Ooh la la bohème (See what I did there?)

This was my second time at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, the first time being my sophomore year visit to see Don Giovanni. The seats were a little further back this time so the view wasn’t great but no one can be blamed for that. After all, La bohème is one of the more popular operas of the world (I researched this and apparently it’s the 4th most popular opera in the world based on the number of times performed. I mean wow..)

Seeing the fountain again was a magical moment. Of course, some of my friends and I just had to take pictures in front of it before the opera began. Also prior to the beginning, we managed to get to our seats before the chandeliers went up, which was really cool because I missed that at my previous opera experience.

Like most people, I found myself comparing La bohème to Rent the majority of the time. Unfortunately, in the end, I decided that I liked Rent a lot more, maybe because it was just a tad bit more relatable. Operas are foreign to me — everything is set in a different time period, location, and the biggest factor: language. I couldn’t connect with the opera as much as I did to the movie version of it. Furthermore, there were two parts of the opera that really irked me. I really disliked how Mimi and Rodolfo basically proclaimed their love for each other in the first five minutes of meeting and I just found it to be unrealistic (which I had an intense discussion about with Megan, Mak, and another ITF). In Rent, even though the love/coupley things happened fast, there was a buildup, which made it seem way more realistic. The second part that I found lacking was Mimi’s death scene. From the readings, I knew she was going to die but like… her death scene was disappointing. She died in a room full of people that didn’t even notice she died until a few minutes later. Yikes.

Despite my critiques, I did enjoy the opera. It was far more interesting than the first one I’d seen. Certain lines would make me crack up, although I couldn’t really notice when people were starting to develop tuberculosis because everyone in the audience was already coughing anyway…

I found the intermissions to be tediously… long but at the end of each one, I was absolutely blown away at how much the stage scenes had changed. The props and backdrops were amazing and I’m still awed as to how the stage crew managed to pull all of that off in only an hour’s time, which seemed so long to me.

In the end, I enjoyed the opera but I’d still have to say that I enjoyed the movie version more. I found it more relatable and more touching and I still have “Seasons of Love” stuck in my head because it was just that catchy.

P.S. For the life of me, I do not understand the conical water cups. The first time I tried to use it, it slipped out of my hand and into the water fountain and the second time, the water missed the cup entirely. Maybe I’m just bad at using conical water cups.