There is a lot to be said about the play Carmen. However, I for one feel that I must start off with the atmosphere first.
Walking into the Opera House to begin with, I felt very much out of place. It was filled with chaos and old couples making their way about to the theatre as a monstrosity of a chandelier hung down begging for attention. Men dressed in suits scanned your tickets and then rushed you in. Women strolled the lobby in furs and ten inch heels. God forbid you got too close to one of the older people, they’d give you the evil eye for even having the nerve to show up to an event meant solely for the old and rich. I felt as if I had dressed up not to see a show but instead put on a show for all the pretentious people who had paid hundreds of dollars for seats in the very front rows.
After finally finding my seat in the “family circle,” matters only seemed to worsen from there. I barely had enough room to move my legs, my purse didn’t seem to be able to fit on the floor, nor under the chair, and barely even on my lap. Had a phone gone off, someone from across the theatre had the nerve to SCREAM across the theatre to turn it off. In fact, from the treatment I myself and others received, it felt as if we had been beggars who had been so graciously let into the show for free and should therefore be thankful and on our knees.
Aside from the horrific treatment I feel we received, the opera itself was simply not worth the money. From my seat, the actors/singers could not be seen and the sound, the entire reason for the opera, was almost inaudible. I could have easily dozed off for those three hours. Along with the awful seats, came the structure of the opera house itself. I’ll assume its original architects must have wanted the poor to feel poor, because boy did the man’s head in front of me block the entire stage for the following three dreadful hours of my life.
Whilst forced to read subtitles for the Opera for three hours, I did notice quite a few things. Number one, the play took place in Spain, specifically Seville and Granada, but can anyone explain why on Earth the play was in French? From quite a few different people I’ve also learned that the play is sometimes performed in Italian, but isn’t that interesting that not one person has told me that they’ve seen it in Spanish? Number two, the play lasted for three full hours, however, I’m sure it could have just as easily been told in about ten minutes. The songs were so repetitive and it seemed to take each character about a full hour of singing just to tell another person “I think your pretty.” Number three, why was everyone in the opera white? During the entire performance I could only find one black adult, and one black child. What, did it make enough sense to have a play set in Spain in French, but not enough sense to add black people to the equation?
Honestly, after this terrible experience I will never go back to an Opera. I had really expected more. The people there were condescending and to put it in simpler terms, fake. The performance itself was not very loud at all, difficult to see unless you were willing to shell out a few hundred dollars, unnecessarily long, and absolutely illogical. People say opera is a dying form, and I can definitely agree and understand why.
