Modern society has led to a great capsulization of daily life.

On the verdant slope and down by the edge of the water, the bird-cherry and the mountain ash displayed their flowery garb of summer.

This does become monstrously antimusical in one scene: when Tchaikovsky’s music, softly depicting the sleeping palace (my favorite passage of this composer’s entire oeuvre, with its beautifully muffled oboe melody suggesting how beauty ripens in sleep like a chrysalis), is turned into an epic battle for the poor passive Prince, conducted between the wicked Carabosse, with her ghoulish minions, and the Lilac Fairy, with her elves.

Former Typhoon Maysak was reported to have weakened into a tropical depression as of 2 p.m. Sunday and was located about 450 kilometers south of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost tip, moving northwest at 20 kph, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).