Night at the opera.

I have a friend who is an opera singer for the Bavarian State Opera at the Nationaltheatre Muenchen. I didn't spell it incorrectly, that's what it's called. She's totally legit. If you google her name, you actually get pictures of her and a link to her very own webpage. You google me and you're directed to a page where you can buy Mediterranean sea salts.

One night I went to see her perform in Donizetti's L'elisir D'amore. She got me this sweet seat in the 7th row just a little off center.

You see?

That area behind me is the king's loge - the best seat in the house apparently. I don't know, we snuck in there once when my friend was giving us a tour and those seats were just as comfortable as mine.

I am by no means a classical music connoisseur. In fact, growing up, I was quite the opposite of that. I would complain loudly every Sunday when my parents turned it on. I had good reason to, classical music irked me so much I couldn't feel the spirit. I've grown up a little bit though, guys. I managed to avoid throwing my head back, going limp, and moaning, "I'm BO-RED," through the entire performance. I quite enjoyed it, actually. I had never heard of Donizetti or of his elixir of love. Without having read a description of the story line I tried to piece together what little English disguised as Italian I could make out and what few English words with umlauts I could read in order to get a small idea of what was going on. Mostly I just watched and listened and tried to laugh when everyone else did.

During intermission I rushed off to refresh myself with some gelato. On my way back, as I was crossing the street to the opera house, I suddenly heard someone yelling my name. Weird. No one knows me here. Looking up, I saw my friend waving at me from her dressing room, "Come up!" "Really? Can I?" I thought you people needed to focus and practice and stuff not relax and chat with friends. Oh well, if you say so! She ushered me in secretly through the artists' entrance. I had her fill me in on what the heck was going on and then she told me that the lead tenor was sick and they had flown in a replacement only a few hours earlier. Since he'd had no rehearsal he had no idea where he needed to be on stage. What a night! There was singing, there was acting, there was improvisation! There were busts coming alive trying to save an ancient Egyptian tablet with a night guard played by Ben Stiller...!! Wait...hehe...nevermind, that's...something else.

During the second act, I heard a song - a piece? an aria? una romanza? - that I recognized. I knew it must be the highlight of the opera because, well, I recognized it, but also because an audible stillness settled over the audience once it began.



I had heard it before...but I had never HEARD it before. I was listening now. I was listening hard. I can't stop listening now. When it was over there were shouts of "BRAVO!" and people stamped their feet in approval. Seriously, stamping! This wasn't a high school assembly. Old ladies in evening gowns and too much perfume put high heels to ground in ardent applause. Yes, they did.

When the show was over I clapped until my hands started to bleed and then tried to sneak backstage. The sentries posted everywhere made it impossible so I wandered outside to the artists' entrance again, waited until the guard was distracted by people getting programs for the artists to sign, and hurried through the door. I enthusiastically congratulated my friend and then walked back outside with her where people asked HER to sign their programs. Or to sign pictures of her face. How do I get lines of fans to wait for me after a long day of computer programming? How do I get lines of fans at all? "Excellent performance there, Laura. The way you defined that function...absolutely gorgeous." "You look much better in real life than in your role as a programmer." Yes, well, anyone would, that task makes people smack their faces into walls and rip their hair out. Some people just have it better than others, I guess.