Fur coats. Elderly attendees, or at least middle-aged. White people in fancy suits and evening gowns, with those long cigarette holders that Cruella de Vil had. These are things I think of when I hear, “Let’s go to the opera!” That and, “Oh, great, singing I won’t be able to understand in a language I don’t know with an overly dramatic plot that makes no sense and brings my life no joy.” These, I suppose, would be my “previous prejudices” against the opera. Much like those who enjoy Steve McCurry’s work, I was quick to fall back on my made up ideals from movies/history class/my opera-singing vocal teacher about operas and those who attend them, rather than keeping an open mind about its reality.
The first thing I noticed was how underdressed I was in ripped, blue super skinny jeans and my navy-blue John Jay hoodie. Second, I couldn’t help but notice the hilarious caricature of the foundation of American society: minority staff in fancy tuxedo suits servicing old, white people. Third, the Met, as one would expect, is incredibly fancy! The chandeliers dangling from the ceilings were (almost literally) an explosion of light. Everywhere you looked there was red velvet; it covered the walls, floors, stairs, and seats. Oh goodness, those seats were comfortable. If the show hadn’t been so bizarre, I think I might have fallen asleep. Although I’ve imagined going to the Metropolitan Opera House and walked by it several times, I cannot deny that imagining it and experiencing it were two very separate experiences.
The opera itself was simply bizarre and I still think it may have been one of the most ridiculous plots I’ve ever encountered. Needless to say, I felt comfort in the validation of at least one of my prior imaginings. The Exterminating Angel, from what I could tell, was about a group of friends with good economic/social standing that get trapped in a room by an omnipotent force. No matter what they did, they could not leave the room and soon they began to feel the effects of starvation. My classmates and I discussed the effects of attempts to leave the room during intermission, I couldn’t understand what it was that was exactly keeping them in the room. Was it an invisible force field? Was it some sort of mental manipulation by the omnipotent being? Did they get sick or hurt when they tried to leave? I found myself very confused about the subject afterward.
However, intermission made me take a step back to look around at the Met in its true form, with all of its audience spilled onto the velvet floors and rushing to get to the bathroom. As I stood in the balcony area after I finished “powdering my nose” (I’d been urged to run to the bathroom right as intermission started by a very clever D.K.), I took the chance to really open my eyes and look around. A lot of attendees, I found, were not, in fact, as I’d imagined.
Although a lot of them were middle-aged, audience members ranged from young children with their families to established 30-somethings on a fancy anniversary date to grandmothers in town to visit their sons/daughters and grandchildren. Many of them were not dressed in evening gowns or fancy tuxedos, but they were wearing nice clothes. They looked like “the best version” of themselves, as my old musical theater teacher would say.There was nothing notably snooty about anyone, they were all just normal people (most of them did turn out to be white), out to enjoy a pleasant evening at the opera in New York City.
And as I kept looking around, I realized: regardless of how fancy and renowned the occasion, everyone still has to wait in a line to use the bathroom.
