[opera] 2018-2019 season: Lucia di Lammermoor; Riders to the Sea/Empty the House
I've been so out of LJ-land for so long, I never posted anything about the entire 2018-2019 opera season. At this point I'm mostly using LJ to keep track of stuff I did so I don't forget, so I'm going to take a stab at recording what I remember.
Lucia di Lammermoor was in September 2018, at the Academy of Music. This show was really, really well done, but was long, and was completely spoiled for my mom and me because we had to leave to catch the train. Often we'll be able to stay until almost the end and then leave for the curtain call, but with Lucia, we missed the big climactic last scene with the glass harmonica, where Lucia is all covered in blood and revealed to be mad. The entire opera had been building up to this point - Brenda Rae had been doing a fantastic job of playing Lucia as mentally fragile - and we were so excited to hear the damn glass harmonica - and then what we saw of the scene was ruined by constantly looking at our watches and then having to hurry to catch the train. With a run time of two hours and 44 minutes, starting this opera at 2:30pm meant that it was still going well past 5:00, so if we hadn't left to catch the train, we wouldn't have been able to catch it until the 6:00 hour, missing dinner and getting home really late. This experience was so disappointing, Mom and I felt pretty determined to cancel the opera subscription and maybe go back to the ballet (which has a 2:00 start time).
I missed the show in February because I was out of town, so the next show I saw was Riders to the Sea / Empty the House in May, at the Perelman. This was a really fantastic double-bill. Riders to the Sea was based on the play by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, and they did it straight with Irish accents, plaid, and a set that looked like a country cottage. I had chills at the climax when they carry the last dead son across the stage. Incredibly well done. And then Empty the House was excellent, too: a modern setting, with a daughter come to help her estranged mother move out of her childhood home, and the ghost of her dead brother always present. Ghosts and dead brothers and grieving mothers all around! Mom and I both loved this show. And it was short! We got to stay until the end and didn't miss the train! The jury was out on whether we'd continue with opera season tickets...
Lucia di Lammermoor was in September 2018, at the Academy of Music. This show was really, really well done, but was long, and was completely spoiled for my mom and me because we had to leave to catch the train. Often we'll be able to stay until almost the end and then leave for the curtain call, but with Lucia, we missed the big climactic last scene with the glass harmonica, where Lucia is all covered in blood and revealed to be mad. The entire opera had been building up to this point - Brenda Rae had been doing a fantastic job of playing Lucia as mentally fragile - and we were so excited to hear the damn glass harmonica - and then what we saw of the scene was ruined by constantly looking at our watches and then having to hurry to catch the train. With a run time of two hours and 44 minutes, starting this opera at 2:30pm meant that it was still going well past 5:00, so if we hadn't left to catch the train, we wouldn't have been able to catch it until the 6:00 hour, missing dinner and getting home really late. This experience was so disappointing, Mom and I felt pretty determined to cancel the opera subscription and maybe go back to the ballet (which has a 2:00 start time).
I missed the show in February because I was out of town, so the next show I saw was Riders to the Sea / Empty the House in May, at the Perelman. This was a really fantastic double-bill. Riders to the Sea was based on the play by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, and they did it straight with Irish accents, plaid, and a set that looked like a country cottage. I had chills at the climax when they carry the last dead son across the stage. Incredibly well done. And then Empty the House was excellent, too: a modern setting, with a daughter come to help her estranged mother move out of her childhood home, and the ghost of her dead brother always present. Ghosts and dead brothers and grieving mothers all around! Mom and I both loved this show. And it was short! We got to stay until the end and didn't miss the train! The jury was out on whether we'd continue with opera season tickets...