L’Elisir d’Rauuuuuuuuuuul

When I told my oldest niece that I was on my way to the opera, I got the response I was expecting. “Why?” In all honesty, I didn’t know. I had always thought negatively of the opera, seeing it as entertainment appealing exclusively to the stuffy and the pretentious. And, to make the situation even worse, there was a Yankee playoff game on that night, Game 3 of the ALDS, a game that I wouldn’t miss for anything.

Yet, despite my strongly held misconceptions and the distraction of the Yankee game making it nearly impossible to concentrate on the on-stage performances, I found L’Elisir d’Amore to be actually entertaining, much more so than the previous performance Spellbeamed, which left me more puzzled than intrigued. The performances on-stage were riveting and I thought the main characters were perfectly cast. Matthew Polenzani, by means of his distinctly emotional voice, was able to capture the heartfelt yearning that coursed through the character he was portraying, Nemorino. And Adina’s strong-willed independence was also exemplified by the booming vocalizations of the extremely talented Anna Netrebko.  Regardless of the spectacular performances they put forth, the show was stolen by the delightful tastelessness of Dulcamara, the con man who sells the “elixir of love” that gives the opera its name. Dulcamara was truly a “big” character, and Ambrogio Maestri was able to embody that ostentatiousness astonishingly well, and provide some surprising comic relief. Scene-stealing characters like Dulcamara are typically either a hit or miss, and, in this performance at least, he was definitely a hit.

Which brings me to my next point, the Yankee game. When I ran downstairs to check the score during intermission, Hiroki Kuroda, the Yankees’ number two pitcher, was in middle of throwing a gem—8 1/3 innings of two-run baseball.  As soon as the performance was over, I skipped down the seemingly infinite flights of red-velvet stairs and bolted out the front door, headed towards the nearby apartment of my Auntie Sari. There I bore witness to the long overdue, yet still surprising 9^th-inning benching of the slumping Alex Rodriguez in favor of the hot-handed veteran Raul Ibanez.

This, in case you’re not the most astute fan of baseball, was an extremely, extremely gutsy call by the manager Joe Girardi, a decision that could have backfired terribly. But it didn’t. Ibanez belted a game-tying solo home run on the second pitch of his at bat. As crazy as that was, his heroics didn’t end there. In the bottom of the 12^th inning Raul stepped up to the plate again, expectations weighing heavily on his shoulders. And he delivered again, sending the first pitch of his at-bat into the right field seats. The stadium erupted in cheers of “Rauuuuuul,” and I, sitting on a couch in my aunt’s apartment, couldn’t help but do the same. Not surprisingly, my aunt thinks I’m crazy.

The combination of a spectacularly performed opera and one of the most memorable Yankee games I have ever had the pleasure to watch, made the night of October the 10^th one of the most elating nights in recent memory, and one that I will never forget.