Hollywood Bowl: I Can't Cancan

Went to the Hollywood Bowl last night (my eldest, Katia, would've preferred the Arctic Monkeys playing next weekend) and had the City of Lights (Paris) musically brought to us.

A lot I could say but I'll just mention the wonderful autumn evening, Thomas Wilkins (the enthusiastic African-American conductor), the spectacular fireworks, and the cancan (or can-can).

My SOED says cancan comes from a reduplication of the French word for duck: canard. Doesn't explain more than that.

My wife knew (but I didn't) the music typically associated with the cancan: The Galop from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.


Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1895)
[from the Wikimedia Commons]

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