Squonk Opera

Today I received my DVD of Squonk Opera's Astro-Rama, and it proved as entertaining as the videos on the website promised. The story doesn't follow as logically as I expected it to, but it becomes more coherent as things proceed. But it almost doesn't matter, because the music is fantastic, the visuals are awesome, and it is a science fiction musical, which pretty much adds a thousand cool points right there. The accordion adds another five hundred.

(Does anyone know what this instrument is called? The percussionist played it by tapping the various round black things, and it had a very interesting, almost synthesized sound.)

I think I need to use excerpts from this for my sci-fi class, perhaps in conjunction with Contact.

The DVD came with a bonus CD of the soundtrack for a previous production, Inferno, which I mentioned in the last post as well. I really like the music for this one as well, but of course it's hard to get a feel for the story without seeing the visuals. I know it's based on Dante and set in Centralia, but beyond that I don't know much. The music is still great, though.

One other nice thing: when I placed my order, one of the artistic directors e-mailed me personally to say it was in the mail, and handwrote a little personalized note on the shipping slip that came with the package saying she hoped I enjoyed the material. I love these people!