Category — Opera

I’ve never seen a real opera, so I’m not sure what I was going to expect since I had seen different varieties of what it’s like on t.v, but it seemed that the word opera is usually preceded by Italian, but this was not the case. To be honest, an Italian opera would have been difficult for me to understand and in that scenario I would only be hearing their singing rather than following a story line. I never expected for an opera to be a comedy. It just didn’t seem like it would ever go together until I saw it for myself. It was difficult for me to really follow the story, but the moniters helped tremendously. I really enjoyed the scenery but I was confused at some times as to how they fit with the story, like the floating house. Other than that, it was definitely a new experience for me, one of many to come.

Attending the Metropolitan Opera was one of the events I was most looking forward to this semester. I had heard about this event from upper classmen and how much fun they had when they went. I am very into musical theatre and always wanted to go to the opera so I was really looking forward to experiencing this very popular and different type of musical performance. I was also interested in seeing how different and similar it would be to a Broadway performance. Needless to say, I was not disappointed on Tuesday night! The opera was an absolutely incredible experience. Not only was the performance spectacularly done, but I also learned more about the culture that surrounds the opera. Unlike Broadway, the opera is much “fancier,” but can also be a casual event. People’s dress ranged from long gowns and suits to jeans and t-shirts. This was surprising to me because I had always thought the opera was supposed to very high class and fancy. During intermission, the food was very “upper-class” and included expensive chocolates and champagne.
The show itself entertained and intrigued me at the same time. Since it was a Shakespearean opera, I expected the costumes and sets to be very old-fashioned and geared towards the time period. In fact, the costumes and sets were extremely modern and quite abstract. The sets attempted to depict a forest scene in a very peculiar way. People entered and exited the forest through doors and trees were represented by a single branch going through the different sections of the set. Although I do not think the scenery was depicted very accurately, I do find it interesting to see this type of creativity in the opera. I expected the opera to be a very formal and rigid atmosphere, but instead was presented with an atmosphere that was quite avant-garde in some respects. The story itself was also very silly and included a lot of “slapstick” humor, which is usually not the typical reputation that the opera has. I also found it interesting that although the opera was in English, there were subtitles on the backs of the seats. This is never seen at a Broadway theatre and helped me to appreciate the use of Shakespearean language. I definitely would like to go back and see a more traditional opera to further my experience of this wonderful culture.

I was a little apprehensive about seeing an opera in English, though I had already seen a few others. I wasn’t apprehensive for my own experience, but for the experience of my classmates. I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of an English opera being my classmates’ only exposure to opera, if they hadn’t seen any others. I was pleasantly surprised, however. Despite the opera’s lack of hummable arias, it was still  good. The humor was refreshing and the show was engaging. I love going to the Met because of their elaborate sets and costumes, and this production was no different. The set made you feel as if you were in a dream, constantly reminding you of the opera’s unreality. This dreamy quality gave the show dimension. I really liked the adaptation, it did the original play justice. The hijinks of the fairies were as funny as intended, and the love triangles just as bewildering. While I don’t think my grandpa would be as fond of the opera as I am, I still think this show was a good introduction to opera in general. I do hope maybe we can go to one more, though. Maybe one in Italian or French, to show the musical differences between an English opera and an Italian opera. Overall, it was a really nice night. Puck reminded me of Luke, so that was cool too.

Knowing myself, and knowing what I thought an opera was, I did not think I would have enjoyed the opera slightly. However, Tuesday nights opera really didn’t meet my expectations. The opera was different than the typical opera I thought it would be like. I really enjoyed the story line, the humor, and the stage. If it wasn’t for the subtitles behind each seat, I would not have known what was going on, so that was very helpful!
Shakespeare’s play incorporates three distinct realms – that of the humans, the fairies, and the men who put on the play in a play.
The orchestra was great! Every contour and style of music seems fitted and imaginatively to characters and mood. The curtains between intermissions slowly rose up and down, like breaths in a deep sleep, and lullabies, which all tied into the theme of night, dreams. The stage looks like a modern day diorama with stars and moon inside a black frame. Inside, you had things like mountains, a forest, and a tree branch connecting the four neon doors. It felt similar to how a Shakespeare play would have looked and been performed in Elizabethan times.
My favorite part of the opera was the children’s chorus. It both looked and sounded beautiful. It was very in sync and rhythmic; it was just was very enjoyable to watch.
I know it was Shakespeare’s play, but I would have hoped that the way the end played out between the four humans would have been a bit different. Im one of those helpless romantics and would have enjoyed seeing it a little more dramatic and unfolded a bit better.
It was overall a very enjoyable and classy night!

Attending the Metropolitan Opera on the evening before a philosophy mid-term exam was one of the greatest things I could have done, and did! I had seen other film an stage productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (including one I participated in during my junior year of high school), but Tuesday’s version was by far the most modern. Of course, people often imagine that Shakespeare’s plays are performed with a Renaissance setting, whether this mean the set looks antique or the setting really is Europe. However, this performance changed the way I thought of on-stage opera and the means by which the audience is captivated.

No one doubts the excellence of the Met, so the cast were bar none some of the greatest the opera world has to offer. Yes, the singing of opera is indeed an art form, but the set did just as good a job at sparking intrigue. When my high school put on our production of Midsummer, we tried very hard to replicate the Athenian and forest scenes to the letter. In particular, many of the forest scenes took place in front and within four towering green walls that had been constructed with a red door fashioned into their corners. In addition, a large tree branch had been constructed through the green walls in such a way that it had pierced the walls. At the start, the same frustration that I express towards Duchamp’s “In Advance of a Broken Arm”. Around halfway through the first act, though, I realized that the four walls symbolized the four lovers: Helena and Demetrius, Hermia and Lysander; the branch represented the Puck’s mistake with the love spell and the lover’s quarrels that followed. In many of the world’s cultures, the color red represents love and passion. This made me wonder if the doors represented the entryway to each of the four lovers’ hearts, and that each character who passed through the doors were following an intricate stage directions that followed intricacies of the storyline. Lastly, I wonder if the tree branch had been forced into the four walls or had grown through them gradually, each possibility leading to a slightly different interpretation of the story.

Overall, I had a fantastic time at Tuesday night’s outing to the Metropolitan Opera. In many ways, my opinion of the opera changed for the better. Therefore, I look forward to attending many more operas with the Macaulay class in the four years at Macaulay.