Nabucco in the Bible - a start with Kings and Chronicles

2 Kings 24 Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings+24&version=CEV

Footnotes:
24.1 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia: Ruled Babylonia 605-562 B.C.
24.7 again: Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian army in 605 B.C. at the town of Carchemish. But a few years later, he was forced to retreat all the way back to Babylonia, which allowed Jehoiakim to rebel (see verse 1).
24.12 Babylonia: These events took place in 597 B.C.
24.13 warned: See 20.16-18.

2 Kings 25Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Kings%2025&version=CEV

Footnotes:
25.1 tenth month: Tebeth, the tenth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-December to mid-January.
25.2,3 fourth: This word is not in the Hebrew text here, but see the parallel in Jeremiah 52.5,6.
25.4 wall: Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C.
25.8 About a month later: Hebrew “On the seventh day of the fifth month.”
25.17 pomegranates: A bright red fruit that looks like an apple.
25.22 Ahikam: Hebrew “Ahikam son of Shaphan.”
25.25 Ishmael: Hebrew “Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama.”
25.25 about two months. . . his rule: Hebrew “in the seventh month.”
25.27 Evil-Merodach. . . Babylonia: The son of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled Babylonia from 562 to 560 B.C.
25.27 twelfth month: Adar, the twelfth month of the Hebrew calendar, from about mid-February to mid-March.

Mostly war... and Kings, of course.

1 Chronicles 6 Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Chronicles+6&version=CEV

Absolutely no need to read this for Nabucco.

2 Chronicles 36Contemporary English Version (CEV) - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Chronicles+36&version=CEV

You can read this but not really that interesting.

I love Carmen and Carmen loves me (not?)

Bizet: 25 Carmen
1985-05-03, 1991-05-06, 1992-11-07, 1998-10-21, 2000-02-05, 2000-06-25, 2002-05-15, 2002-06-22, 2002-06-23, 2002-06-26, 2002-09-29, 2003-06-27, 2003-06-30, 2003-07-29, 2003-08-23, 2004-09-25, 2008-05-24, 2009-10-10, 2012-12-15, 2013-02-02, 2013-09-16, 2014-05-01, 2014-10-25, 2015-03-28, 2015-07-20

1st Carmen was Guerilla-Carmen (1985).
2nd Carmen was also performed in Oslo (1991).
3rd Carmen still performed in Norway, but this time in Bergen (1992).
4th Carmen was in Zurich and I was disappointed that Agnes Baltsa did not sing (1998).
5th Carmen was in Berlin and with the stupendous Agnes Baltsa. I also enjoyed Alberto Cupido as Don Jose (2000).
6th Carmen was in Zurich, this time with Agnes Baltsa and Gösta Winbergh as Carmen and Don José. Loved it partly, but loved Berlin more (2000).
7th Carmen and with Baltsa and Cupido together this time in Helsinki, Finland. Bravo!!! (2002)
8th Carmen was in Zurich but with a new production so I left for Vienna as quickly as I could (2002).
9th & 10th Carmen was in Vienna with Agnes Baltsa and Richard with Anja Harteros as Micaela. Wonderful (2002).
11th Carmen was also in Vienna with Agnes Baltsa and Fabio Armiliato. Fabulous (2002).
12th Carmen still in Vienna but this time with Baltsa and Julian Gavin. Krassimira Stoyanova was Micaela (2003)
13th Carmen was the same as 12th except with Roxana Briban as Micaela (2003).
14th Carmen was in Verona and it was magic with Jose Cura and Marina Domashenko (2003).
15th Carmen and we are in Oslo but Carmen is still Marina Domashenko (2003)
16th Carmen with Agnes Baltsa and Julian in Berlin (2004)
17th Carmen was in Karlsruhe with Denyce Graves and Jose Cura (2008)
18th Carmen was in Munich with Julia Gertseva and Jose Cura (2009).
19th Carmen with Jose Cura and Anita Rachvelishvili in Berlin. This time in another production, but Berlin still produces wonderful performances (2012)
20th Carmen was in Munich with Nancy Fabiola Herrera and Thiago Arancam. She is great, he is meh (2013).
21st Carmen was in Vienna with Roberto Alagna and Rinat Shaham (2013)
22nd Carmen was in Barcelona with Sergi Gimenez Carreras. This was Salon Opera at its finest (2014).
23rd Carmen was in Madrid with Maria Jose Montiel and sung in Spanish as "Zarzuela" (2014).
24th Carmen was in Milano with Elena Garanca and Jose Cura. Wonderful is a word! (2015).
25th Carmen in Barcelona with Sergi Gimenez Carreras and promised more but we did get some real Flamenco and some cuts (2015).

I love Carmen!!

The Movie was great!!!



For reviews from my travels, see www.operaduetstravel.com

September and I got a new lense

On August 31st, 2015 I had my first cateract operation. I see better on my right eye now but my left is still -3.5 so that is difficult. I took the the right eye glass out of my glasses. Well I went to optitician and he did it for free. Personally I had to just pay 75 NOK for the operation, the Norwegian State pay the rest. I am so lucky to be a Norwegian living in Norway. 

So sad that not the rest of the world do not have this kind of welfare state. Naturally, there are places that are even better than Norway, and that is OK by me. To have a functioning welfare state cost a lot of money so many countries are too poor to give their population good health care. Any rich state have a duty to help in my opininion. For me the most heartbreaking stories are from the USA. A rich country but UNWILLING to help their own. They are against Rights for All. They all want PRIVILEGES. Only I and my family have rights, my neighbours never!!

The Republican Jesus with the Prosperity Gospel is ruining USA in their effort to save it from itself. Hate is Love. Taking away possibilities is to help people. To call people evil is an excellent way to save them to Christianity.

Back to Norway. it is really nice here and mostly people are rather mellow. True, it can take a long time to really get us as friends but we are often good, real friends by that point. Racism is not that obvious, we are seldom that directly hateful, but then when you students all in the beginning of the year, they black and white and no no natural mixing and then you wonder more about racism (is it or not). Of course since Norwegians are mostly white we are often wrong about things like racism, was that racist and so on. So we are often blind but we believe that we see it all. One of the most racist things we do is how fast we declare that there was no racist thought there. We can never be sure of that. There will always be places in our mind where old racist ideas lives even if we have work most of our lives to debund them, reject them. They came insidenof our mind without our choosing it, we heard it, we read it, we saw it in movied and on TV.  Colorblind is not an option so long that racism and colorism is there. 

We have to open our eyes. White folks listen more to other Whites even if we can not be experts of lives we have never lived.

All lives matters! That sounds great. Except that we never truly believe it. Not that all matters equally, nope, we don't believe. Old people should also get a heart transplant as the twenty year old. No, not really. When women talk it is as serious as mens talk.... That you should listenas respectfully when a child talk as an adult. Black lives matter! is telling about whose lives are in danger all the time, and it it not the White, Rich, Hetero, Cis men who are in danger. BLM is all the danger and they are more all lives matter than ALM. BLM their ideas will stop the dangers from cops who is not doing real police work from harrassing and killing others. ALM is most angry about the word Black.