Barber of Seville

Sometime last year I decided to really bridge the gap between thinking things sound cool to do and actually doing them. Have you noticed?

I bought a ticket to the opera: I'd never been and thought it might be interesting. And so I found myself at a performance of Il Barbiere di Siviglia Monday night. The Metropolitan Opera is very elegant. Plenty of people (even the NYers) were taking photos inside and outside the building. There are 6 levels of seating. My seat was in the front of the Grand Tier, 2 levels above orchestra level. This was a good position; it offered nice views of the performers on stage and their expressions, as well as a peek into the orchestra pit (which was kinda cool).

Stage at the Met.

I selected Barber of Seville because it's a comedy. If I'm going to listen to people singing in Italian for 3+ hours, I’d prefer that they not be singing about death. That said, I made a wise choice - even though Barber of Seville is a comedy, it's not exactly a Chris Rock HBO special.

For those who’ve never been to an opera, everyone has a little LED screen on the seat back in front of them where the lyrics are translated into English. This is awesome; it would have been pretty excruciating to watch this performance without knowing what's going on. There is some "acting" during the opera, but the action/gesturing on stage definitely serves to enhance the song lyrics vs. stand on its own.

The singers were very skilled & their voices were very beautiful. The sets were pretty minimal; my favorite was the last one, which featured the orange trees that are found throughout Seville.

I’m glad I went to the opera, but opera is just not my thing. I typically don’t care for musicals because of their extraneous singing, and the opera has even more singing than a Broadway musical… so there you have it.