 oz on an airplane and have to take off our shoes every time we board a plane. Yet, we do nothing in the wake of innocent students, parents, teachers, movie goers, and mall shoppers being shot. To not talk about gun control in the wake of these tragedies is to disrespect the memories of those who died. The best thing we can do is to work to control this situation- to work to make sure it doesn't happen again.

You can sign a petition asking the White House to take action here: http://www.demandaplan.org/

When our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment, it took over 30 seconds to load a gun. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with our gun culture today, or with Assault or Semi-Assault Rifles. The Founding Fathers also denied women and non-whites the right to vote, and allowed for slavery. We've evolved our laws on those, why do we hold on to the antiquated Second Amendment? And why do we insist on expanding it into the realm of Assault weapons and high-capacity clips? Even the gun owners I know think these weapons of war should be outlawed. Why can't we have a gun registration system? I have to register my car, but not a gun? Why can't we have more extensive background checks? Mental health checks for gun purchases?

In the time I've taken to write this post, at least one person has died of gun violence in America. Let's stop pretending like it's 1779 and ban assault weapons. We need reasonable gun control in America so more innocents are not killed.

Grading Week

 Ah, finals week.

The stress level on campus is high, the coffee flows freely, and students are dressed in pajamas for class (even more than usual). For me this means the beginning of the grading marathon. Papers, tests, calculating, oh my! The tough part about grading is that a) it always takes ten times longer than you think it will, and b) it can be very monotonous. For my Museum Studies class it wasn't too bad- they researched, curated, and designed mock exhibitions on a variety of topics. So, it took more than a full workday to complete marking  binders of labels, annotated bibliographies, and layouts, but it was pretty enjoyable. For my other class it's a bit more draining- over 60 student exams.

So what does this mean? Well, it means about 3,000 i.d. answers (10 questions with 5 parts each =50 answers per paper x 60= 3,000). Yikes. Checking for spelling/exact titles/dates for 3,000 items takes a while. Then there are six short answers at about 5 sentences a piece- so 360 of those. Finally, two long essays at about a page or more, 120 of those. And, don't forget these are handwritten. Usually I read through them, add comments, pencil in grades, and then re-read once sorted by high->low marks to ensure consistency. Perhaps you can see where this takes about a week to complete? At least I have afternoons at the neighborhood coffee shop, where the mochas are beautifully crafted, and the windows sunny and bright.

Bingo!

Leftover Joy

Long after most of the Thanksgiving leftovers have gone, some of our Spiced Cranberries remain.

Each year this is true- we make one bag of berries worth of cranberries- which is plenty for the big day, plus too many to eat with leftovers. I'm a huge cranberry fan, but it's tough to figure out what to do with two cups of tart berry goodness, despite their long fridge life. Enter Joy the Baker.

Joy the Baker is a food blog that I like to follow. I enjoy her photography and witty humor, and after Monday night I completely worship her recipe for Cranberry Brie Grilled Cheese. I'm not a big fan of plain grilled cheese, as melty cheese is not my favorite texture, but this was fabulous. The brie was smooth and creamy, and the whole grain mustard and cranberries were the most heavenly accompaniment. I was hesitant to serve sandwiches for dinner, as they seem so casual, but with a big salad and a side of slow-cooker Potato Pesto Soup, this was one of the better dinners of our week.

Oppenheimer Catalogue, Nerman Gala, and Asad Faulwell

Ok, I'm about ten weeks late on this post. But, today my second copy of the Oppemheimer Catalogue came in the mail, though so it's not totally out of line.

Last spring I wrote a handful of catalogue entries for the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art's Oppenheimer Catalogue. The collection of contemporary art housed at the museum is fantastic, and most of it can be traced back to the Oppenheimer collection. In any case, I wrote on four amazing contemporary artists, and the catalogue in it's hardcover-hundreds of pages-color plate-glossy paper-glory was published this past fall. In conjunction with the catalogue release, the museum hosted a gala. A fabulous-lavish hors d'oeuvres-champagne-truffles-gobs of shrimp cocktail-ice sculpture kind of affair. One of the benefits of being an author is that I got two tickets. So cool!

