So, opera season has begun, which always signals to me a change in seasons; my first opera and the equinox seem to conincide a lot in my life, and this year was no exception. I missed the first one ("Heart of a Soldier," which was an original opera commissioned to debut, I think, in SF, for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, which I opted to miss as I was in no mood to handle THAT when the day came - opera after work can be a little stressful), so I was determined to make the next one, Turandot.
I have this terrible problem with running late to the opera, as you know, and this one was no exception. First hurdle, I lost my opera tickets, actually, but it's no problem - the dates are in my calendar, and you can always call the box office, and they will reprint it for you. Then I had to work late - swamped, swamped, I am - and had a realization around 6:10pm that there almost no possible way I could get home (from my city work location), change and get back downtown to make the opera at 7:30pm. But I wanted to try.
I rushed home, got dressed in about 7 minutes - it would have been sooner but I didn't notice the run in my tights until after I was completely done - threw on some makeup, ignored my hair (it always looks at least acceptable - the beauty of a messy shag), and begged my partner to give me a ride to the BART. As I headed down the station stairs, I heard the train coming, but I had to buy a ticket, and thought, I'll never make it. It won't linger. It's going to go - and who knows if it's even my train. But it was my only hope. It was after 7:00pm.
Ticket in hand, I rushed through the turnstile, and then got stuck on the escalator behind this really old slow man who was painfully creeping step by step down; I manoeuvred around him, saw the open door, shot down the last few steps, glanced at the sign to make sure it was the right one, and jumped onto the train car. WHOOSH, the doors went and we were off. I knew I had at least a 10-min walk on the other side, plus the stop at Will Call, so I calculated if I could get off by 7:15, I could make it. Otherwise, I would skip it and check out what was playing at the Metreon.
It was 7:12. I rushed out (as quickly as I could - one knee was starting to really bother me, inexplicably), up up up the escalator, outside, up near the seedy Carl's Jr, past the Civic Center, hurrying as much as I could without running. I caught one light, and then at the final one - the corner of Van Ness and Grove - I saw there were some other latecomers. You know you're going to make it on time if you've seen enough well-dressed people next to you waiting for that light; it's when I find myself crossing alone that I'm pretty sure I am fucked and will have to stand in the back for the first act, which can last up to an hour.
But then I was thwarted - Box Office line! Agh! The bells were chiming, the ushers running back and forth saying, almost threateningly, "Seven minutes" and then "Six minutes" and so on. They were so urgent, it was like the ship was sailing and I'd miss my three-month cruise if I didn't hurry up. Then another glitch at the elevator - so slow! A woman came with a wheelchair she had to deliver to a lower, basement floor. More delay! The elevator operator was clearly distressed and under pressure (and yes, they still have an elevator operator, and it's been the same guy since I started going over a decade ago), saying, "Anyone need Mezzanine? No? Anyone need Dress Circle?" and trying to avoid too many stops. We all knew we were right on the edge. And we all knew no one needed the Dress Circle because everyone on any reasonably low floors would have walked and not waited for the elevator because it was so late. But to get to the cheap seats, you take the elevator.
Standing there, in the middle of mild blue-haired panic ("Dearest, no, do NOT be late to the opera; it just isn't done...), I amused myself by thinking this was like my own little personal Matt Damon movie - the Opera Identity! The Opera Supremacy! Sure, I'm not getting in fistfights and car accidents and speaking Russian and firing guns, but I barely made the BART car, the elevator was really slow, and my walk on the way there AND back was a little sketchy. I mean, practically Matt Damon.
Once there - I had about 30 seconds to spare - I wondered again if I'd seen this opera. It sounded familiar. Was it that one I saw in Budapest? Maybe it was Turnadot. (I was there late too, and got from one end of the city to the other in, like, five minutes, marveling at their underground.) It had been incomprehensible; the programme and the subtitles were in Hungarian, and it wasn't an opera I'd seen before, so I was lost. I do remember it seemed to be Oriental, and serious.
The only other thing I recall was something I have never forgot, and indeed was practically traumatized by: at one point, I got the sense that someone was about to be beheaded, and then one of the main characters was dragged up a set of steps, protesting, and then up on the bridge (it had a magnificent set), and he kneeled down and they lopped off his head. It flew off the bridge and landed among the people below.
It was SHOCKING. For a split second, I didn't know what to think. The Hungarians are famous for their dramatic, elaborate opera stagings - I'd read that in my guidebook - but this was so...so Keyser Soze. Surely they didn't KILL their singers. Of course, almost instantly, I realized there was a little spot where the stage set went behind a curtain, and they'd apparently switched the actor for a dummy. The actors dragging him to the executioner did a great job of making the dummy seem alive.
So, was that Turandot? Or, as I'd been pronouncing it in my head for years, Turn-a-dot. The box office guy had said, "Your Tur-an-dot ticket will be ready...." and I realized I'd been lamely mispronouncing it. Sheesh. Once the opera started, two more things were immediately made clear: one, Turandot was a female, and two, it was certainly the same opera because it was instantly ALL about beheading - that's all they could sing about at first. I mean, that was how it began: "This is the law of the land: anyone who wants to marry Turandot has to answer three riddles and if they lose, off with his head." Heavens!
