Do you like opera? If you just shouted "No way!" then I have a suggestion: head to the nearest movieplex that carries big-screen, live simulcasts from onstage and backstage at the New York City Metropolitan Opera. You won't believe the fun you'll have.
Trust me: this is NOT your grandfather's boring extravaganza. This is 21st century aural and visual technology at its best. Here you are, all comfy in stadium seating, popcorn and cola in hand, watching world-class tenors, sopranos, basses, baritones and choruses perform under the baton of (yesterday) Maestro James Levine himself.
Half a dozen women friends and I bought tickets (and popcorn) and enjoyed the heck out of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut," an over-the-top melodrama that looked great in lavish costumes covering the amazing bodies and muscularity of the players. We caught the show in a suburban moviehouse near Jackson at a Saturday matinee.
So think about it:
Ever seen a 47-year-old opera star do a gymnastic split in a ton of tulle, net, wigs and pearls? We saw it yesterday! Lead actress/soprano Karita Mattila (Finnish sensation) prepped Met moviegoers during a live backstage interview between acts to watch for her maneuver. She even showed us how she'd practiced. That, mind you, between other live backstage interviews conducted by Met superstar Renee Fleming--in one case, with the married couple who own and train all the animals used onstage. Fascinating. This kind of opera is NOT boring. No way!
P.S. "Manon Lescaut," by Puccini, was first staged and a huge hit in Turin, Italy in 1893. Yesterday's version was faithful to the tale of the poor young girl (Manon Lescaut, she's named) who's headed to a convent and is drawn off-course by her scheming, gambler brother and a wealthy old geezer he encounters who takes her to his Paris salon, uses her and controls her with his wealth and flattery. She and the handsome young boyfriend she'd met along the way wind up in a "wasteland" called "New Orleans" in America. Was Puccini prescient---or what? In any case, it all ends--what else--melodramatically. But if you saw it on the big screen as we did, the real melodrama was in THAT! Super Bowl, move over; Super Opera is on its way.
1 comment:
Since I am an opera illiterate I read the story and was interested to learn that the heroine sang this song as she was about to die in the swamps near New Orleans! I had no idea there was a connection between France and Louisiana in the plot of this opera. I am so glad you got to see this "live on screen" in Jackson. Jon on 2-20-08
Post a Comment