Nothing cures a “vacation hangover” (which I had from Turkey) like traveling somewhere else and discovering something new.
One thing I didn’t expect to discover in Prague is opera. Lest I sound like a cultural ingrate, let me say that opera is one of those things that I have always wanted to like. It seems such a very sophisticated thing to dig. As in, it’s so uncool and snobish that you must be above that stuff if you listen to opera. Or else you know something else everyone else doesn’t, neither of which is a terrible feeling to have. So I was never against opera. Just…I never quite managed to sincerely appreciate it. I’ve even got some opera on my iPod. It is not, however, on my “25 Most Played” list. In fact, if there was a “Least Played 25 out of the 200o Songs on Here” list I’m quite sure it would be filled with all the opera on there. But you gotta give me credit for trying, right?
Prague State Opera Theater
When I was in Spain in March, my friend Ilse and I did try to go to the opera. We’d heard the production was very elaborate and interesting. As luck would have it there was no opera playing on Saturday night, our only chance. So it was serendipity when the nice older lady approached my friends and I in line to buy tickets for Prague’s Jewish quarter synagogues and asked if we’d like to see the opera. Most of the gang scattered but I’m too polite, and when I heard opera, I thought I’d give her a chance. My friend Vanessa – always game for whatever you want her to do with you – said she’d also like to go. So we trusted our gut that the lady wasn’t scamming us (she was quite honest about the fact that her organization would make profit, and had lots of ID and official looking papers) and bought 2 tickets. We were going to see Verdi’s La Traviata. The Fallen Woman.
Just before the show we were told that it would be 3 hours long, not 2. We made our “uh-oh” faces at each other, but then agreed that we could sneak out at intermission. Our first look in the door of the Czech National Theater bode well. It was gorgeous, as you would expect of an opera house to be. We were doubly excited to discover that intermission would have $2 glasses of champagne on offer. If nothing else, that would make the evening a heck of a bargain.
But you know what happened? Once the curtain went up, we were both hooked. There weren’t even any elaborate sets and costumes to enrapture us. But we loved it all. In fact, this opera production took an unorthodox, modernist approach. The set was very simple, made up of only white walls with moulding. (Picture your stereotypical French style apartment.) One or two pieces of the wall would be rearranged for each set and the tables or chairs would be switched out. That was the extent of aesthetic variety that we had. Even the costumes were in white and black. It was terribly cool. Like it was simply an interior design fashion show with a live (and very impressive) soundtrack. Usually Violetta was all in white and everyone else in black. The only color in the entire show was the money on the ground for a few minutes of Act I, the trail of yellow rose petals elegantly crossing the room in Act II and, finally, the bright red blood on Violettea’s hanky in Act III.
“Violetta” takes her bow in her trademark white dress.
You knew there would be a bloody hanky right? This is opera! With all the drama that one would expect. It was all there: the heaving of bosems, the falling to one’s knees, the singing in embrace, the clutching of hair, the throwing of one’s self against the walls, the fondling of said walls, the shuddering with sobs, the placing of the back of one’s wrist against the forehead (as if it were an icepack to an agonizing fever), the protracted 40 minute (!) death scene. We could see it all. Our seats were great, or more to the point, the theater was ideal. Call it a “Broadway” type opera, where the theater is old and beautiful, and intimate enough that no one is very far away. Luckily, opera glasses were completely unnecessary in this theater. (Unless for some reason you actually want to feel the soloists’ spittle on your face. Then by all means, whip out those binoculars to get closer.)
We just loved it. I suppose the truth of the matter, at least for us, is that the context is really necessary in order to enjoy the music. First of all, when you see it live the marvel of the fact that a human can make such sounds cannot be denied. It is more amazing that these sounds are for entertainment. If we lived in the animal world, surely a pack of males in season would suddenly rush the stage and tackle the female singer. (Or, I don’t know. Maybe they want to. I can’t speak for how attractive the average male finds a woman trained to make glass-shattering noises.) It is in fact so beautiful that the both of us were holding our breath in rapt attention. The three hours flew by.
Also, the libretto helps immensely. Knowing nothing about La Traviata, Vanessa and I shelled out additional money for the little book, which contains the text. Even though the LED screen above the stage only translated into Czech, the synopsis was in English. Mine and Vanessa’s French and Spanish knowledge meant the the Italian words were discernible enough for us to follow along.
A last endearing fact is that La Traviata is based on a true story. Really! Not “based on a true story” like horror movies are “based on a true story”, where there never really was a serial killer who wore a diaper on his face and tickled all his victims to death. “Based on a true story” as in character’s names and a few details are changed. What’s more, it’s the story of the doomed love affair between Alexander Dumas “Jr.”, son of the famous author of The Three Muskateers, Count of Monte Cristo, etc., who happens to be one of my favorite authors. Junior wrote a book about his own tuberculosis doomed courtesan (a fancy-pants prostitute) girlfriend and their tortured love affair, which became his most famous work, and then Verdi then wrote it as an opera. Sure, that one was easy. Let’s see him put that diaper-wearing serial killer to music.