We went with a few friends who were also authors, and enjoyed the fabulousness of the entire event.

And-- It. Was. Fabulous.

In addition to all the amazing food and drink there was a commissioned performance by the contemporary dance troupe Quixotic, roving electronic string players, and a neat video piece in the central hall of the museum.

Then there was all the art. And the artists! One of the artists I wrote on, Asad Faulwell, was in attendance. It was really great to meet Asad, he was super friendly, and we had a nice chat about his work, the art scene in KC, and the Nerman Museum. Here is a photo of his painting Mujahidat #11, me, and him. The thing you can't tell from this photo is how detailed his work is. From a distance it appears like a geometric pattern, but upon closer inspection there are tiny news photographs of women who fought with the National Liberation Front in the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). I love the subtle political message- one needs to be aware of the women, their plight, and their appearance to fully understand the work- but the overriding aesthetic beauty of the piece allows for appreciation on any level. Definitely an artist to watch, Asad is young and up-and-coming.

Once you have absorbed the art, your next question might be, why are you standing so strangely? Gripping your bag with an iron fist? Oh, that.... well, the photo below is your answer. I wore the cutest little-wrap your feet up like a gift-amazing match for my dress-sugar sweet- kill your feet shoes. Ouch! But they looked so adorable.... and I even matched the nail polish and lipstick. Snazzy! And I match the painting!

 Here's Joe with the video work looking swanky and getting some drinks. Because I had to sit down.

Awww... KU art history in action. And a shoe shot!

Thanks

 Ah, Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of all. A day of cooking and drinking, no commercialization, family and friends, and lots of food from scratch. We usually have a big to-do at our place, but this year we wanted to scale it back. We had seven adults, a toddler, and a baby, so a pretty easy meal.

One thing we did this year to mix it up was to skip our traditional Butternut Squash Ravioli. This is an amazing addition to the table, but making pasta, rolling out dough, cooking the filling (usually starting with roasting the squash), and making up tons of tiny ravioli can be very time consuming to say the least. With both of us swamped with work the weekend before the holiday and up to Wednesday evening, it felt overwhelming, so we skipped it this year. I'm thinking ravioli will make an appearance on our Christmas table instead.

What we had in place of ravioli was a tart, but a last minute one at that. I love tarts and went through a serious tart phase a few years ago, but I think my pâte brisée skills have improved since the mid-2000s. The tart and a bonus chocolate pie were actually the result of a baking error I made the night before Thanksgiving. In a rush to bake my pumpkin pie crust I didn't spend the time to seek out my pie weights, and tried to use dried couscous instead. Not a good idea....and I totally should have known better. The crust shrunk down without the proper weight, leaving not enough space for the pumpkin filling, and looked a bit funky around the edges. After a bit of sulking and panic late at night (the best pâte brisée takes a few hours of on and off refrigeration, even pre-chilling the flour) I decided to try the pumpkin pie again in the morning with a basic crust (meaning a lower flour-butter ratio). As a result I had two pâte brisée crusts that weren't beautiful to look at, but still tasted fantastic. Joe had the idea to make a chocolate pudding pie for the kiddo, a great and super easy solution. For the other crust, I decided to wing it with a tart. Tarts are kind of fussy, so this was a bold idea, but it worked out.

Alison's last minute rustic mushroom tart:

One pâte brisée shell (the internet has a million versions, none of which I used, but this one is interesting)

16 oz mushrooms, I used half baby portabellas and half button

1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 egg
Heavy cream- about 1/4 cup- I winged it on this one too
1/8 cup grated Parmesan (or so, again, I used up what I had)
Generous amount of thyme, dash of basil, dash of oregano
Fresh ground salt and pepper
Olive oil
Fresh parsley (about 2 tbsp)

Simple as can be- sautee the garlic and shallot in olive oil in a pan, add the mushrooms, sautee until they start to release their juices, adding a generous amount of thyme (maybe 1/2 a tsp), basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Cool. Add the mushroom mix to the prepared tart shell. Mix together the cream and beaten egg and pour into the shell. Top with cheese. Bake for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Top with parsley. Tart perfection!

