It almost makes you want to commit SUICIDIO!

Hello Muddah,
Hello Faddah
There I was at
La Gioconda...

(Unfortunately, I can't figure out a song version for what I'm about to tell you that even remotely scans to the "Dance of The Hours")

I started going to the Metropolitan Opera on April 15, 1993, with a Lucia di Lammermoor starring Sumi Jo, Alfredo Kraus, Haijing Fu - I had been to a few things at New York City Opera before that. Beginning in 1995 I began going regularly and by the following season I was averaging about 20 performances a year. I have now been to the Met about 170 times, and probably other opera houses - NYCO, Covent Garden, English National Opera and the Washington Opera - a total of at least 30. In all that time, and all those performances, the worst experience I ever had was - last night.

The day wasn't going all that well to begin with. You probably know by now that New York Yankees pitcher Corey Lisle and his flight instructor were killed when their plane crashed into an apartment building on 72nd and York, right on the East River. Since the first assumption was this was a terrorist act, there were tons of police there, screwing up traffic all over the city. It began to rain torrentially as soon as I left work - and I didn't have my jacket with me because I didn't think it was going to rain until after midnight. I had to go home before the opera to pick up my ticket because I forgot it in the morning. Then I lost my Metrocard (bus fare), although the driver very nicely let me stay on the bus and I found it when I got home.

OK, the performance starts at 7:30PM, which means Irina Mishura begins "Voce di donna" at exactly 8:00. That was made very clear when at least 10 watches beeped during the aria. The last time anything like that happened was back in 1997 when I saw Puritani and Ruth Ann Swenson began "Qui la voce" at 10 PM on the dot. Makes you want to go into the Met with an Uzi!

Well, that wasn't quite so bad by itself, but two people several seats to my right were whispering all throughout the performance, starting with the overture. Try telling them that opera is music, not just singing. To make matters even worse, when Act II began, the family behind me started ruffling through plastic bags and containers, and, I suspect, even eating. Two cell phones - not from this family - went off during "Cielo e mar", adding to the cacophany. I kept glaring at the noisemakers throughout the aria - and shushing them too (so did other people), but it didn't work. During the applause, I turned to one of the kids, who I thought in the darkness was a teenager, but turned out only to be about 10 (If I had known, I would have started with yelling at the parents) and hissed "Thanks for ruining this great aria!". They continued to crackle during "Stella del marinar" and the duet, and kept going until the end of the act despite repeated glaring and shushing and even "SHUT UP!". I probably should have said something to them at that point, but I didn't want to start a fight, so I just moaned with some sympathetic fellow operagoers who weren't happy about these crude, thoughtless people either. I thought about moving, but I wasn't sure where the empty seats were - the house was pretty sold out.

I thought that when Act III began, they would settle down and stop, but no. In addition to the noise they were already making, one of the kids was actually scratching the velvet lining of the railing between the rows! That's something that never even occurred to me! This time when I tried to shush them the father said - very loud - 'What? I can't hear you. I can't hear you."

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Finally, when the act ended, I decided to actually give them the benefit of the doubt and be polite about all the trouble they caused, as they may have been simply totally ignorant (and deaf, considering that they couldn't hear everybody shushing) rather than deliberately rude. Not to mention, I figured the kids would eventually grow up and if they actually were to become decent opera fans, they couldn't have the stereotype of opera lovers as snobbish and stuckup. I remembered how I brought one of those gourmet lollipops (Linda's Lollies, which comes in about 100 flavors, has about 100 calories, and lasts about 3 days) into Salome back in 2005 and was happily sucking it when after during a break the woman standing next to me told me I was making noise. I had no idea, since I couldn't hear anything. I immediately and profusely apologized, wrapped the candy up, and put it away.

So I turned to them and said, "Listen, I don't know if you realize it, but you are making a lot of noise and you're disturbing people, please be more careful." The father said. "We are trying to enjoy the aftereffect of this great scene and you have problems. Shut up." OK, he didn't actually say "shut up", but that was certainly the tone. Now I know who is really snobbish and stuckup. I was in tears. I then did something I've never done - I actually went to the usher and asked him to throw them out. Now I know this guy and he is not the world's nicest person, so I figured he'd put them in their place. When he tried to tell family to quiet down, the father kept screaming at him and telling him to get his fingers out of his face. I still don't see why he didn't call security, although the final act was about to begin and this guy was making such a fuss it would have further disturbed the performance. I can only wish my regular usher friend Annie was there - she wouldn't have been cowed quite so easily.

That was the last straw. There were now empty seats because people had left due to the opera's length and I suspect these yobbos - so I grabbed my coat and moved three rows down - even 4 rows away, I could still hear them making noise! And the woman who was now next to me kept zipping and unzipping her purse.

As you can imagine, the performance was totally ruined. I wouldn't have minded this all that much if this was a mediocre performance - under those circumstances, this debacle might have been funny in retrospect. But even with the distractions and the rage and the tears and the numbness, I could tell it was a magnificent one. I have the feeling Marcello Giordani, in particular, gave probably the best work I've ever seen from him, which is saying a lot - maybe enough to put his Enzo into the pantheon of Greatest Tenor Performances I Have Heard Live which so far includes Placido Domingo's Ghermann, Ben Heppner's Walther von Stolzing, Roberto Alagna's Don Jose, and Phillip Langridge's Captain Vere.

