Get excited; it’s Lollipop Tuesday.
After last week’s Rock Climbing “Adventure”, I thought it appropriate to go a little more hands-off. So this week, I went to my first opera.
I’m kind of surprised that I’ve been in theater for so long and never managed to encounter an opera. Well, there was this one time when I was a teacher at a performing arts camp, but it was this absolutely terrible show about Ruth and Naomi and it was all sung poorly and in English. And quite frankly, if there aren’t Viking hats or different languages, it just doesn’t qualify in my book.
So I ventured over to the theater having no idea what to expect. I had kind of accepted that I would probably hate it. I tend to make those decisions sometimes without really knowing anything about the subject. But luckily thanks to this Lollipop Tuesday series, I’m slowly and painfully working on that flaw. I’m finding that a lot of experiences are not at all what I make them out to be inside my head.
The opera was Puccini’s Turandot and as it turned out, there were no Vikings of any kind. Just incredibly sweet sets, super awesome costumes, and subtitles.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought opera wouldn’t have subtitles. I imagined something like the scene from Moonstruck where Cher and Nicolas Cage stare at the stage and just know what’s happening. But I’m actually really glad there was a translation. Reading the program guide can only explain so much when the lead begins a 15 minute long song, you’re staring at a cloak with 20 human heads hanging inside, and the whole village is weeping and gnashing teeth.
It was intense.
The thing that really surprised me was how extravagant the set was and how each costume was so intricate in detail and over-the-top in spectacle. But I suppose that when you go see a show in a foreign language that has no upbeat dance numbers, you’ve gotta have something to look at.
I really need to get cast in theater companies with bigger budgets.
The only unfortunate part of the evening was the couple sitting to the far left of me, one row ahead. Apparently they had a lot to say about, well, everything. They didn’t even try to whisper, which is the real kicker. And since I’ve been known to walk up to people who are rude in the theater and have civil, logical conversations with them about how they’re the reason people stay inside to watch movies, I was a little concerned about the little baby hellfire flame that was lit in the pit of my stomach when I heard them start to talk.
Luckily, their cacophony of disrespect was overshadowed by a woman who “snuck” in a bag of chips in her purse. I’d argue that someone who isn’t a moron might try sneaking in something just slightly more discreet next time, but she seemed genuinely convinced that adjusting the packaging ever so slowly was an effective means of concealing her sin.
And she, like all others who make that assumption, was drowning in a thick, infested pool of denial between her loud crunches.
My thin, fickle patience aside, it was a lovely experience. Dare I say I enjoyed it.
Man, I can’t believe I just said I enjoyed opera. ♣
Want to make a pilgrimage to higher culture yourself? Check out the Pittsburgh Opera.
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