Last night Mat and I went to see the Marriage of Figaro.
I enjoy opera though I suspect I probably wouldn't go if he wasn't keen and organising it. Personally I prefer the more modern operas like Verdi's because they don't sing the same thing over and over again ad nauseum - you know, snappy plot lines, everyone dead at the end :) But I was thinking as the lights went down that opera really is a cultural connection with the past. I mean, you can sit in an opera house and listen to the rustlings and coughs, clap when the conductor comes out, dash for the refreshments at interval, people watch, admire shoes and dresses, gossip about fellow attendees, run into friends and generally do things that people have been doing for hundreds of years. Pretty cool. Oh, and if you've had a long day you can doze off too. Ahem.
Recently we went to the ballet (a modern interpretive Romeo + Juliet, where we all kept waiting for some Shakespeare words that weren't going to happen, as it was ballet!). The fun part of it was dressing up for the matinee session, and then people spotting during interval. Sitting in our seats and looking around waiting for the show to start was lovely too.
ReplyDeleteAnother killer header image! I just keep seeing beaUUUuutiful exemples of creative folk running along the top tonight! Your entire blog is pretty slick actually...kudos!
ReplyDeletemy kids love totoro too. what am i saying... it is one of the few cartoon movies that they have that i will actually sit through over and over again! i am lucky. i love japanese anime and they do to so it is sweet that we get to watch these really cool cartoons.
ReplyDeleteWe ADORE Totoro, and all the rest of the Miyazaki films! (Well, the happy ones at least :)
ReplyDeleteI confess I've never been to the opera, though I do love the ballet...D is more than a little delighted that here in the back blocks there is a positive dearth of performances compared to when we lived in Wellington...I don't think the enthusiasm ever quite rubbed off!
ReplyDelete...off to find a copy of Totoro for my 2...
Opera can be pretty tedious I have to say, but if you pick the right one
ReplyDeleteit's great fun. I'm really looking forward to taking Hazel to the ballet
for the first time though, hoping to find a performance of the Nutcracker at
Xmas. My husband has declined to attend already ;)
The people-watching is the absolute best part of the opera for me. I enjoy
ReplyDeleteit enormously! Last night I spent a lot of time looking at all the lovely
shoes on display. There was a woman with the most gorgeous red suede half
boots with black tights on and as she wandered by you could just see the
womens' eyes following them along admiringly. The other thing that I like
is that there are guys in tuxedos and other guys in jeans and tshirts. It's
amazing the diversity of what people judge appropriate to wear to the Opera,
and what their personal taste tells them is 'dressing up'.
I remember matinees from my childhood very fondly, they were so exciting!