Last Friday, the wife and I were looking for something interesting to do out. Since most of our evenings out consist of Red Lobster and a Movie, I was trying to find something a little more ‘date’ like. I thought that since we had a local opera house, and she had mentioned to me that they were doing ‘A Christmas Carol’, that it might be a nice evening out for us. A chance to dress up nice, have a good dinner, and do something a little more challenging than seeing Santa Clause 2 .
So I call and get tickets, great seats 5 rows back, center auditorium. True they cost a bit more, but especially in theater, I like to be able to see the players very well. I hate the nosebleed seats. We get all dressed up, me in my 3 piece suit, her in a black evening gown, and have a nice dinner before at a lovely little Italian place we know. Then off to the opera house for the show. It was great being out with a lot of other dressed up people, made us feel good to be out like that. There were more than a few men in tuxedos, and ladies in evening gowns galore.
We found our seats, settle in…and sat through the worst 2 hours of my life. I have never been to anything so boring and uninteresting in my life. Part of me hopes that it was just a very poorly done opera, but another part wonders if perhaps I’m just not cultured enough to appreciate it. While I’m not an expert at opera by any means, I do like the theater, symphony, and musical productions.
So my question to my fellow dopers is: Is it me? Should there be some recognizable places where the dialog and the music co-inside so that it at least sound like an actual song, rather than sung dialog? Is there an Opera for dummies that I should read? There are a few other ones coming up next year, and I’d like to know if we should bother trying to go to another one? Or just go back to movie and pizza?
Here’s a link to the main page of the opera we saw, with links to the synopsis and production notes on the left side. And Andrea Chenier along with Die Fledermaus and La Boheme Does anyone know anything about any of these? If maybe they may be more enjoyable? I don’t think that an opera should be like a musical, with happy little musical numbers that happen every once and a while, but I would hope for at least one or two numbers that were recognizable as songs. Thanks, any advice or help would be appriciated.