 Other dishes at our table were our Spiced Cranberries, A standard stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, Joe's veggie gravy, roasted Brussels sprouts, and our favorite centerpiece, Tofu Roulade (from the Chicago Diner cookbook). We realized that we only had recipes for the roulade and the cranberries, everything else was invented (fun!).

 The croissants were brought by friends, and came from the always fantastic Wheatfields Bakery in Lawrence.

 There was a non-natural not-from-scratch addition to our table this year- cubes. As Joe and I were preparing for our meal, we were reminiscing about the holidays of our childhood. My Dad's family meals always included this bizarre better-living-through-chemistry-era concoction called cubes. Frozen cubes (literally from the ice cube tray) that consisted of canned fruit cocktail, Miracle Whip (I kid you not), and cream. They were usually served with dinner as a side, often next to the cranberries. As a child, these things freaked me out, but my Dad and his siblings loved them. I had never eaten one, but thought I'd wing it as a surprise, which was also part of my Thanksgiving morning grocery run (we do not stock fruit cocktail or Miracle Whip in our house). I guessed at the recipe (and didn't know about the cream, turns out the internet does not know about cubes), and they turned out not too bad. We added whipped cream once I learned about the cream part, which took off the bite of the Miracle Whip. My Dad ate about six of them (!), so I'm guessing they weren't too far from the originals, heehee.

I have so much to be thankful for this year, most of all being surrounded by such great friends and family and having such bounty in our lives. I hope you had a great holiday, and the leftovers are treating you well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday afternoon

Museum Studies class field trip to the Nelson-Atkins Museum on a lovely Friday afternoon.

Trick-or-treat

 Hard to believe this was two weeks ago.... Trick-or-treating this year was great fun, despite the munchkin's initial hesitancy to put on his costume. Once we got going, it was great. We like to do the Brookside business trick-or-treat, lots of kids and the businesses are close together, so there's a high reward for one's efforts. We received many compliments on our homemade Thomas the Tank Engine costume- which admittedly was constructed late into the night on October 30. Now, 14 days later the candy stash is nearly depleted, and we're looking forward to concocting ideas for next year. Happy (late) Halloween!

Il Trovatore

When it rains, it pours.

The last few weeks were filled with much work and much play. The work part has left blogging to the back burner, the play part has left much to catch up on. Halloween, a birthday, museums, I hope to get caught up on all of it in the coming days.

For now I'll write about the opera Il Trovatore that we saw on my birthday weekend. For as minimal and singular Madama Butterfly was (and I mean that in a positive way), Il Trovatore was full and plural. A huge cast, a bountiful drama, dark passion, gypsies, castles, this is what one thinks of as opera in the fullest sense of the term. Verdi's score is brooding and heavy in the best 19th century way (the anvil chorus is part of Il Trovatore), and the dark visuals of the Lyric's performance contributed to the intensity of the opera.

I'm still an opera newbie, so before we go I like to read various blogs and summaries so I better understand what we're about to see. In the case of Il Trovatore, I was definitely glad that I did so. Some of the summaries left me confused and wondering if I'd be able to follow the plot on stage over the course of three hours, but the stage direction and dialogue left no confusion (the Italian is translated into English subtitles on discreet little digital screens in front of each seat). My snazzy new opera glasses (above photo!), which were my birthday gift from Joe, also helped in keeping track of the performers and stage action.

Overall, I'm finding that as we attend more opera I'm learning to better distinguish my appreciation for the score, the performers, and the stage direction each time. I think Il Trovatore is high on my list of operas, and the performers were fantastic, but I'd like to see a different stage and art direction on this ambitious drama before passing judgement on the sparse, eerie direction we saw at the Kauffman Center.