A Night (or Day) at the Opera

Being the incredibly cultured and cosmopolitan people that we are, we spent a day at the opera. Opera North was presenting performances of La Boheme and Don Giovanni at the LOH. Now I've only been to one opera before, Carmen, and have to confess that I enjoy them.

Sure, I can't understand a word they're saying, mainly because it is all in Italian, but even if they spoke English I doubt I'd understand anything, but that's not the point, right?

It's really more about the spectacle and the music. The story lines are ridiculous, but the power of the singing is amazing, and who can resist a good tragic love story? Plus, the visuals always blow me away, and the raw artistic energy and emotion is enough to carry the show.

We did have some reservations about A&N, mostly N. He's only 6, after all, and has a preference for the Beatles and the Stones, so we worried how he'd deal with Puccini. In the end, they both did fine, though at some point N leaned over to me and asked me how much longer it was going to go.

I personally enjoyed the show a lot, and you can't beat the price. I'm no opera buff, but the performers were fantastic, and we even got to meet them after the show. Many of them go on to make a name for themselves in big cities like New York and Boston, so they are the real deal. We also saw a bunch of our neighbors at the show, so we didn't feel alone. In fact, one of our neighbor, MK, who also has the pond we frequent, wanted to take A with her. She likes to include young kids in artistic pursuits, and asked us if she could take A. We didn't want N to feel left out, though in retrospect she would have taken him, as well. Either way, we decided to all go since we're cultural animals.

We even managed to squeeze in a shopping trip and then dinner at Bolocos, one of our favorite food digs. Of course, we had to come home and make dumplings, but what else is new?

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Klaus Sandrini for the pic.

re going tot eh opera
La Boheme
shoudl be interesting