We spent an evening with Nancie and Charlie a week ago. Nancy is a pianist and a composer. Charlie is a well-respected pediatric specialist at UCSF. They both love opera. They had just returned from a night in San Francisco watching Verdi’s Il Travatore. They insisted that we go, too, but as a late-in-the-decade septuagenarian I tend to go to bed before curtains are raised. Life of the party? Ha! Most parties start after I've sawed me a few Zzzzzzs. Alas! The last performance was yesterday, a matineé. I had no choice.
Doomed.
For $80 a seat we sat in the balcony, about a runway’s length from the stage. We could see the outline of the stage, but the actors looked like little action figures. This, at the end of the performance.
To be fair, we enjoyed it. Everybody gets killed. One man unknowingly kills his own brother. A mother throws her baby into a fire. Her own mother was burned at the stake. Scorcese had nothing on Verdi. This was not Taylor Swift.
The voices were extraordinary. Even in the cavernous Opera House the singers’ voices could reach well beyond the large florid doors that separate the opera house from Van Ness Avenue, causing cars to swerve, and red lights to be run. And the softest of whispers carried deep into seats B 1 and 2. We were converted.
Having never attended an opera I expected all patrons to be wearing long dresses or tuxedos. Wrong. Shorts, t-shirts, sandals…I was overdressed in a shirt and pants with a belt. I wanted to see who came to an opera, not who were socially extorted, as we were. This is what I saw.
Two ladies at Will Call
A pretty Asian lady
A Woman waiting for a friend
Another woman waiting for a friend. Her expression reflects what I felt going in.
White socks?????
But going back to my first two ladies. They actually look as if they chose to go, perhaps even paid for their tickets.
This is the way you’re supposed to dress at the opera. Next time it’s shorts and sandals…with white socks.
BTW…here’s Nancie, the composer: