A Night at the Opera and other things

So, I had kind of a difficult week. I woke up last weekend not feeling well. I chalked it up to allergies (something I never suffered in New England, New York, Europe, or Asia, until moving to the Mid-Atlantic) and began muddling through the ickiness of not feeling well. A week and a half later and I'm still not feeling well. I became so desperately miserable that, stuck in podunk last Thursday I crawled to the nearest pharmacy and bought some Claritan. Which had Absolutely. No. Effect.Whatsoever. Which I suppose means that what I have is a cold, not allergies. What I'd like to have is a working pulmonary system, but we don't always get what we want. SIGH. I do feel a teensy weensy bit better today. Here's hoping there is oxygen in my future.

In addition to feeling like I'd been trampled by an elephant, my computer died. It has been dying this slow death for a number of months, but I really couldn't afford to have it die, so I kind of told myself it wasn't reeeeeeally happening. Which has been working for me since December, me willing the computer to continue lumbering on, stiff upper lip and all that. But it finally died. DeaddeadeaddeadDEAD. SIGH.

Being ill for tenstraightdays and having one's computer die are both bad. It was a bad week. During this bad week I was unable to do a number of tasks due to having no computer and a brain that was fogged by lack of oxygen, which has compounded the badness. Like interest. Today I discovered that a bill that was taken care of last fall has resurfaced, having un-taken-care-of itself. This is really annoying. Also? BAD. BADBADBADBAD.

Also, as I mentioned, I had to visit a number of places in my weekly wanderings around the state. I got to stay at the Quality Inn. Which was kind of like the shabby version of the Holiday Inn Express. I got to drink bad coffee in the morning with a bunch of truckers, which was actually just like the Holiday Inn Express, but the room looked a bit like it had been put together with leftover pieces from other, non-matching rooms.The shower head was so short that I had to duck to get under it, and I am very short.

At a school I visited I asked the kids to try to think of a creature that spins silk. I was looking for "spider." Generally this is not a problem. Most kids get that spiders spin silk. But this class a little girl shot up her hand and when I called on her she said, "buffalo." I'm not sure what to do with that. Both from the standpoint that the image of a buffalo spinning silk, spider style, has kind of lodged itself in my psyche, and also from the standpoint that someone could know the word buffalo with so profound a misunderstanding of the creature.

That evening, desperate for some vitamins, I picked up dinner and some carrots and juice at the Food Lion across the street from the Quality Inn. It seemed like a healthier option than McDonalds or The Olde Country Buffet. I put the bag of carrots and juice and things on the conveyor belt, including the grapefruit I'd picked up, thinking that I could use some vitamin C. Mind you, the produce section in the town's Food Lion was, uhm.... spare. There were only a dozen or so different vegetables. I don't mean varieties, I mean vegetables. So this is the context within which, in the process of checking out, the cashier looked at the grapefruit, frowned, picked it up and held it up in the air between us and asked, earnestly, "What's this?" She didn't know how to ring it in because it didn't have a sticker on it with a PLU #, and because she also did not recognize the object to look up on the list. A GRAPEFRUIT. Seriously. She couldn't identify a GRAPEFRUIT. A pamplemousse. I mean, this is a standard breakfast item at every diner I've ever been to. It wasn't like I was standing there was a guava or a bunch of longans or rambuatans or something. A bloody grapefruit.

Friday night I zipped back to the RVA because I'd gotten a deal on some tickets to the opera. The opera! I quite like the opera. When I was an undergrad I used to get this deal that the Met had to see four operas every season at cheap student prices. (Also, going on their website I was reminded that they are doing the Ring cycle this season. SIGH. How I wish I could see it....). This is relevant because going to see opera at the Met was, prior to last Friday, my only opera experience. On the one hand, this is a perfect situation, right? The stage is huge, the productions are magnificent, the divas are prima. On the other of the hands, if you no longer have the pleasure of living in New York, then you might ultimately have to go see opera at a place that is not the Met. At which point you realize why it is the Met that is broadcast every Saturday afternoon rather than broadcasting live from the Carpenter Theater in downtown Richmond.

 We saw Madama Butterfly.

