The Arts in NYC Fall 2012

Look, I’ll be frank. I came into last night’s performance expecting to be bored to the point of tears for the entirety of the performance. I’ll admit that there were portions of last night’s opera that were very engaging and interesting. On the whole, though, this was easily the least enjoyable of the three outings for me, and there are a couple reasons for that in my eyes.

One was simply our distance from the performance itself. I realzie now that you weren’t joking when you suggestsed that we bring some binoculars or opera glasses. I couldn’t see anything clearly, aside from the gigantic backdrops and scenery. I remember when we looked at the clips in the classes during the performances, I enjoyed seeing the performers’ reactions and expressions as they sung their lines. From the nosebleed seats, however, I sometimes couldn’t even tell who was singing between the actors on stage. I couldn’t see their mouths moving. It was really hard to get engaged with the performance when I could not see it.

Another issue that I found critical was the way the story was so incredibly drawn out. It seemed like every line had to be repeated at least five times before they moved on to the next bit of plot development. Now maybe this was important back when translations were not available, and most people could not actually understand what people were saying. But now we have translations and I think the opera needs to adapt a little. It feels extremely stuck in its ways and old-fashioned. I joked with people about Act 1; they took 50 minutes to explain something that could’ve taken 5. All that happened was Radames’ ascension to commander of the army and the revelation of the “love triangle.” Redundancy and repetition were ever-present in this production and I was really turned off by it.

To continue my disappointment, the atmosphere of the opera house itself felt extremely elitist and over my head. For starters, when me and Nate came to the opera house after getting lost, we rode up a gold-painted escalator. Heck, the water fountains were painted gold and the toilet stalls were made of marble. I know this is an upper-class thing, but does it really need to be so extravegant? Then of course, there were chandeliers everywhere, velvet-red carpets on every wall and every floor, elevators with golden doors, etc, etc, etc. It seemed to be more about the looks than the actual show. And the crowd was–and I hate to sound racist–very predominantly white. It was kind of unsettling for me, I’ve always been taught that the arts are something that everyone should be able to enjoy. I guess that’s not the case when half-decent seats cost hundreds of dollars, and even our back-row, CUNY discount seats cost $22.50 a pop.

What I will say I liked was the staging and the scenery. I probably paid more attention to it than to the actors. It was very grandiose and I liked how it clearly borrowed from ancient Egyptian architecture, yet, you could see some clear differences between the real thing and the modified version on stage. It seemed like there was a lot of potential for interaction with the scenery that was not utilized. A lot of the performance was spent standing around, it seemed. I loved in particular the scenery when Radames returns from war. The elevated ground where the king sat, the pillars and structures everywhere, and the way the cast arranged their positions to create an aisle of sorts where the war heroes walked through were all very well-done, I thought.

While I appreciated getting exposure to the opera, in the end, I came away feeling that a lot of my prejudices and stereotypes regarding it were proved true, rather than dispelled. It was stuck-up, rather dull, and excessively long, which is what I expected. Maybe if there’s a time when I can score better seats I’ll feel a little bit better about it. If the opera is to continue to be successful with more than just the affluent white demographic, it has to change. That was probably my biggest disappointment– the lack of diversity in a place as large and diverse as New York City. I’ll definitely go out again to see a modern dance performance. And I’ll assuredly be seeing more plays and musicals. But as for the opera, I’m having trouble envisioning a scenario where I’ll be back.

-Ben