It was gruesome - the people calling for blood, the executioner sharpening his sword. I mean, the Hungarian subtitles in Budapest had been so useless I thought Turandot was a guy, but no wonder I picked up on the beheading vibe; it was impossible to miss. So many operas are similar - it could have easily been one of those ones where the wronged woman gets consumption or whatever, they are a dime a dozen - that had it been something else, I might have forever wondered if it was the same as that Budapest opera. But Asian-themed operas ABOUT beheading - how many of them could there be?
Opera can really lend itself to big moments, and many of them are dark, but this one...actually morbid. I mean, the executioner comes out with a severed head. I mean, really! Come on! That's a little over the top. It was not technically gratuitous, as it was all part of the story, but honestly. It was a little much for me. This American production skipped showing an actual beheading; I suppose that's class.
This particular experience was interesting to me, because so often we have this experience of memory in which we're not quite sure. We watch films we used to know but we remember it as a bit off. I don't mean things that change because WE are different (like Airplane - it was so funny, and watching it now, it's so racist, which I hadn't even noticed as a kid). I mean, simple plot points can be tricky. As in: "Gosh, I remembered them getting married at the beginning, but really, that's how the film ends, isn't it?" Similarly, I remember the beheading happening at the end, but it's in the first act.
But those are normal tricks of memory. Far weirder was this vague impression when I was there that beheading was coming up - I wonder what, exactly, did I see or hear to have a sense it was coming? They must have been somewhat subtle since I wasn't POSITIVE - I mean, it's not like watching Jesus Christ Superstar and not speaking English; it's clear no matter what you understand of the libretto that cruxification is going to happen. But I can't remember what led me to suspect beheading. After seeing it in English, I see that the whole tone, all the energy is about that - was THAT what I was picking up on? It's hard to know.
Naturally, it makes me wonder - as so many things do - what else I am missing, what else I am picking up on, and how it's same for everyone I see - and they are missing and picking up on some things I am, and some not. In some ways we're having completely different experiences, and in some ways, we're sharing it totally. All the Hungarians knew the story, but lots of them sort of gasped when I did, in that first moment of the guy's head coming right off, before you realized it was a trick. An operatic special effect.
I didn't stay for the end, incidentally. The music was fine, but not fantastic and the subject matter made me uneasy. The spectacle was fantastic, but they usually make the big impressive crowd scenes and parades and processions happen in the first or second acts anyway, as the company wants to go home. Even operas written a long time ago have this feature, because people have been wanting to get off work early for hundreds if not thousands of years. Funny, that. Anyway, I've got plenty more operas coming up; I can't wait for the the Opera Ultimatum, where I get to see if I make it to Lucrezia Borgia or not.
I have this terrible problem with running late to the opera, as you know, and this one was no exception. First hurdle, I lost my opera tickets, actually, but it's no problem - the dates are in my calendar, and you can always call the box office, and they will reprint it for you. Then I had to work late - swamped, swamped, I am - and had a realization around 6:10pm that there almost no possible way I could get home (from my city work location), change and get back downtown to make the opera at 7:30pm. But I wanted to try.
I rushed home, got dressed in about 7 minutes - it would have been sooner but I didn't notice the run in my tights until after I was completely done - threw on some makeup, ignored my hair (it always looks at least acceptable - the beauty of a messy shag), and begged my partner to give me a ride to the BART. As I headed down the station stairs, I heard the train coming, but I had to buy a ticket, and thought, I'll never make it. It won't linger. It's going to go - and who knows if it's even my train. But it was my only hope. It was after 7:00pm.
Ticket in hand, I rushed through the turnstile, and then got stuck on the escalator behind this really old slow man who was painfully creeping step by step down; I manoeuvred around him, saw the open door, shot down the last few steps, glanced at the sign to make sure it was the right one, and jumped onto the train car. WHOOSH, the doors went and we were off. I knew I had at least a 10-min walk on the other side, plus the stop at Will Call, so I calculated if I could get off by 7:15, I could make it. Otherwise, I would skip it and check out what was playing at the Metreon.
It was 7:12. I rushed out (as quickly as I could - one knee was starting to really bother me, inexplicably), up up up the escalator, outside, up near the seedy Carl's Jr, past the Civic Center, hurrying as much as I could without running. I caught one light, and then at the final one - the corner of Van Ness and Grove - I saw there were some other latecomers. You know you're going to make it on time if you've seen enough well-dressed people next to you waiting for that light; it's when I find myself crossing alone that I'm pretty sure I am fucked and will have to stand in the back for the first act, which can last up to an hour.
But then I was thwarted - Box Office line! Agh! The bells were chiming, the ushers running back and forth saying, almost threateningly, "Seven minutes" and then "Six minutes" and so on. They were so urgent, it was like the ship was sailing and I'd miss my three-month cruise if I didn't hurry up. Then another glitch at the elevator - so slow! A woman came with a wheelchair she had to deliver to a lower, basement floor. More delay! The elevator operator was clearly distressed and under pressure (and yes, they still have an elevator operator, and it's been the same guy since I started going over a decade ago), saying, "Anyone need Mezzanine? No? Anyone need Dress Circle?" and trying to avoid too many stops. We all knew we were right on the edge. And we all knew no one needed the Dress Circle because everyone on any reasonably low floors would have walked and not waited for the elevator because it was so late. But to get to the cheap seats, you take the elevator.
