Opera music has always irked me. I’ve never found the appeal in it, other than it being boujee and high class, which are, for the record, two things that I am not. I had high expectations going into this opera — after all, it is a show for the richie rich people, and there must be a good reason that they want to see it so bad. I was anticipating a life-changing experience.
I won’t lie — I was pretty impressed by the backdrops. I’m still wondering how they managed to do that, consider how realistic and detailed they were. One of my favourite parts was during Musetta’s song in the restaurant where everyone else in the city stood still and merely became background props; silhouettes in the shadows. I’m picky when it comes to musicals or performances of any kind, and that truly had me 50 shades of shook. As for the show in its entirety, it was far better than I initially expected it to be. I expected an interesting performance, but it truly went above and beyond even that.
However, performance quality aside…
Throughout the show, I couldn’t help but find myself comparing it to Rent. Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but I found that I really loved Rent. I discussed this in my very first blog post about Hamilton, but being able to relate to things is incredibly important — with Rent, I was able to relate to the content shown on a very personal and emotional level. When it came to the opera, I really struggled to do that. I’m assuming it’s due in part to the fact that the opera is set way before my time, and I can’t really relate to losing someone to tuberculosis. I also found the pacing in the musical far more cohesive and coherent. It was spaced out and the story spanned over the course of a year, which is far more realistic for a love story. In the opera, even though the show was long, the love story component was rushed within the span of the first 10 minutes of the show. A major pet peeve of mine in shows, movies, musicals, and the like is that sappy “love at first sight” trope. I mean, come on — there is no possible way those two fell in love within 5 minutes of their first meeting. Life and love in general just doesn’t work like that. Call me old-fashioned, but if love is a thing that exists, it certainly isn’t born out of an initial meeting with someone; love is grown and cultivated. Sure, maybe I should have had suspension of belief, but I couldn’t get over that the entire show — it was just very unrealistic and made the entire performance cheesy and mawkish. Even when Mimi eventually met her demise, it didn’t have the same impact that the same scene in the musical did. I didn’t feel sorry for her, I didn’t shed a tear, and I wasn’t even remotely upset. I felt very disconnected from the whole scenario.
Enough of the critiquing, though — the show was good. I’m just dramatic and picky. I think I’m adopting the boujee lifestyle to some degree. Yikes.
