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So Bart and I saw La Boheme at the Met Friday night. It was such a great experience. We had amazing seats--get ready for this, we had BOX SEATS in the very center. The box seats are called the "Parterre" section--they're quite roomy and you can move around the seats. 
There's also a little anteroom where you can hang your coats, umbrellas, etc.
The only thing missing (I would've LOVED this) was table service--can you just imagine sitting in a box, sipping champagne, nibbling caviar on toast points, peering through your opera glasses to see who else is there? What elitist fun!
The performances was terrific--I especially loved the Rodolfo who was very passionate and had this little guy, Napoleanic complex thing going on. The Musetta was also great, a real soubrette and very funny. The Mimi was a little lackluster as an actor, although her singing was quite good. Franco Zeffirelli designed the production and the set was just awesome. The second act takes places in the Latin Quarter--when the curtain arose, people broke out into applause. It was a bi-level set, with the upper half being the streets of the quarter, with storefronts, lampposts, cobblestones, with steps in the middle leading down to the lower-level of the street and the Cafe Momus.
They even had horses crossing the stage!
As I'm sure all of you know, the musical Rent was based on La Boheme, and I've always enjoyed tracking the paralells. I caught two more this time around--one explicit, one subtle. The first one was Musetta's waltz, "Quando me'n vo." This is the one that starts off with the same melody that Mark references when he says "And Roger will write a tune..." [cure electric guitar riff] "...that doesn't remind us all of Musetta's Waltz!" The Waltz is also quoted a lot in the movie Moonstruck. Anyway I've heard it many times but have never followed the translation. The Met, like many opera companies, now has surtitles, or translations in real time immediately available to the audience member. Some houses have the surtitles above the proscenium, but the Met has them embedded in front of each seat. I was listening to the waltz, and my eyes dropped down to see what the translation was.
When I walk all alone in the street
People stop and stare at me
And look for my whole beauty
From head to feet...
I'm sure we can all recognize where that appears in Rent!
The other parallel was also in the second act. Parpignol appear--this character is a smaller featured role; he is a toy-seller and the children all follow him begging for toys. Bart leans over to me and says "I always want Parpignol to be played like the Child-Catcher" and I said back "I was about to say Creepy Clown Alert!"
I mean, would you allow your child to follow *that* around? And this is from another production--it doesn't look nearly as creepy as the Zeffirelli costume did. Then it occurred to me--the drug dealer is Parpignol. It has to be. All the addicts follow him, begging for treats, and he doles them out. Also it happens in the town square/cafe location. How cool is that!
So we watched the first two acts and then they had an intermission. Bart and I had drinks--he treated me to a glass of champagne (pink, of course!) and he had Bailey's in the rocks. Do you know what came to? 35 dollars. Yikes! So the moral is, if you're going to the Met--pre-game!
Altogether, a lovely time. I think I'm going to get the Luhrmann recording--Boheme is so sentimentally Italian, and so appropriate for winter.
There's also a little anteroom where you can hang your coats, umbrellas, etc.
The only thing missing (I would've LOVED this) was table service--can you just imagine sitting in a box, sipping champagne, nibbling caviar on toast points, peering through your opera glasses to see who else is there? What elitist fun!The performances was terrific--I especially loved the Rodolfo who was very passionate and had this little guy, Napoleanic complex thing going on. The Musetta was also great, a real soubrette and very funny. The Mimi was a little lackluster as an actor, although her singing was quite good. Franco Zeffirelli designed the production and the set was just awesome. The second act takes places in the Latin Quarter--when the curtain arose, people broke out into applause. It was a bi-level set, with the upper half being the streets of the quarter, with storefronts, lampposts, cobblestones, with steps in the middle leading down to the lower-level of the street and the Cafe Momus.
They even had horses crossing the stage!As I'm sure all of you know, the musical Rent was based on La Boheme, and I've always enjoyed tracking the paralells. I caught two more this time around--one explicit, one subtle. The first one was Musetta's waltz, "Quando me'n vo." This is the one that starts off with the same melody that Mark references when he says "And Roger will write a tune..." [cure electric guitar riff] "...that doesn't remind us all of Musetta's Waltz!" The Waltz is also quoted a lot in the movie Moonstruck. Anyway I've heard it many times but have never followed the translation. The Met, like many opera companies, now has surtitles, or translations in real time immediately available to the audience member. Some houses have the surtitles above the proscenium, but the Met has them embedded in front of each seat. I was listening to the waltz, and my eyes dropped down to see what the translation was.
When I walk all alone in the street
People stop and stare at me
And look for my whole beauty
From head to feet...
I'm sure we can all recognize where that appears in Rent!
The other parallel was also in the second act. Parpignol appear--this character is a smaller featured role; he is a toy-seller and the children all follow him begging for toys. Bart leans over to me and says "I always want Parpignol to be played like the Child-Catcher" and I said back "I was about to say Creepy Clown Alert!"
I mean, would you allow your child to follow *that* around? And this is from another production--it doesn't look nearly as creepy as the Zeffirelli costume did. Then it occurred to me--the drug dealer is Parpignol. It has to be. All the addicts follow him, begging for treats, and he doles them out. Also it happens in the town square/cafe location. How cool is that!
So we watched the first two acts and then they had an intermission. Bart and I had drinks--he treated me to a glass of champagne (pink, of course!) and he had Bailey's in the rocks. Do you know what came to? 35 dollars. Yikes! So the moral is, if you're going to the Met--pre-game!
Altogether, a lovely time. I think I'm going to get the Luhrmann recording--Boheme is so sentimentally Italian, and so appropriate for winter.
