Marriage of Figaro

Hooray for opera! :)

Neither Adrienne nor I had been to an opera before. The Opera Company of Philadelphia is currently running Marriage of Figaro so we figure we would grab some of the cheap seats and give it a try.

I must say, I did not have high expectations for an opera, but this experience was fun by any standard. Marriage of Figaro is a witty, scandalous, and generally engaging opera. I think it was a great one to start with. For $8.50 we figured we couldn't go wrong. Our seats were up in the rafters (eye-level with the chandelier) were we could inconspicuously nod off if it was boring. It turned out the show was great and the seats weren't bad (if you forgive the blocked view of 1/4 of stage left).

The acts flew by! Before we knew it, we were at intermission. There were surtitles (it's sung in Italian) but I felt like I only read them half the time. I kind of got the jist of what was going on just by watching the actors/singers (what do you call them in an opera?). By the time we got around to the forth act we had been in the theater for about 2.5 hours. It felt like we just sat down. When the opera was over, we definitely wanted to see more. :)

If you haven't yet, I encourage you to go to the opera - or at least go see Marriage of Figaro (I am still skeptical of some of the slower ones ;)

Cheers.

BTW, I now know were R. Kelly go his inspiration for Trapped in the Closet. Check out Act II of Marriage of Figaro.