I'd never seen it before, though I have seen other Puccini operas. I saw La boheme at the Met, and it was quite memorable. This was... less memorable. The singing? Not bad. Certainly better than anything I could have come up with. But... well....hummmmm... not heartwrenching? I mean, it's melodrama. You're supposed to be overwhelmed by the tragedy of it. Poor Cio Cio San! Dastardly Sharpless! But it didn't really move me like that. Parts of the sets were really interesting, with an ingenious solution for such a small stage. But then... parts of the sets were also clunky and lacking elegance. Worst of all, NINJAS.

And not any ninjas. ACCIDENTAL NINJAS. Who knew this category of ninjas existed? Before Friday night, I had no idea. But there, in the midst of Act I, the lovers wandering through the night shadows, the stage is suddenly filled with ninjas twirling illuminated paper umbrellas. They clash into each other, one almost loses control of one of the umbrellas, then they set them down on the floor and slink away. I think to myself, Holy Crap! What the hell are ninjas doing at the opera? Then, later, the ninjas returned to slide some of the set pieces around. And then later to slide even more set pieces around. Now, I realize that the director, or whomever came up with this "solution" was trying to make these people "invisible" by dressing them in black and making them wear black mask/hood things so that they would "melt" into the background. But here is the problem:  it's an opera SET IN JAPAN. Which means, my mind is in Japan. And when, WHILE IN JAPAN, a group of stealthy, silent walking, dressed all in black with black mask/hoods and cloth split toe slippers suddenly runs around the stage waving butterflies on sticks, how can anyone be expected not to think Holy Crap! Ninjas!

Never, in all of the times I went to the opera at the Met, did I see ninjas. It is not a recommended addition.

You know what else I never saw at the Met? Raisinettes. I don't know when this became acceptable, but raisinettes and gummi bears in crinkly crinkly packaging should not be allowed at the opera. And drinks. The intermission came and everyone debunked to the bar. Which is what one does at intermission. But the last time I went to the opera you weren't allowed to bring either your drink or any snacks into the theater. Here, everyone was drinking (and spilling) and eating loud things in crinkly packaging, crinklecrinklecrinklecrinkle. REALLY? You can't make it TWO WHOLE HOURS without stuffing your face? Not even! One hour, then an intermission when you can eat chocolate dipped madeleines! Then another hour and then you are free to indulge your desire for raisinettes, but please, STOP CRINKLING THAT PACKAGE SO I DON'T HAVE TO KILL YOU.

Also never seen at the Met-- women cursing out the elderly usher seating ladies. We were in the cheap seats (which is what we can afford). I did not see a seating chart, but based on the price of the tickets we were sitting exactly where I expected. There were three rows behind us. Behind that was a high pressure system moving in from the Midwest. What else does one expect? You can't even get nosebleed seats at a baseball game for what I paid. Ten minutes before the show started two women were shown to their seats by the usher. They were in the last row. Trust me when I saw that there was virtually no difference between their view and ours. But this displeased one of the women, who made her displeasure known by yelling, "This is BULLSHIT! The LAST ROW?! This is BULLSHIT!" She ranted for a while about how she was told that these were the best seats left, and how could they, and she shouldn't have to sit in the last row and this was just bullshit, etc. etc.

Indeed.

Eventually she sat down and tucked into her raisinettes. Crinklecrinklecrinkle.

Comments

[Kevin Shea]

Wow! That was an epic tale, I laughed, I cried, I cringed. I've yet to see a big scale opera, so I don't know much about the protocol...BUT I do know that Raisinettes or anything in a crinkly bag, do not belong in the theater!

Hope you are feeling better!

[Lucia Foley]

At least your sense of humor is intact. I hope you get to laugh as hard when you write this stuff as your readers. (After the silk-spining buffalo I was barely able to stay in my chair, but the opera ninjas just about sent me over the edge.) Sorry you had such a bad week--hope you're better now...

[JJBT]

I remember having seen Tosca at the Met, hmmm... october '06
no crinklecrinklecrinkle by that time, as far as I can remember... and I think I would remember : I would have killed the nasty crinkler !
:)