By class time on Wednesday, I had only read a portion of Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead. After reading this much of the novel, I was very interested to see how the story would transfer onto stage. It was very difficult to imagine how Janacek could possibly transform this story into an opera. The performance was not at all what I had anticipated based on my prior knowledge of the opera. In class, Professor Bergman mentioned that we might find ourselves waiting for the song to start, and I caught myself doing this just a few minutes into the performance.

Since my recent trips to the MoMA, I've been thinking a lot about previous class discussions regarding how "art" is defined. When I walked around the museum I saw everything from drawings to paintings to sculptures to furniture. It seems so hard to distinguish what is art and what is simply a functional accessory to everyday life. In an art class in high school we watched a video about design, and I remember listing to the teacher all the different forms of art.

This was my first trip to the MoMA and I really enjoyed it! I'm sure that I could go back and see even more that I didn't notice my first time around, and I look forward to visiting again to view the Tim Burton exhibit.