I am going to the Met today!

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  • bamamick
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2003
    • 14774

    I am going to the Met today!

    I am leaving shortly for an afternoon at the Metropolitan Operan (Carmen) with my eldest, and I will be wearing faded blue jeans and a Crimson Tide sweatshirt! We will be at the local movie house in Gulf Shores, where they run the Met's winter season on the movie screens once a week for a few months each year (usually when the 'more cultured' visitors from the north, the snowbirds, are in the region).

    My beautiful daughter Sarah had a full-ride to college on a voice scholarship, but she was wise enough at the time to realize that her future employment probably lay in another direction. She gave up the singing and swapped over to accounting, where she is gainfully employed and is relatively happy, but she misses the opera and performing. She is sort of tossing around the idea of trying out for the Mobile Opera Guild and maybe this will encourage her to give it a try? Regardless, she loves it, I can tolerate it , and if it will make her happy I have an afternoon free.

    As long as I can wear sneakers and they sell popcorn I'm good with it.

    Mickey Lake
    'A disciple of the Norse god of aesthetically pleasing boats, Johan Anker'
  • McMike
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2009
    • 11713

    #2
    Re: I am going to the Met today!

    Sounds like a good time, have fun.
    In the US this perverted idea of “blood and soil” over “constitutional principles” is the most radical and anti-democratic and anti-Conservative idea I have heard in my lifetime.

    ~C. Ross

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    • David W Pratt
      Senior Member
      • May 2005
      • 12324

      #3
      Re: I am going to the Met today!

      Isn't it 5 hours long?

      Comment

      • Harbormaster
        Spring Chicken
        • Sep 2009
        • 834

        #4
        Re: I am going to the Met today!

        We have them here too - I've gone a few times and it's great. Just the spectacle of it, and the closeness of the camera is fun. Some folks even get dressed up as if they were really at the Met.

        I tried to explain it to someone and it's more like baseball than basketball. It appeals to people that are able to enjoy long, slow, leisurely entertainment. And of course Carmen is one of the most accessible operas ever written.
        Which comes first," someone asked Ira Gershwin, "the words or the music?" "The contract," said Gershwin.


        Comment

        • bamamick
          Senior Member
          • Nov 2003
          • 14774

          #5
          Re: I am going to the Met today!

          It's two hours forty five minutes according to the program guide.

          I have been to many operas over the years. My three kids all performed in them as children and young adults. My sister in law was a contemporary of the great soprano Linda Zoghby for awhile and my wife's side of the family is very artistic. Photographers (her cousin Jodi Cobb was the photographic editor of National Geographic), authors and playwrights (our niece is the playwright in residence for the Alabama Shakepseare Festival and has had her worked performed all over the world), and painters (her cousin Pat Wilder authored and illustrated several books for children and her paintings have been shown locally), as well as musicians. Pretty intimidating for a country boy like me, but I just keep quiet and smile and it all seems to work out.

          Mickey Lake
          'A disciple of the Norse god of aesthetically pleasing boats, Johan Anker'

          Comment

          • bamamick
            Senior Member
            • Nov 2003
            • 14774

            #6
            Re: I am going to the Met today!

            Really well done and enjoyable. The only problem that I had is that I get kind of antsy if I cannot breathe fresh air every few hours, and with the intermission and interviews it did last right at three and a half hours. My daughter really enjoyed it and that's the important thing.

            The lead is a young lady from Riga, Latvia named Elina Garanca, and she was gorgeous. I asked my daughter how difficult it would be to cast someone as Carmen who didn't really fit the physical expectations of what you'd think a woman that could drive men to desperate acts would look like? She said that in most cases with Carmen the directors do have to make some compromises to make it believable, which isn't the case with most operas, apparently. We both agreed that Ms. Garanca fit the role perfectly well.

            The last three operas they will broadcast don't really appeal to my daughter so I guess I am off the hook for the rest of this season. We would have liked to have seen Turandot though. She perormed in that one in college and it was really well done. I can just imagine what someone with the resources of the Met could do.

            Mickey Lake
            'A disciple of the Norse god of aesthetically pleasing boats, Johan Anker'

            Comment

            • Hwyl
              Gareth
              • Jan 2003
              • 22222

              #7
              Re: I am going to the Met today!

              Certainly no fat lady



              Did you daughter muse over her career choice?

              Comment

              • bamamick
                Senior Member
                • Nov 2003
                • 14774

                #8
                Re: I am going to the Met today!

                Not really. She is the business manager of a pretty well-known cosmetic plastic surgery clinic and she enjoys her job, though like most people who once did something fairly difficult, dedicated an awful lot of time to it, and then gave it up, she does have some whistful moments. My sister in law goes through the same thing.

                It's sort of like what those of us who grew up playing sports on a team all our lives go through once that disappears from your life. For me, sailing took that spot and I had a pretty easy transition. I can't tell you the number of high school sports stars that I know personally who wound up being a whole lot less successful in life than we thought they'd be. Kids who are purpose-driven don't always do so well when their purpose is no longer clear.

                Mickey Lake
                'A disciple of the Norse god of aesthetically pleasing boats, Johan Anker'

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