Thursday, July 05, 2007

wedding receptions are for dancing, but ...

Friends and relatives are getting themselves married - quite a few this season. Meaning lots of opportunities to dance. I like to dance and open bars reduce the crowd fear.

Dances of joy, yes.
dance of joy
{Caption: Hot Weather. The Friar proposes cider-"cupping" as a remedy. Dance of Joy in consequence. Click to enlarge. Source: http://www.classicistranieri.com/punch/1/4/7/0/14707/14707-h/14707-h.htm. See more about this at bottom.}

But not quite like Numfar's.



Here's the source of Juliet and the Friar dancing joyously.
OPERA-GOER'S DIARY.
Hot Weather. The Friar proposes cider-"cupping" as a remedy. Dance of Joy in consequence.

Monday.—GOUNOD's Roméo et Juliette. Les deux frères ("Brothers of Corse"), JEAN and EDOUARD, excellent respectively as Romeo and Friar Laurent. EDWARD looked the reverend, kind-hearted, but eccentric herbalist to the life, singing splendidly. But Brother JOHN, in black wig, black moustache, and with pallid face, look so unhealthy a Romeo that his appearance must have first excited Juliet's pity, which we all know is akin to love. My advice to JOHNNIE DE RESZKÉ is to "lighten the part," and "do it on his head,"—which, being summed up, means flaxen-haired wig and light moustache. Juliette Eames charming. Nurse Bauermeister too young. Tybalt Montariol, when killed, must not lie "toes up" too close to Curtain. Friendly members of Capulet faction rescued his legs, otherwise these members must have suffered. M. DUFRICHE, as Mercutio, mistaken for EDOUARD DE RESZKÉ. Subsequent appearance of the real Simon Pure as The Friar only complicates matters, but death of Mercutio settles it. The survivor is EDOUARD DE RESZKÉ. Mr. ALEC MARSH, late of English Comic Opera, appears as the Duke of Verona, and everyone admires his Grace.
{Source: Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 - on Project Gutenburg}


Addendum: Cider can be very intoxicating. In hot weather, too much can be debilitating. Here is a report (from H.W. Turnbull out of DNB) on the death of a man I'm studying: "In 1682 Collins was invited to advise on a proposed canal between the Isis and the Avon, and while engaged on the project became ill with asthma and consumption (which he was said to have contracted while riding on a hot day and drinking too much cider). He never recovered and died at his lodgings on Garlick Hill in London on 10 November 1683; he was buried in the parish church of St James Garlickhythe on 13 November."

Turnbull: H. W. Turnbull, ed., James Gregory tercentenary memorial volume (1939)
DNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

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