A night at the opera

I’m not an opera fan, I prefer the modern iteration – the American musical. But when a friend has tickets for the Magic Flute, and offers them to us at the last minute. You better believe we are going.

First dinner, we need dinner and everything around the music center is probably booked and full. So we go for our tradition – well our after walk tradition…

We have tacos! Went to Guisado’s in Echo Park. Btw, there is now a branch in Burbank. Will have to hike near there sometime. Funny story, there was a family of five at a table near us, kids ranged from teenager to what looked like an 8 year old. Nicely dressed. Sure enough we see them at the opera and both of us laughed – they wondered about us if we too were heading to the Music Center. So that iconic LA evening, tacos and opera is something that people do.

I had to snap a picture of the skyline at night.

What a gorgeous image. The Christmas tree in Grand Park with City Hall in the background. I love how I captured this couple in front of the tree.

The newly refurbished Music Center Plaza. Honestly, I could watch these kind of fountains for a long time.

I actually took a lot of pictures of this scene, I’m just not sharing them all.

With all that light behind me, of course I’m pretty dark. Later a woman commented me on my coat. I really need to wear it more this year. I made it 8 years ago. The pattern is no longer available. I always get compliments. Of course I told her I made it, got to milk it while I can. She was so impressed and asked to touch it. Yes, feel free, I’m proud and I love it when people recognize my work.

Bathed in purple.

On the podcast LA Meekly, I learned about this guy. In the summer he is outside the Hollywood Bowl. In the winter he is here, with his puppets and singing away. A real Los Angeles institution. Not a great voice, but boy does he persist!

The only place left where everyone still dresses up nicely – the opera. I do feel sorry for the person who had to sit behind this mohawk. Wasn’t me!

Did this person know that Mohawks would be a big part of the costuming? At least he could take the hat off during the performance.

There were a few costumes from 1950s’ productions on display.

So now I need to speak about the Opera. It was a wonderful experience to go and see opera, since the last time we saw opera was a small production in Santa Barbara – which to be honest we enjoyed more.

I read up on the libretto, fairy tale, Egypt, mysticism. I watched some of the famous songs on YouTube. This wasn’t that. This was opera meets Monty Python. The set was stark, the costumes were dark and bland. The cast was young and not quite as powerful in their voices as one would like.

The scenery was all done with animation projected on a blank white wall. There were four ‘cutouts’ where the characters appeared, three up high on the wall, one on the stage. So there wasn’t a lot of intimate interaction between the characters. I guess this is the way modern opera is done.

As I mentioned, the animation was very reminiscent of Monty Python or Yellow Submarine. Funny, when we saw Anastasia they used a lot of video graphics to change the scenery, but it was bright, it was colorful, it was uplifting. My feeling here was anything but uplifting. Why is it that modern interpretations have to be such downers and so dour? Guys, life is good! The theater was full, there were young children who’s parents are spending a lot of money to introduce them to the arts. Why so dark and dismal?

Enough with the rant, I could go on for hours about the dark side of our culture. Luckily, in many ways there is brightness and light. But that would be for a different post.

Leah

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