Standing there, in the middle of mild blue-haired panic ("Dearest, no, do NOT be late to the opera; it just isn't done...), I amused myself by thinking this was like my own little personal Matt Damon movie - the Opera Identity! The Opera Supremacy! Sure, I'm not getting in fistfights and car accidents and speaking Russian and firing guns, but I barely made the BART car, the elevator was really slow, and my walk on the way there AND back was a little sketchy. I mean, practically Matt Damon.
Once there - I had about 30 seconds to spare - I wondered again if I'd seen this opera. It sounded familiar. Was it that one I saw in Budapest? Maybe it was Turnadot. (I was there late too, and got from one end of the city to the other in, like, five minutes, marveling at their underground.) It had been incomprehensible; the programme and the subtitles were in Hungarian, and it wasn't an opera I'd seen before, so I was lost. I do remember it seemed to be Oriental, and serious.
The only other thing I recall was something I have never forgot, and indeed was practically traumatized by: at one point, I got the sense that someone was about to be beheaded, and then one of the main characters was dragged up a set of steps, protesting, and then up on the bridge (it had a magnificent set), and he kneeled down and they lopped off his head. It flew off the bridge and landed among the people below.
It was SHOCKING. For a split second, I didn't know what to think. The Hungarians are famous for their dramatic, elaborate opera stagings - I'd read that in my guidebook - but this was so...so Keyser Soze. Surely they didn't KILL their singers. Of course, almost instantly, I realized there was a little spot where the stage set went behind a curtain, and they'd apparently switched the actor for a dummy. The actors dragging him to the executioner did a great job of making the dummy seem alive.
So, was that Turandot? Or, as I'd been pronouncing it in my head for years, Turn-a-dot. The box office guy had said, "Your Tur-an-dot ticket will be ready...." and I realized I'd been lamely mispronouncing it. Sheesh. Once the opera started, two more things were immediately made clear: one, Turandot was a female, and two, it was certainly the same opera because it was instantly ALL about beheading - that's all they could sing about at first. I mean, that was how it began: "This is the law of the land: anyone who wants to marry Turandot has to answer three riddles and if they lose, off with his head." Heavens!
It was gruesome - the people calling for blood, the executioner sharpening his sword. I mean, the Hungarian subtitles in Budapest had been so useless I thought Turandot was a guy, but no wonder I picked up on the beheading vibe; it was impossible to miss. So many operas are similar - it could have easily been one of those ones where the wronged woman gets consumption or whatever, they are a dime a dozen - that had it been something else, I might have forever wondered if it was the same as that Budapest opera. But Asian-themed operas ABOUT beheading - how many of them could there be?
Opera can really lend itself to big moments, and many of them are dark, but this one...actually morbid. I mean, the executioner comes out with a severed head. I mean, really! Come on! That's a little over the top. It was not technically gratuitous, as it was all part of the story, but honestly. It was a little much for me. This American production skipped showing an actual beheading; I suppose that's class.
This particular experience was interesting to me, because so often we have this experience of memory in which we're not quite sure. We watch films we used to know but we remember it as a bit off. I don't mean things that change because WE are different (like Airplane - it was so funny, and watching it now, it's so racist, which I hadn't even noticed as a kid). I mean, simple plot points can be tricky. As in: "Gosh, I remembered them getting married at the beginning, but really, that's how the film ends, isn't it?" Similarly, I remember the beheading happening at the end, but it's in the first act.
But those are normal tricks of memory. Far weirder was this vague impression when I was there that beheading was coming up - I wonder what, exactly, did I see or hear to have a sense it was coming? They must have been somewhat subtle since I wasn't POSITIVE - I mean, it's not like watching Jesus Christ Superstar and not speaking English; it's clear no matter what you understand of the libretto that cruxification is going to happen. But I can't remember what led me to suspect beheading. After seeing it in English, I see that the whole tone, all the energy is about that - was THAT what I was picking up on? It's hard to know.
Naturally, it makes me wonder - as so many things do - what else I am missing, what else I am picking up on, and how it's same for everyone I see - and they are missing and picking up on some things I am, and some not. In some ways we're having completely different experiences, and in some ways, we're sharing it totally. All the Hungarians knew the story, but lots of them sort of gasped when I did, in that first moment of the guy's head coming right off, before you realized it was a trick. An operatic special effect.
I didn't stay for the end, incidentally. The music was fine, but not fantastic and the subject matter made me uneasy. The spectacle was fantastic, but they usually make the big impressive crowd scenes and parades and processions happen in the first or second acts anyway, as the company wants to go home. Even operas written a long time ago have this feature, because people have been wanting to get off work early for hundreds if not thousands of years. Funny, that. Anyway, I've got plenty more operas coming up; I can't wait for the the Opera Ultimatum, where I get to see if I make it to Lucrezia Borgia or not.
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