A Night At The Opera
I have a housemate up in this Jersey City ex-rectory named Brendan. He’s in the second year of the Seton Hall program I’m in. He is from Indiana originally and he loves doing things; he has a knack for finding free/cheap activities in New York City.
Last night, we went to the opera! Lincoln Center was enough of a treat to see, but my first opera was fantastic too.
It was the opening opera for the Metropolitan Opera season: Mozart’s Don Giovanni. It’s one of the many renditions of the classic tale of “Don Juan,” the fall of the great lover.
So we had standing-room “seats” for $20 on the Orchestra level. Standing room comes with a chest-high shelf to lean on with a subtitle LED screen. It sounded bad at first, until I realized I’ve stood for hours at concerts before. So it didn’t really affect my experience in the end.
The most amazing part of the opera was just how timeless it was. Elements of the plot and character archetypes can be seen in many modern movies and stories. I also thoroughly enjoyed the accompanying orchestral music and just how well it blended with the many arias, duets, etc.
Believe it or not, there was a decent amount of humor in Don Giovanni as well. The jokes ranged from visual slapstick to subtle irony. One early joke I remember involved Giovanni and his goofy sidekick, Leporello.
Leporello: So you’ve romanced the daughter and murdered the father.
Giovanni: He asked for it.
Leporello: Did she ask for it too?
Now, I can’t really tell if I found that funny because of it’s quick cleverness or because the line was delivered in operatic song in Italian with classical music in the background. Maybe for both reasons. Either way, I laughed aloud after reading it, and laughed many times afterward.
Here’s the Met Opera’s calendar of events for anyone interested. I definitely want to attend another in the future, maybe from the Family Circle 5th teir next time.
Comments
It was the opening opera for the Metropolitan Opera season: Mozart’s Don Giovanni. It’s one of the many renditions of the classic tale of “Don Juan,” the fall of the great lover.
He should have called it “Hepatitis.” Just think of how much fun it would be to play it in different keys!
Don Giovanni definitely has a collection of STDs.
Don Giovanni Ribisi.
Paris, this sounds so goddam cool. One of the things that’s always made me hesitant about going to see an opera is the language barrier. As beautiful as the music can be, it is intended to be a story you follow and when they merely print a translation in a book and expect you to follow along like they do at the Kimmel center, it can be frustrating.
I REAAAALLY want to see Salome after having read about it in The Rest is Noise, but I don’t think I can make any of those dates. Do they tickets usually sell out in advance?
I probably can make a La Boheme date, though, if you’re interested in doing that.
So, for a first opera, you sure picked a good one. Don Giovanni is far and away my all-time favorite. It came through Philly a few years ago and despite my (probably annoying)zeal, noone wanted to go, so I bought a ticket and went by myself. Strangely, I found this easy when I struggle to go see movies by myself.
La Boheme? Amazing. You guys are going to love it.
Hutch, the tickets on the site are sold out like crazy, BUT mainly in the expensive seating. The Family Circle (5th teir, $20-50) is available for practically every performance. The Family Circle Partial View means the 5th teir, right or left side. I guess some of the seats don’t allow you to see one corner of the stage.
I would still like to actually understand what they’re are singing too, because it seemed like the subtitles summarized a bit. There were times when there was singing going on, and no subtitles. But then again, maybe the performers were just holding out their words for very long. They did get the humor correct, though.
I see La Boheme has many tickets left for the Dec./Jan. shows.
I wanna come too!
a lot of times when they’re not translating they’re repeating stuff, or the Italian just takes longer to say, haha : )
even though I speak Italian I find it really hard to understand operatic singing sometimes, but most of the time the word for word isn’t as important as the overall feel of the song.
but yes I will come to any opera with you guys