Realizing, of course, that I’m typically posting or commenting about how much I love alternative music, a-la RadioBDC, I suppose now’s as good a time as any to ‘splain that I also grew up with classical music…and loving it. As a matter of fact, the secular manner in which my family routinely completed the last few hours of the Yom Kippur fast was with a countdown using the movie “Amadeus” as our timekeeper. By the time {spoiler alert!} Wolfie was dead and Salieri was hyena-laughing in his wheelchair down the hallway, we knew it was sundown and time to start getting our chow back on.
My father also LURVES the opera in ways that really rival my love of alt music, except that he managed to tuck away the cash for season tickets to the Kennedy Center for several years. Growing up in the DC area, this was definitely one of the best places to catch the opera; there’s also something really impressive about going to a cultural mecca like that and having that as the place where your school field trips go. Really, growing up in DC just isn’t like growing up anywhere else, and I have such an appreciation for that. I think my awareness of this privilege grew exponentially once I moved to New England and I saw that you had to (gasp!) pay to get into museums! THE HORROR…
Anyhoo, here I am staring down a wonderful proposition and I’m looking for some suggestions on what I should do. I have been offered the tremendous opportunity to see operas performed by The Metropolitan Opera (OMG THE MET…!!!). Now, I wouldn’t be heading to NYC, since there’s just no time in my schedule, but I would still get to see Met performances live.
Through the miracle of modern filmmaking, rather than watching their performances on my local PBS station (who I do love and support and highly recommend everyone else support, since they make NOVA, Curious George, Arthur, and all kinds of wonderful things), The Met is bringing their operas to moviehouses around the country as The Met: Live in HD. Of course, I wouldn’t necessarily have my reviews up in time for others to go and see these (the way I can with most movie screenings), since I can’t go to the opening night performances of them all. But, what I’d like is to hear from you – dear readers – is which operas you’d want to see yourself and/or you’d like reviewed on my blog.
Here’s the rundown:
10/26 Live, 10/30 Encore Shostakovich’s The Nose
11/9 Live, 11/13 Encore Puccini’s Tosca
12/14 Live, 12/18 Encore Verdi’s Falstaff
2/8 Live, 2/12 Encore Dvořák’s Rusalka
3/1 Live, 3/5 Encore Borodin’s Prince Igor
3/15 Live, 3/19 Encore Massenet’s Werther
4/5 Live, 4/9 Encore Puccini’s La Bohème
4/26 Live, 4/30 Encore Mozart’s Così fan tutte
5/10 Live, 5/14 Encore Rossini’s La Cenerentola
I’ve bolded the ones that I’m really seriously considering because WOW opera and OMG The Met and holy cow what a great opportunity.
Any other operas fans out there…? Any suggestions? What would YOU like to see reviewed, or which of these would you most love to see?
Also, having had Boston Symphony Orchestra season tickets for many years (pre-kiddos), I know that not everything is always universally loved. So, if anybody has any suggestions of what they DON’T like, please do let me know. DH still laughs at the idea of my cringing whenever atonal classical pieces come on…to this day, I think I get mild PTSD if I hear a concertina.
So – there you have it…what should I go see?? I’d love to hear from fellow opera/classical music fans. And, if you’re interested in catching one of these shows yourself, check your local movie theaters for the dates above. Best as I can tell, they appear to be playing at Showcase Theaters in my area, but for best ticket info, go to Fathom Events and they’ll help you find a theater near you.
Non-disclaimery disclaimer: This post is not sponsored, although I was really offered free tickets to any opera I want to see, in exchange for a review (which is the same deal that I get for movie reviews). As usual, all opinions, snark, musings and whimsical thoughts are ALL MINE; the only thing I included from the outreach I received was the calendar of events and the link to Fathom. So, that’s as much disclaimer as I need to give. I DO, in fact, like opera and The Metropolitan Opera is, in fact, one of the best opera companies/houses in the world. Ask anybody who knows anything about opera. Really. I can wait. {tap. tap. tap.}
Ok. FWIW…
1. For sheer gorgeousness, of the ones on this list, you can’t do better than La Boheme and Tosca. Tosca arguably is better as drama. It features one of the all-time nastiest villains in all of opera. (In one performance that we saw, the evil Baron Scarpia, who was busy extorting sex from the gorgeous Floria Tosca actually licked her face. You should have seen your mother’s reaction.)
La Boheme is such fun, with such great music, I hardly have the words to praise it. Pure romance.
2. Verdi opera has a totally different feel from Puccini, but Falstaff is probably
worth seeing. It’s not my favorite.
3. Cosi has great music, as you might expect from Mr. Moz. However, I find the plot disturbing. It’s about two pairs of lovers. The two guys are approached by a know-it-all old goat who proposes that all women are faithless and convinces them to disguise themselves as Albanians so each guy can woo the other’s girlfriend. I won’t get int details! but it ends badly. That said, I would definitely see it.
4. I personally am not especially fond of Werther. I’m not a big Massenet fan.
5. Rusalka has some excellent music, but it is not one I would go out of my way to see.
6. La Cenerentola (Cinderella) would be fun. Ema and I love Rossini comedies. They are always totally stupid with fun music fit for cartoon movie scores. They also feature extremely elaborate vocal gymnastics that sometimes seem not to be humanly possible. I’d check it out.
7. Borodin wrote some great stuff, but his operas are rarely seen outside Russia. I don’t quite know how to put this, but I would see it. If you haven’t seen many operas, though, and you are only going to a few, I wouldn’t necessarily put this one at the top.
8. The Nose is one I would see only out of curiousity. I’m not especially familiar with it.
I might have missed one (???) but these are my thoughts. Whatever you see will be well done. We’ve been opera subscribers for more than 20 years, but we are still learning. The Met does a great job. They are the undisputed top shelf company. Go and have a wonderful time.
–Ab
THANK YOU! I knew I could count on you to give me pointers! 🙂