We enjoyed an evening at the opera Monday night and already have tickets for the next one.  There we were, casual dress (well, I dressed up — I put socks on — that’s how she can tell), in comfortable theater seating, large Coke in the cup holder and large popcorn in the lap.

Actually, I had a polo shirt on rather than my usual T-shirt, so I was far more dressy than I realized.  I suppose, though I’ have to shave a point or two off because it was an Ironman 70.2 polo shirt from the event a couple of years ago. 

No, of course not.  I didn’t run the thing, I worked it, though by the time it was over I felt like I’d run, swum, and biked it.

If you enjoy opera but don’t want to wear a tux or pay the typical high ticket prices for such events, know that the Metropolitan Opera of New York is now in its third season of making their events available to theaters all over the world.  We paid $20 per ticket for the opening night gala event.  The next one costs $18 per ticket. 

We must be living in a cave because we heard about it only through the “coming attractions” portion of a movie we attended a couple of weeks ago.  I assure you if we had known of it earlier we’d be frequent attendees by now. 

The performance was live and very well done, though to be fair, it was a one-of-a-kind performance, it being opening night, the 125th anniversary season of The Met, and its first High Definition beaming of the season to theaters.  That being the case, the program ran four and a half hours with two intermissions.  By comparison, the next HD event, Salome, is scheduled to run 117 minutes.

Monday night’s performance was very well done.  My only real objection to anything connected with it was that among the various people they interviewed before the show began and during the intermissions were New York City mayor Bloomberg, the I’ll-break-the-law-in-other-jurisdictions anti gun mayor, and I-travel-with-a-DIY-kit Martha Stewart.  And wouldn’t you know it, she actually did a little demonstration of her recipe for a cocktail.  I kid you not, right there at The Met she’s doing her thing.  The woman is obsessed.  When she’s buried they had better throw a needle and thread in with her so she can do a little threadwork inside.

Anyway, the only thing missing from the opera the way The Met has done it is the package of objectionable stuff, well, objectionable to me at least, not the least of which are comfort and cost.

The sound was excellent, and though I feared it would be otherwise, the camera work was exceptionally well done.  And better than trying to read a program in the dark, the English subtitles were on the bottom of the screen at the appropriate times and removed quickly after you had time to read them.

During the intermissions, rather than watching a box of popcorn and a clock on the screen we were treated to interviews and, more interestingly, backstage views of what was going on during the scenery changes.  I found the latter most interesting and they did a very good job of it.  There was obviously a lot of time spent planning what would be shown, which was a lot, virtually everything, and how they would show it while staying out of the way.

Due to it being the opening gala, consisting of acts from each of three different operas (try finding THAT anywhere else!), the set changes during intermissions were monstrous, and we got to watch it all.  What a treat that was!  I expect in following events that will be a smaller part of the overall, but I do hope the backstage aspect remains a part of the experience.

If you have ever had the desire to attend the opera, or are just curious what it’s like, The Met has found a way to make it available.  I suspect dress in your area may be a bit less casual than it was for us, but this being central Florida, shorts and polo shirts are typical movie theater attire; I imagine whatever typical theater attire is in your area would be appropriate, also.  After all, you are in a movie theater.  

For more information, including the season schedule, theater availability in your area, and ticketing, go here.  You can also request a free program guide there (free registration required).

Below is The Met’s official posting of Monday evening’s event:

The Met’s 125th Anniversary Season Has Opened

September 22, 2008

 

The Met’s largest ever opening night audience watched and listened as soprano Renée Fleming kicked off the company’s 125th anniversary season with the Opening Night Gala tonight at 6.30 P.M. When the curtain went up on the second act of Verdi’s La Traviata–followed by Act III from Massenet’s Manon and the final scene of Strauss’s Capriccio–the crowd at the opera house was joined by thousands who watched the live transmissions at Fordham University’s North Meadow across the street from Lincoln Center, on giant screens in Times Square, and in movie theaters in North and South America. The performance was also streamed live on the Met website and transmitted on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. Before the performance, transmission host Susan Graham welcomed guests for interviews on the red carpet, including soprano Diana Damrau, who will make her debut in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor later this fall, composer Nico Muhly, and painter Francesco Clemente, whose exhibition The Sopranos, featuring portraits of eight Met divas, is on display in Gallery Met through the end of this week. Following a rousing rendition of the national anthem, Music Director James Levine launched into Verdi’s masterpiece, with tenor Ramón Vargas and baritone Thomas Hampson taking the stage opposite Fleming as son and father Germont. During intermission, Graham took viewers backstage for an interview with Fleming. Coming right off the stage, the soprano talked about the connection between Violetta and Manon, before heading to her dressing room to make the physical transformation from one character to the other. The costumes Fleming wore for tonight’s performance were specially created for the occasion by Christian Lacroix (La Traviata), Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (Manon), and John Galliano (Capriccio).

In conversation with Levine, Graham gave a preview of the new production of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust by Canadian theater artist Robert Lepage, which will premiere in November, starring Graham and conducted by Levine. Fleming and Vargas then returned to the stage for Manon, for which they were joined by Dwayne Croft and Robert Lloyd as Lescaut and Count des Grieux, and by Marco Armiliato in the pit. Another of the Met’s upcoming new productions, the company premiere of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic, was introduced during the following intermission by Deborah Voigt, who served as the evening’s Times Square correspondent and interviewed Penny Woolcock, who will direct Doctor Atomic. The renowned filmmaker, who is making her opera debut with this production, had taken the trip from Lincoln Center down to 42nd Street to watch the third and last act of the Opening Night Gala, the final scene from Strauss’s Capriccio, among the audience in the heart of New York City. Other interview guests at the Met and Times Square included Martha Stewart, who demonstrated the creation of a cocktail called “Grande Dame,” which she dedicated to Fleming, author and opera lover Ann Patchett, baritone and Tony Award winner Paulo Szot, and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Met’s new Technical Director John Sellars was also on hand to explain what was going on onstage during the scene change from Manon to Capriccio. Fleming’s rendition of the 20-minute solo tour-de-force of that opera’s final scene, conducted by Patrick Summers, was received with a thunderous standing ovation that ended this first night of the Met’s 125th anniversary season.