I hope some kind soul can get me a copy from Sirius. I can't go again as the remaining performances conflict with Simchat Torah and my chorus rehearsal (I already missed one for this perormance!). Even without that, going again wouldn't help all that much because the Enzo is going back to Aquiles Machado (decent tenor, lovable Rodolfo, but likely completely miscast), and as good as everyone else may be, it was Giordani who got the brunt of the noise and I don't think Machado can cure my pain.

It's going to be days at least before I recover enough to comment on the performance itself. And I am going to write to Gelb and ask him while he's advertising the Met to advertise proper operatic etiquette. Although you would think that most of it is common sense and decency.

Oh, and if the Enzo had been The Originally Scheduled Roberto Alagna, the byword of this post would not be "suicidio" but "morte" - as in murder!

Operatic Orgy On The Way!

On my way to buy a ticket for last night's New York Philharmonic Concert of L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges and Saint-Saens Symphony #3 (The "Organ" Symphony) - a review should follow sometime within the next few millennia - I was finally able to buy most of this year's Met tickets. It took this long because my work friend Alfred (whose first opera, with me, was Angela's Traviata last year - hard act to follow) wanted to come along and we had to agree on dates. It turns out that we're only going to see Simon Boccanegra together at this point (splurging for the Balcony), and if he decides to go with me a particular night we'll see if there are any seats or standing room left.

So here's the list:

10/10/06: Idomeneo (Heppner, Roschmann, Makarina, Jepson)

10/11/06: La Gioconda (Urmana, Borodina, Giordani, Mishura, Lucic, Burchuladze)

10/16/06: Faust (Vargas, Swenson, Hakala, Abdrazakov)

11/02/06: Rigoletto (Pons, Siurina, Calleja, Herrera, Burchuladze)

11/16/06: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Braun, Florez, Damrau, Ramey, Del Carlo)

11/21/06: La Bohème (Villazon, Marambio, Glanville, Coleman-Wright)

11/30/06: Don Carlo (Botha, Racette, Borodina, Pape, Ramey)

12/19/06: Rigoletto (Alvarez, Siurina, Bieczala - debut, Aldrich - debut, Lloyd)

A huge Flute blitz: Both casts of The Magic Flute on the matinees of 12/31/06 and 01/01/07, plus the evening Die Zauberflöte on New Year's Day (Strehl, Milne, Miklosa, Pogassov, Pape, Lloyd )

01/30/07: Cavelleria Rusticana (Zajick, Poretta, Delavan) and I Pagliacci (Stoyanova, Licitra, Ataneli)

02/08/07: I Puritani (Netrebko, Kunde, Vassalo, Relyea)

02/19/07 and 02/27/07: Simon Boccanegra (Hampson, Gheorghiu, Giordani, Furlanetto, and I think Vassily Gerello is Paolo Albani). The first one is the joint Balcony performance with Alfred.
03/01/07: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Morris, Botha, Hong, Ketelsen, Nikitin, Zifchak)

03/22/07: Andrea Chenier (Heppner, Urmana, Delavan)

04/17/07: Giulio Cesare (Daniels, Swenson, Coote, Bardon, Zazzo)

04/24/07: Giulio Cesare (Zazzo, de Niese, Coote, Grove, Thompson)

04/26/07: Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Mattei, Brownlee - debut, Di Donato, Relyea, Del Carlo)

05/02/07: Orfeo et Euridice (Daniels, Milne, Murphy). I tried to get tickets to a non-premiere night, but the only performance that wasn't sold out was on a Friday.

Total: $465. Thank heavens I got a credit limit increase. And Alfred was really nice to pay me back right away.

That's still the first round. I definitely want to at least look into The First Emperor, Jenufa, Die Ägyptiche Helene, and Il Trittico, and possibly one of the Giordani Bohèmes. I regret to say that apart from a few $110 Side Parterre Seats in one performance, Madama Butterfly is totally sold out. So is the Villazon/Netrebko Bohème (and I can't go to their Gala because it's the second night of Passover). I guess I has to takes my chances with Standing Room. And I do want to see some things at NYCO and other (non-operatic) venues. I still haven't been able to see Carmen with Rinat Shaham and Latonia Moore - I was indisposed for opening night, and Shaham was indisposed for September 30! Glad I was "stuck" at Barnes & Noble all that night. Poor woman first gets a cold and then her husband's stomach flu! Wishing her a refuah shleimah.

Two amusing notes. The consecutive Idomeneo, Gioconda, and Faust performances have ascending seat numbers - I107, I108, and I109, and the second Boccanegra is I110! Also, when I stopped in the Met Shop, one of the salespeople was wearing a kimono! No, it's not a brilliant Gelb marketing idea, but the woman's own idea, and not intended for advertising Butterfly. She apparently bought it on the street for only $36.

I also had a nice conversation with the man at the ticket window - it takes a while to check through 22 tickets! I regret to say I've already forgotten his name. He's been at the Met 19 years, apparently at the ticket window. I realize that people tend to have looong careers there (sometimes too long, Mr. Volpe), but I was surprised he wasn't promoted or didn't come up from another position. He remembers me coming probably since I started coming in 1993.

Well, tonight begins Sukkot, so a chag sameach to those who are observing it and Ramadan Mubarak to anyone observing that - and if I've forgotten any other faith's holiday, may that be happy too. I will be going to a Sukkot party/Ramadan break-fast at Park Slope Synagogue on Sunday night, which I imagine will be a wonderful followup to the joint Yom Kippur/Ramadan break-fast we had at my beloved B'nai Jeshurun. There will actually be a brief story about this on PBS' Religion and Ethics Weekly, probably at 6PM Sunday. I'll report on both soon, probably in conjunction with my Idomeneo review (you can probably figure out why)