Speaking of culture, I really enjoyed the opera thingie. It’s like...lowbrow culture. Is that possible? ;-) There’s just something rather beautiful about folks watching opera whilst drinking Coke and eating popcorn, though I didn’t indulge in that myself...I didn’t wanna spend the money this time.
This first show was Romeo and Juliet. I already know and like Roberto Alagna, so that was good, and the gal who played Juliet was wonderful - and just adorable, to boot. The rest of the cast was good, too, especially Capulet and Mercutio.
During the set changes and part of the intermission, they talked with some of the performers, and with the conductor - none other than Placido Domingo. So that was pretty neat. Heh...kind of amazing how NOT fancy the back areas at the Met are, though. The public areas are so opulent that it was a bit of a shock seeing exposed pipes and worn paint and all in the halls and off-stage rooms.
The sound wasn’t as great as I’d kind of hoped, and overall it was more like watching an opera video on the big screen rather than like really being there, but still, I’ll go again.
So this was a film of the Met production? I saw a sign downtown a couple of days ago. Apparently they’d had a live production of “Romeo and Juliet” at the local high school. The school has set it up so that a local opera company can perform in their auditorium. They’ve done two or three, but I keep missing them. I remember my just older brother singing in “Die Fleidermaus” when he was in college. He also sang in “Lil Abner”. The Music Dept. there was outstanding and there were productions all the time.