Toreador En Garde!

So one of my sisters in law found a Groupon for 40% off tickets to the opera Carmen. The other sisters thought that was a great deal and we should all have a night at the opera, so that was the plan. We decided to meet at a Lebanese restaurant nearby. Some of us were going by car and some were taking BART. That was us. We took the train to Civic Center and started walking.  When we got to Van Ness we saw the SILs just ahead of us so we ran to catch up and we all got to the Lebanese place before 5:00, the time for our reservations.

So we waited for it to open, then we waited some, then we waited some no sound, no lights, no movement of any kind.  A phone call went to their voicemail and we decided they must be closed for the holiday so went to the Japanese restaurant next door. It was good and they were open!

After dinner we all walked a few blocks to the Opera House.  My sister-in-law got Orchestra 3^rd row center tickets.  Awesome seats!  We were right in front of the orchestra pit and eye level with the stage. The Opera was really good.  The costumes, lighting and sets were superb.  We didn’t know the story of Carmen beforehand. It was in French and we don’t speak French but they did have supertitles with the translation though suspiciously they would have only one line in English for many lines of French but I’m sure we got the gist.  Anyway the songs, beautifully sung, were very familiar. Carmen’s habanera you’d recognize right away.  It’s all about the fickleness of L’Amour.  This production of Carmen alternates two performers for this role. The one we saw was very good, very sexy as Carmen should be, though she is a bad, bad girl and thinks nothing of breaking hearts.  But after all love is fickle.  The other main characters Don Jose, her initial love interest and Escamillo, the Toreador, that she dumps him for were also played by fine singers.

The staging was interesting. it seemed to be a modern or modernish Spain.  The Gyspy’s drive around in old Mercedes Benz’s.  The soldiers’ uniforms looked 1930’s.  One of the Gyspy girls dressed like a 1960’s go go girl and the other one dressed was wearing a 1950’s style.  We weren’t sure about the naked guy except that this is San Francisco. 

 We stayed in our seats during intermission while they had open curtain Q & A.  They explained they were simulcasting to a crowd at AT&T Park and answering questions tweeted to #opencurtain.  They also explained that the giant black bull sign, that was part of the set, was originally a road side advertisement for an English sherry company. 

It was a lot of fun!  A little darker than we expected.  Carmen does not survive.  This was the second Opera I have seen since I had gone with SIL’s to see the “Barber of Seville”. It was the first for my hubby and son.  It was a short walk back to the train and a short ride back to the car.  We will do it again.

Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!

A night at the Opera. My first!  My sister-in-law has been arranging events for our "year of culture".   We have been to the symphony, the ballet, Jazz and so it was time for Opera and a girls night out.  For our Opera we decided on "The Barber of Seville" which was playing in San Francisco.  We were dressed up but not to the nines. There were some women in LBDs, some wearing fur, quite a few guys wearing tux's, and one guy in skintight mottled blue and white jeans.   As we were driving by there was a little girl all dressed up in a princess type dress freezing and her brother was marching ahead of them in his suit. There  were a lot of people attending the performance young, old, kids and teens, families, couples, groups of people.

We were seating in the Circle level which is on the 3rd floor.  As we were waiting for the elevator we saw my mother-in-law, sisters-in-law and my niece-in-law in the over crowded elevator so we decided to walk up the stairs.  We walked up to the next level because some of us needed to use the restroom before the show so we stood in line for that and my sister-in-law sat on the kitchen to catch her breath.  My 2 sister-sin-laws took the elevator up the rest of the way and my other niece-in-law and I walked up the stairs.  We were seated second row from the railing and over to the far left which was a little hard to see the left side of the stage where all of the action was.

It's a comedic Opera in Italian -- 3 hours long with one intermission.  There were super titles in English at the top of the stage, but it was hard to watch the singers and read at the same time!  LOL!  I wished my Dad taught me Italian. The first act was slow and was hard to follow because I didn't know the story (and they were all singing in Italian!) but the second half picked up a bit.  But the gist is Rosina is being courted by Count Amalvivia first disguised as L, then as a drunk soldier and then a singing teacher.  Figaro employed as barber and doctor to Doctor Bartolo who is Rosina's guardian who has his own designs on her decides to help the Count in his courtship and various disguises.  Figaro is just Figaro all the way through but he gets the best songs.

The second act was easier to follow. It was more light hearted and comedic.  Everything gets resolved in song by the end of the Opera.  The Count and Rosina are married and drive off in a shiny red jaguar.  Did I mention that the staging was nontraditional? For the most part all of the characters were dressed in white expect Figaro were was dressed in brown, Doctor Bartolo was wearing an smoking jacket, Rosina started off in a white sequined gown with a hoop skirt then she changed into a flowered skirt.

So that was my first Opera.  My husband says I have to see another Opera with him since he wasn't invited along with the girls.  Maybe La Boheme which seems to be some operatic chick flick. No w when is that playing?