An Exciting Operatic Extravagance

I am beyond excited because yesterday I bought tickets for three operas! My seats and show dates were confirmed today!

Last February I attended "La Traviata" performed by the Minnesota Opera at the Ordway in St. Paul with Mr. Sturm. This year, I am going to be attending Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" in October. The seats were ridiculously cheap, and I'm told I may have a somewhat obstructed view since I'm not terribly tall, but whatever! My plan is to bring Mr. Sturm with me again to this opera, and I was informed by the man on the phone that his height will provide him with an excellent view of the stage and the translation screen.

This will probably just give him more ammunition. Despite the fact that I am a little taller than the average female in the United States, people in Minnesota tend to be on the tall side, and Mr. Sturm is no exception. More than once he has brought up my height. Honestly, it would bother me more, but because of the spirit and motive behind the teasing, I kind of enjoy it, actually.

"Cosi Fan Tutte" is not the only opera I will be attending this season. Later on, I will be attending the world premier of "Silent Night" in November and "Madame Butterfly" in April. I was going to get tickets for "Werther", but the lady on the phone was very convincing. She not only talked me out of it, but talked me into "Silent Night". It is in four different languages and should be half decent.

Don't I lead an exciting life? I think so.

Saturday Night at the Opera

Yesterday I attended the Minnesota Opera at The Ordway with a very nice man. We saw Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata", and it was, in my humble opinion, awfully well done.

I wore my new black dress with the lace top and swishy skirt. Luckily, it is still kind of cold, so I got away with making the dress more modest with a black sweater. Unfortunately, the best part of the dress is the top, and the sweater covered up the back. Quite the conundrum - choosing between being warm and more modest or showing off the dress. Of course, my practical, self-conscious self chose the sweater.

The evening began with coffee and chatting, which was fun. It is always nice to go out before or after any sort of opera, symphony, orchestra, play, or any other imaginable sort of live performance. We also managed to make it to the venue in time to catch the very end of the opera talk. I had no idea who the woman was, but she seemed to know what she was talking about, and it was interesting. There was even a brief snippet of singing from a woman.

Then there was more time for chatting near the windows overlooking the little plaza in front of the Landmark Center. Some of the trees had the white lights in them, which made for a pretty view. Much like the coffee or meal before or after a show, in my experience, it really enhances the whole experience to arrive early and have time to enjoy the atmosphere.

The show was performed in three acts with two intermissions and one pause (or mini-intermission, if you will) for scene changes. While the show ran an estimated 3 hours 1 minute, it did not feel like it. I was completely drawn in, engrossed in the music and characters. The intermissions seemed to come so soon!

Naturally, being a tragedy, there is a death at the end. In my experience from watching live operas and operas on DVDs, whenever a lead character dies, it takes approximately an eternity - give or take a decade. The death scene in "La Traviata" is the entire third act, so I expected to get a bit antsy towards the end. However, I was almost disappointed how quickly Violetta died and the show was ended.

And so - Well done, Verdi, for writing such a splendid Opera! Well done, Piave, for the libretto! And Bravo, Minnesota Opera, for your enthralling performance!

Now, you will probably not be as interested as I was when I learned that the movie "Moulin Rouge" is based on the same story. I would really like to get a hold of a copy of that movie and watch it again and do a compare and contrast. I would also like to read the book ("La Dame aux Camelias") that the opera was based on. Then I can see the full scope of the story and see how it has changed from 1848 to 2001.

Results of the Chess Records Survey

I apologize for the delay, but you can relax at last. Below are the results of the Favorite Chess Records Artist Survey. Participation was down again, but I think that might be because I chose a more obscure topic.

Muddy Waters         20%
Chuck Berry             20%
Etta James                20%
Howlin' Wolf            40%
Little Walter               0%
Bo Diddley                 0%

I'll admit that I am surprised Howlin' Wolf won. I would have put money on one of the first three being the most popular. Perhaps it is because of Howlin' Wolf's name? This time I will not cast my individual vote as I am not even sure who I would vote for. I love Etta James, but Muddy Waters is a pretty big deal. And where would we be today without Chuck Berry?

In other musical news, I went to the MN Orchestra this weekend and quite enjoyed it. They were performing Mozart's "The Magic Flute". While the singing was in German (with subtitles of course), in this production they translated the speaking parts into English, which  was actually ok. Heart of the Beast Puppet Theatre did the puppets to go along with the show, and they were awesome, if not a little nightmare-inducing, as usual.

The only thing is that I forgot that "The Magic Flute" was so long! It was well done, funny, interesting to watch, and all, but I got home to Rochester rather late, which was too bad. Worth it, though.

I think my favorite Heart of the Beast Puppets would have to be the little woodland dancing animals from the first act. There were two skunks that were dancing that were pretty hilarious. If you would like more information on this particular group, you can visit their website.

Now I am looking for someone to accompany me to the opera this spring. Any takers?

Classy Culture with Dick Johnson

A few days ago my lovely curly-headed roommate and I went on a spur of the moment culture field trip. As I was wandering aimlessly through the student society building, I ran into an extremely excited francophone woman who wanted to share with me the joys of the opera. I love the opera - at least what I had seen and heard up to this point. My previous opera experiences included an opera course taught at a castle in England, Rigoletto at The Royal Opera in London, and Don Giovanni at The Royal Opera. Tuesday was student night, which meant we could get tickets for 25$ each, a steal if you ask me. What did we get to see? Puccini's little known opera La Fanciulla del West, or, in English, The Girl of the Golden West.

It was not at all what I expected.

After dining at a favorite spot of ours, Cafe l'etranger, we headed to Place des Arts, still in our school attire and carrying our bags of books. There really wasn't time at all for us to go home and change, plus we thought it was student night, so there would be students there dressed like us. There were some young people in jeans carrying backpacks, but mostly it was older people wearing very nice clothing. Fortunately for them, our tickets were in the Balcon Impair, which meant we had to climb some stairs. Then climb some more stairs. The higher up we got, the surlier the ushers and the unclassier the decor. Eventually the stairway resembled somewhat of a carpeted emergency exit. Still, we had some pretty good seats on the edge of the balcony.

Behind us, however, were two student girls very much unlike us. My roomy and I were trained in the way of performance viewing, perhaps from our musical performance backgrounds. These girls, however, are the people you hate at the movie theatre. EVERYTHING required a comment or a giggle from them. EVERYTHING. While sometimes this was funny, like when the main character was really obviously cheating at cards by pulling them out of her sock and they had a discussion about whether or not she was cheating. Of course there were times when the ongoing not-quit-whispered dialogue was not funny, like when they talked about how they had never been to the opera before and they can't hear what anyone is saying and what's that and who's that and where are they going and when was this written and she looks stupid....etc.

Now you might be thinking, with a climactic card game scene, characters with strong names like Minnie, Jack Rance, and Dick Johnson (actual lines from the opera: "Dick! Forever Dick!" and "I'm tired of looking for your Johnson!"...probably not as funny in Italian) how could this opera go wrong? I admit that it was not at all what I expected and there seem to be some serious plot flaws, but I rather enjoyed it. Was it one of my favorite operas? Not even close. But I am happy that I saw it. In fact, I recommend you go see it right now. I'm sure your library has a recording.

And that was Ivy's night of cultured activities.