La Gioconda

Alright, Ginny rightly reminded me that I did indeed throw down the gauntlet in the form of a sweater completing challange - my Salina versus her, um (sorry Ginny, I can't seem to find what your sweater is called...). Now bear in mind that I was confident, even though hers was mostly completed and mine had only one piece done. I was making such good progress! Well, since then I have basically not worked on Salina at all. Nope, not at all. (I worked 40 rows of the front today though!) Part of the reason is all those other WIPs that compete, nay beg, for my attention. Here is one of the other reasons:


Yup, I am a big fat geek in so many more ways than one! (One of these days I may let you in on some of my other geekly traits.)

Anyway, yes, I love opera, and New York City must be the absolute best place in the entire world in terms of sheer variety (as well as overall talent)! Above you see tickets to seventeen productions at the Metropolitan Opera this year (through May 2007). Seventeen. There are actually 24 total, including old reliable stand-bys like La Boheme and some productions that I saw last year, like Die Zauberflöte, which I chose not to see again quite so soon. The tickets above represent every opera being done at the Met this year that I have never seen. (This does not even include the productions being done at New York City Opera, which is sort of a poor step-sister of the Met and which I generally don't attend.)

Oh the opera joy!

I used to live in San Diego, right before moving to this fair city. San Diego was where I discovered, quite accidentally, that I actually really love opera. The sad thing is that there were maybe four productions a year there, with at least one or two of them every year being standards (like Boheme).

Anyway, last week my roommate and I went to the opening of La Gioconda:


La Gioconda is a charming (if long) opera by Ponchielli that also contains the famous ballet Dance of the Hours which most people know from Disney's Fantasia. Let me just say that this production was fantastic. Fantastic singing and fantastic dancing (which is quite rare in opera in general).

I urge you, if you live in or near NYC to give the opera a try, if even only once. Don't knock it until you've tried it. If you've never seen opera or don't think you like opera go see La Boheme. It's a classic story and a perennial crowd favorite. (The story is that which Rent was based on.) Or give the abbreviated English language version of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) a try. You may never get a better chance.

And incidentally, you can sit in Family Circle at the Met for $15. That is about, oh, 1/7th the price of a ticket to a broadway show. (But bring your binocs!)

(Edited to fix some typos.)

posted by Carrie @ 8:51 PM