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We Can Has Culture?
Nov. 8th, 2007 03:32 pmLast night Deb and I went to our first-ever opera. It was La Boheme, which I think is Italian for "Rent".
Yeah, that joke was killing them in Balcony, Row L, If You Lived in the Ceiling You'd Be Home By Now. I'd call them the cheap seats but oh, "cheap" in this case is a relative term. Let's just say that if you cared more about seeing if the tenor had male pattern baldness than his facial expressions, these were the seats for you.
Anyhow, the opera itself. I liked it. How can I not like it? After a lifetime in community "we need a play with four actors or less because that's all that can fit on our stage" theater, how can I not like a show that throws in 30 non-singing cast members, a marching band and a dog FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER?
I *did* find myself totally misled by my own silly expectations. Like, if an Act began with ten minutes of menacing-looking police making a big deal out of searching womens' baskets at a gate, I was foolish enough to wait to see how either the police, the women, or the contraband the cops were looking for figured into the plot. This was an utterly ridiculous leap of logic on my part, and I apologize to Puccini and the entire opera world for making it.
And again, if a character happens to mention in four different songs that her name isn't Mimi but everyone calls her Mimi and she doesn't know why? I should obviously just roll with it because a) I'm never going to get an explanation; and b) this is someone so clueless that she has to learn she has a serious medical condition by hiding behind a tree and eavesdropping while her lover discusses it with his best friend, so of *course* things like proper nouns would give her trouble.
As additional proof of how awesome this entire genre is, may I just mention that the program contained an ad for the upcoming production of Englebert Humperdink's 'Hansel & Gretel'? I am SO THERE.
Yeah, that joke was killing them in Balcony, Row L, If You Lived in the Ceiling You'd Be Home By Now. I'd call them the cheap seats but oh, "cheap" in this case is a relative term. Let's just say that if you cared more about seeing if the tenor had male pattern baldness than his facial expressions, these were the seats for you.
Anyhow, the opera itself. I liked it. How can I not like it? After a lifetime in community "we need a play with four actors or less because that's all that can fit on our stage" theater, how can I not like a show that throws in 30 non-singing cast members, a marching band and a dog FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER?
I *did* find myself totally misled by my own silly expectations. Like, if an Act began with ten minutes of menacing-looking police making a big deal out of searching womens' baskets at a gate, I was foolish enough to wait to see how either the police, the women, or the contraband the cops were looking for figured into the plot. This was an utterly ridiculous leap of logic on my part, and I apologize to Puccini and the entire opera world for making it.
And again, if a character happens to mention in four different songs that her name isn't Mimi but everyone calls her Mimi and she doesn't know why? I should obviously just roll with it because a) I'm never going to get an explanation; and b) this is someone so clueless that she has to learn she has a serious medical condition by hiding behind a tree and eavesdropping while her lover discusses it with his best friend, so of *course* things like proper nouns would give her trouble.
As additional proof of how awesome this entire genre is, may I just mention that the program contained an ad for the upcoming production of Englebert Humperdink's 'Hansel & Gretel'? I am SO THERE.
